Do you have a favorite quote that reflects our Unitarian Universalist faith? If so, share it with us! We have a wonderful opportunity to share who we are as the Spirit in Nature Board has invited us to update our signage.
The UU Path is one of 14 spiritual paths at Spirit in Nature (SpIN) in Ripton. The UU Path is .25 miles in length and it offers the visitor 9 quotes to reflect on. Currently, some of the quotes are from Unitarian Universalists and others are not. Want to know which quotes are already posted? See here. Which quote would you want posted to reflect who we are? Email your suggestion along with a short bio of the author (please identify if the author is UU affiliated or not) by March 31st to Mike, mike802vt@comcast.net. Don’t delay!
In April, you’ll have a chance to vote for your favorites! Please note a team comprised of Lise Anderson, Mike Greenwood, Brett Millier, Alan Moore and others will make the final decision as to which quotes to submit to the SpIN Board for their approval. Come Sun. March 19 at 4 pm to the Ripton Community House for the SPiN annual meeting honoring 2023 Eco-Spirit awardee Carol Spooner.
Posted Signage 12/22/22:
1 . For the beauty of the earth (Folliot S. Pierpoint)
For the beauty of the earth,
for the splender of the sky,
For the love which from our birth
over and around us lies:
For the joy of ear and eye,
for the heart and minds delight,
For the mystic harmony
linking sense to sound and sight,
For the wonder of each hour
of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale and tree and flower,
Sun and moon and stars of light:
Lord of all, Thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.
- Untitled (William F. Schultz)
Come into this place of peace
And let its silence heal your spirit,
Come into this place of memory
And let its history warm your soul;
Come into this place of prophesy
And power
And let its vision change your heart.
- Untitled (unknown) Metaphores be with you
4. Untitled (David Wagner)
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
5, Untitled (Frank Llyod Wright)
I believe in God, only I spell it “N-a-t-u-r-e.”
- Untitled (May Sarton)
Help us to be always hopeful gardeners of the spirit who know without darkness
nothing comes to birth as without light nothing flowers.
- Untitled (Pierre Van Paassen)
Half of our misery and weakness comes from the fact we have broken with the soil. And we have allowed the roots that bound us to the earth to rot. We have become detached from the earth. We have abandoned her. And when we abandon nature, we have begun to abandon ourselves.