Spiritual Ecology

The Cry of the Earth

By Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

The Golden Sufi Center

Copyright © 2013 The Golden Sufi Center
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-890350-46-8

Contents

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Introduction,
1. Chief Oren Lyons Listening to Natural Law,
2. Thomas Berry The World of Wonder,
3. Thich Nhat Hanh The Bells of Mindfulness,
4. Chief Tamale Bwoya Revelation at Laikipia, Kenya,
5. John Stanley & David Loy At the Edge of the Roof: The Evolutionary Crisis of the Human Spirit,
6. Mary Evelyn Tucker & Brian Thomas Swimme The Next Transition: The Evolution of Humanity’s Role in the Universe,
7. Sister Miriam MacGillis The Work of Genesis Farm: Interview,
8. Wendell Berry Contributions,
9. Winona LaDuke In the Time of the Sacred Places,
10. Vandana Shiva Annadana: The Gift of Food,
11. Susan Murphy The Koan of the Earth,
12. Satish Kumar Three Dimensions of Ecology: Soil, Soul & Society,
13. Joanna Macy The Greening of the Self,
14. Geneen Marie Haugen Imagining Earth,
15. Jules Cashford Gaia & the Anima Mundi,
16. Bill Plotkin Care of the Soul of the World,
17. Sandra Ingerman Medicine for the Earth,
18. Pir Zia Inayat Khan Persian & Indian Visions of the Living Earth,
19. Fr. Richard Rohr Creation as the Body of God,
20. Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee The Call of the Earth,
Epilogue A Final Prayer,
Notes,
Acknowledgments,

CHAPTER 1

Listening to Natural Law

Chief Oren Lyons

Neyawenha Skannoh. It means “Thank you for being well.” The greeting in itself is something of an idea of how Indian people think and how their communities operate.

What happens to you and what happens to the earth happens to us as well, so we have common interests. We have to somehow try to convince people who are in power to change the direction that they’ve been taking. We need to take a more responsible direction and to begin dealing with the realities of the future to insure that there is a future for the children, for the nation. That’s what we’re about. It is to our advantage as well as yours to be doing that.

In the concern and in the fights that we face as a common people, as human beings, as a species, we have to get together and we have to do things like we’re doing now — meeting, sharing, learning. It all comes down to the will, what is in your heart. Indian people have survived up to this time because we have a strong will. We do not agree that we should be assimilated. We do not agree that we should give up our way of life. And that same will should be in your heart — the will that you do not agree that there be no future.

I don’t believe, personally, that we have reached a point of no return in this situation that we’re in, but we are approaching it. The farther you’re away from a point of no return, the more options you have. As we move each day closer to a point of no return, we lose that day’s option. And there will come a point where we won’t have an option. There will be no more options. At that point, people will cry and people will carry on and so forth. But as Chief Shenandoah said to me, “I don’t know what the big problem is. It’s too late anyway.” I said, “Uncle, what do you mean by that?” “Well,” he says, “they’ve done a lot of damage. They’re going to suffer.” Kind of a simple observation, but true enough. There is a lot of damage done and people are going to suffer, but he didn’t carry out the thought that we were told a long time ago in the prophecies, that there was going t