Robin Wall Kimmerer

"Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth. ... RESTORATION is a powerful antidote to despair."

"It's not the naming the source of wonder that matters, it is wonder itself."
 (re-phrased)

"The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart."

Mountain silverbells: http://www.carolinanature.com/trees/hatemo.html

"Respect one another, support one another, bring your gift to the world and receive the gifts of others, and there will be enough for all."

"The job is never over; it simply changes from one task to the next. What I'm looking for, I suppose, is balance, and that is a moving target. Balance is not a passive resting place--it takes work, balancing the giving and the taking..."

"Use your gifts and dreams for good."

"All flourishing is mutual."

"(T)he honorable harvest-- to take only what is given, to use it well, to be grateful for the gift, and to reciprocate the gift."

(A)ll kinds of things seemed to be verbs... Ridiculous! ... And then I swear I heard the zap of synapses firing....In that moment I could smell the water of the bay, watch irt rock against the shore and hear it sift onto the sand...(T)he verb wiikwegamaa -- to be a bay -- releases the water from bondage and lets it live. "To be a bay" holds the wonder that, for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers. Because it could do otherwise -- become a stream or an ocean or a waterfall, and there are verbs for that, too. To be a hill, to be a sandy beach, to be a Saturday, all are possible verbs in a world where everything is alive. ... This is the language I hear in the woods; this is the language that lets us speak of what wells up all around us.