Our Connection with Nature

The tulips are coming up and the trees are budding here in Atlanta. It's warm one day and cold the next. Last week it snowed one day and was gone the next. This period of transition before the spring equinox (March 20 ,2010) can help us to remember to reconnect with nature after a period of cold and long periods of time indoors.

I was reading earlier today a passage by the 14th Dalai Lama that expresses how tied our lives once were to nature and now we are so dependent on technology that we can forget those ties. It really struck a chord with me, I hope you will find some time to read it and contemplate you tie with nature.

"In the past all of life was based on trees. Their flowers gave us nourishment, their leaves and fibers clothed us and provided us with shelter. We took refuge in their branches for protection from wild animals. We used wood for heat, and for canes to bear our weight when we grew old, and to make weapons to defend ourselves. We were very close to the trees. Today, surrounded by sophisticated machinery and high-performance computers in our ultra-modern offices, it is easy to forget our ties with nature." ---by the 14th Dalai Lama