ANA VERLOT SHELTON

PHOTO: ANNA VERLET SHELTON

“The ‘sacred’ is not something primarily religious or even spiritual. It is not a quality we need to learn or to develop. It belongs to the primary nature of all that is.
“When our ancestors knew that everything they could see was sacred, this was not something taught but instinctively known. It was as natural as sunlight, as necessary as breathing.
“We all have within us a sense of the sacred, a sense of reverence, however we may articulate it. It is a part of our human DNA. We each need to find this key within us. What does it mean for something to be sacred, what feeling does this evoke? How do we recognize the quality of the sacred, and how do we then respond?
“If we recognize the sacred and embrace it within all of life, we will find that life will speak to us as it spoke to our ancestors. It will remind us of how to live in harmony with creation, and how to restore the balance that is intrinsic to life.
“This is the ancient wisdom of the Earth itself, the Earth which has evolved and changed over millennia, been through previous ecological shifts. Unless we return to this deep knowing, real sustainability will remain a concept rather than a lived reality.”
“…Once we bring this foundational awareness into our consciousness, into our relationship with the world in which we are present, we will find that it opens a door in our consciousness into oneness.
“The sacred is a quality of spirit in which all is one. Once we recognize something as sacred we feel its unity—the whole of which it is a part—the sacred naturally draws us away from separation towards oneness. 
“The remembrance of the sacred is a key that can awaken our consciousness to the oneness to which we belong… The greatest tragedy of modern man is that we have lost this primal awareness, this knowing of the sacred…”
“Through this simple act of remembrance we can regain the balance we have so dangerously lost. Then we can see how we are a part of the interconnected web of life and know the work that needs to be done. 
“Our outer actions, rather than reconstellating the patterns of separation, will naturally come from oneness and help life’s unity to unfold. We will again be a part of the evolving organic interdependence of life. Without this simple key of awareness of the sacred we could remain lost in the wasteland world we are creating.
“If we remember the sacred we will find our self in a world as whole as it is holy. This is not a world that sustains our models of economic growth and consumer desires.
“This is rather a world of wonder and magic, and a world that needs our attention—that needs to be sustained as much as it sustains us, sustains our souls as well as our bodies.
“But first we need to make this shift in consciousness, to see the earth with new eyes.”
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee from Sustainability, Deep Ecology, & the Sacred
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