Holy Earth Mother, the trees and all nature are witnesses of your thoughts and deeds. – Winnebago Indians
Repeating the Indian prayer that follows here will help you remember that the earth is alive, and that all creatures deserve equal love and respect. Feelings of respect lead to gratitude; a grateful heart enables us to be ever more humbly in sympathy with other creatures. Humility allows us to see life in proper proportion, understanding that our human desires should be tempered with willingness to defer to the needs of other living things. The environmental crisis today can be traced directly to lack of proper respect and humility.
When you need to cut down a tree or remove a plant from your garden, reflect on this prayer:
“We know that we all are children of the same Mother Earth, of our Father Sun. But we also know that one life must sometime give way to another, so that the one great life of all may continue unbroken. So we ask your permission, we obtain your consent to this killing.
– Frank Waters
(Taken from Joseph Cornell’s widely acclaimed book ‘Listening to Nature’. Also the author of ‘Sharing Nature with Children’, Cornell tours worldwide conducting nature awareness workshops for teachers, parents, youth leaders and naturalists.)
