Beauty fills us with the presence of the Divine Universe

Flowing mountain brook   Photograph taken and copyright by                      Barbara Mattio; 2012

“We call upon the earth, our planet home, with its beautiful
depths and soaring heights, its vitality and abundance of life,
and together we ask that it:

Teach us, and show us the way

We call upon the mountains, the Cascades and the Olympics, the

high green valleys and meadows filled with wild flowers, the

snows that never melt, the summits of intense silence, and we ask that they

Teach us, and show us the way.

We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon,
that flow in our rivers and streams, that fall upon gardens
and fields, and we ask that they:

Teach us, and show us the way.

We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon,
that flow in our rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens
and fields, and we ask that they

Teach us, and show us the way.

We call upon the land which grows our food, the nurturing soil.
the fertile fields, the abundant gardens and orchards, and we
ask that they

Teach us, and show us the way.

We call upon the forests, the great trees reaching strongly to the
sky with earth in their roots and the heavens in their
branches, the fir and the pine and the cedar, and we ask
them to:

Teach us, and show us the way

We call upon the creatures of the fields and forests and the seas,
our brothers and sisters the wolves and deer [ and Pandas], the beautiful Orca and
salmon who share our Northwest home, and we ask
them to:

Teach us and show us the way.

We call upon all those who have lived on this earth, our ancestors
and our friends, who dreamed the best for future generations,
and upon whose lives our lives are built, and with
thanksgiving, we call upon them to:

Teach us, and show us the way.

And lastly, we call upon all that we hold most sacred, the presence and power of the Great Spirit
of love and truth which flows through all the Universe…to be with us to:

Teach us, and show us the way.”
—-Chinook Blessing Litany

The beauty of the trees   Photograph taken and copyrighted by                        Barbara Mattio; 2013

We have to wake up to how wonderful our planet continues to be. She works hard to heal herself. We work hard to take the best we have offered to us from her riches. Now is the time to care, even if you don’t love nature. We cannot survive with a dead planet. We need to slow down and replace trees we need. They give us the oxygen we must have. We need to tell the truth to every American about drilling oil and natural gas. We need the truth about nuclear energy. The radiation from Japan’s disaster are still within the winds in which we fly kites with our kids and that we breathe.

The air, oxygen, we breathe is what sustains our very lives. We breathe in and out and we have life. Our exhale provides the hydrogen that nature needs to thrive. We can’t keep putting it off or we will be corpses lying on a dead planet. Mother Earth Needs US.

The beauty of breaking waves