You don't need organized religion to connect with the universe. Often a church is the only place you can go to find peace and quiet... But it shouldn't be confused with connecting with one's spirit.
We alone can devalue gold by not caring if it falls or rises in the marketplace. Wherever there is gold there is a chain, you know, and if your chain is gold so much the worse for you.
Now there are heavy houses everywhere and more of them are being built. In fact, it is only when more houses are being constructed that some countries consider their economics healthy. Yet each house is a heavy footprint on the Earth. Just as all our possessions represent-if we cannot learn ways of sharing them-a weight and clutter that often means the faces of future generations will look up into darkness and the pressure on the Earth of "things."
For me, writing has always come out of living a fairly to-the-bone kind of life, just really being present to a lot of life. The writing has been really a byproduct of that.
I think mothers and daughters are meant to give birth to each other, over and over; that is why our challenges to each other are so fierce; that is why, when love and trust have not been too badly blemished or destroyed, the teaching and learning one from the other is so indelible and bittersweet. We daughters must risk losing the only love we instinctively feel we can't live without in order to be who we are, and I am convinced this sends a message to our mothers to break their own chains, though they may be anchored in prehistory and attached to their own great grandmothers' hearts.
What I've seen from keeping in touch as well as I can is that what I find so typical in Mexican culture is the helpfulness of the people to each other. I think, at this point, that is the highest good and the highest we can hope for - which is to be of help and use to each other wherever we are.
I know, in my soul, that to eat a creature who is raised to be eaten, and who never has a chance to be a real being, is unhealthy. It's like...you're just eating misery. You're eating a bitter life.
I can imagine in years to come that my papers and memorabilia, my journals and letters, will find themselves always in the company of people who care about many of the things I do.
We're going to have to debunk the myth that Africa is a heaven for black people -- especially black women. We've been the mule of the world there and the mule of the world here.
The forest is the first cathedral. I felt that from the time I was a child. I credit my mother with that. I used to think it came from her Native-American side. Whichever it was, she instinctively connected with nature, and taught me that.
I find it difficult to feel responsible for the suffering of others. That's why I find war so hard to bear. It's the same with animals: I feel the less harm I do, the lighter my heart. I love a light heart. And when I know I'm causing suffering, I feel the heaviness of it. It's a physical pain. So it's self-interest that I don't want to cause harm.
Part of what confuses people in times of upheaval is that you're getting so many different points of view and directions and so and so, how to do this and do that. And a lot of it is written in a language that honestly most people cannot understand.
Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.
I don't know. I imagine good teaching as a circle of earnest people sitting down to ask each other meaningful questions. I don't see it as a handing down of answers.