“In nature's economy, the currency is not money, it is life…. Whatever happens to the seed affects the entire web of life… So we must continue to create a new world, seed by seed, person by person, community by community, until this planet is embraced in a circle of resurgent love and resurgent life.” ~ Vandana Shiva

“We need to have a paradigm shift in our consciousness. If we don’t get our act together and come in commonality and understanding with the organisms that sustain us today, not only will we destroy these organisms, but we will destroy ourselves.” - Paul Stamets

Sustainable farming and sustainable living are attempts to work and live “in harmony with an unseen order of things” — to work and live spiritually. To farm and live sustainably, we must be willing to proclaim the spirituality of sustainability. We must reclaim the sacred in food and farming.

In Lakota, we call water, Mni Wiconi, the translation being, “it gives me life.” Remember that water, Mni, is every beings first medicine. Know water, know life. No water, no life. We stand with Standing Rock. Water is life.

“We will not obstruct, construct, destroy, or desecrate that which is held as most sacred. Our ancestors never destroyed to advance, never constructed in a manner that would irreparably harm their island home or its inhabitants, and would never do so with or without proper management." - Pua Case

“The Water Song” was composed by Alex Turtle, Diné (Navajo) and Southern Cheyenne, and Chenoa Egawa, Lummi and S’Klallam. It is sung in the Diné language and carries one of our Native teachings about the blessing of the spirit of water through the male and female rains.

“Every breath is a sacrament, an essential ritual and affirmation of our connection with all other living things, a renewal of our link with our ancestors and a contribution to generations yet to come. Our breath is a part of life’s breath, the ocean of air that envelopes the earth.” - David Suzuki

Permaculture is an ecological design science based on the resilient patterns found in nature. It is a vision of what we would rather see in the world and how to achieve it in a step by step manner.

In this epic moment of radical environmental and social disruption, the world is experiencing the dawn of a revolutionary transformation to becoming an ecologically literate and socially just civilization.

“We present this song in gratitude to the elements that give us life, and to all peoples of the world who are working together to unite, honor and uplift our voices, songs and prayers on behalf of our beautiful Mother Earth.” - Chenoa Egawa & Alex Turtle

Can plants help people access the intelligence in nature—the “mind of nature”—that we must learn to understand in order to supersede our ecologically destructive habits?

Though much of this diversity may be gone, all hope is not lost. The emergence of a breathtaking heirloom variety like Glass Gem reveals that the art and magic of seed saving lives on. It reminds us that we can return to this age-old practice and restore beauty, wonder, and abundance to our world.

Few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds. Worshipped and treasured since the dawn of humankind. In the last century, 94% of our seed varieties have disappeared. The film, SEED: The Untold Story, follows passionate seed keepers protecting our 12,000 year-old food legacy.

“And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.” ~ Black Elk

With every audience and every individual, I have to begin by making them see that the cultural self-awareness we inherit from our parents and pass on to our children is squarely and solidly built on a Great Forgetting that occurred in our culture worldwide during the formative millennia of our civilization.

"The shift isn't a day in the calendar of life... it's a journey we're all sharing on the path of awakening." - Shift of the Ages

The relationship with the Earth as a sacred being implies respect for all living things that inhabit it. It is a pillar of the Wixárika (Huichol) culture and spirituality.

“We often forget that we are nature. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves.” - Andy Goldsworthy