Only 13 days left to register for "Drawing From Our Own True Nature Workshop"

13 days left to register for "Drawing From Our Own True Nature Workshop - July 20 -24, 2015"

in the North Georgia Mountains.

There are still several places available.

DEADLINE: midnight, June 20.

For more information go to Drawing From Our Own True Nature

And a short thought piece:

It is said the Wintu people of north central California do not have words for right and left. Instead they refer to cardinal directions in all cases. So a woman walking to the mountains in the west who stops to pick up an interesting stone with her left hand and slips it into her pocket has picked it up with her south hand. 

If later that day returning she decides to return this stone to its rightful place she does so with her north hand. These people have so decided their priorities in life that it has become embedded in their language, and so therefore their thoughts are always oriented to what matters most to them.

But in the year 2000 only 3 people were left who spoke that language.

As one begins to draw more from nature, in time nature begins to speak back - and does so with a more than human voice. Gradually we come to know how we are embedded in what is a much larger and richer language of being. In one sense this conversation draws from our own true nature, and in another connected sense we are drawn from it ourselves into a larger awareness of both ourselves and the world.

In our time there are fewer and fewer speakers of this language. But it is our voice for this that will ultimately determine the fate of our species on this planet, and whether or not we can manage to respectfully re-inhabit this earth. It is the artist hidden in each one of us who has access to this language of being.

"Su Tung-P'o sat out one whole night by a creek on the slopes of Mt. Lu. Next morning he showed this poem to his teacher:

    The stream with its sounds   is a long broad tongue
    the looming mountain   is a wide-awake body
    Throughout the night   song after song
    How can I    speak at dawn.

Old Master Chang-tsung approved him. Two centuries later Dogen said:

    Sounds of streams and shapes of mountains.
    The sounds never stop and the shapes never cease.
    Was it Su who woke
    or was it the mountains and streams?"

- from poem 'We Wash Our Bowls in This Water,'  in 'Mountains and Rivers Without End,' by Gary Snyder.