“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” ~ Gary Snyder

This quote, used with passion in The Twelve Gifts from the Garden, helps me to deeply appreciate a book I'm reading now and fellow readers.

The book is Braiding Sweetgrass* by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Since I'm reading the electronic format, I'm feeling connected with the thousands of readers who have highlighted the same sentences that stir my soul, give me chills, and nurture my hope.

One of them is this quote:

“Becoming indigenous to a place means living as if your children's future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it."

Once upon a time we knew nature as our home. We valued her gifts and appreciated her generosity. We lived knowing that our children’s future mattered. We took care of the land, knowing that our lives depended on it.

We still know this, don't we? But over time our relationship with nature diminished. The knowledge became buried in many of us, forgotten by some.

Let's remember and renew this wondrous relationship, for our children, for all children to come, and for our healing and well-being now.

Loving Mother Nature,
Charlene

* Like The Twelve Gifts from the Garden, Braiding Sweetgrass is a nature-loving, creation-honoring book. During this tense time, such books can lift us above the worries of the day, recognize the wonders of nature, and accept her gifts.

THE NINTH GIFT IS REVERENCE. May you appreciate the wonder that you are and the miracle of all creation. -from The Twelve Gifts of Birth.