Eco Spirituality

CHIEF SEATTLE, OF THE DWAMISH TRIBE MET THE PRESIDENT AND SPOKE THUS..

This idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us

"The white man’s dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars.

Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man.

The perfumed flowers are our sisters;

The rocky crests, the grass in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man-all belong to the same family

"Every part of this earth is sacred to my people..

Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people

The sap that courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man

"This shining water that moves in the streams and the rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors

“If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred..

..and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people

The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father

"The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst..

“The rivers carry our canoes and feed our children..

You must teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers

..you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother

"We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs.

He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads

He leaves his fathers’ graves and his children’s birthright is forgotten..

His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert

                      "Our ways are   
        different from your      
         ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.

"There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities…

No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect’s wings.

“What is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of a bird or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night?

I  prefer the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleansed by rain or scented with the pine cone

"The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath: the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath

Remember the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports..

The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received  his last sigh!

If we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even you can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow’s flowers!

“If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit..

For whatever happens to the beasts soon happens to man. All things are connected

Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother..

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself..

If we sell you our land, love it as we've loved it. Care for it as we’ve cared for it..

“And with all your strength, with all your mind, with all your heart, preserve the land for your children and love it

For they love this earth as the newborn loves its mother's heartbeat..

These shores and forests will still hold the spirits of my people..