#mylittlething

I am bringing Wangari Maathai into the circle at Sense of Wonder Camp for Girls today. It’s been a real pleasure studying her again, relearning her story, finding new things, reading new quotes. I am really struck this time by her deep understanding of systems and the way systems work together. She really was a woman ahead of her time.

“It’s the little things citizens do that will make a difference. My little thing is planting
trees.”  ―Wangari Maathai

#mylittlething is believing in you.
What’s your little thing?

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.”
― Joseph Campbell
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“We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk!” ―Wangari Maathai
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“Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.” ―Wangari Maathai
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“It is the people who must save the environment. It is the people who must make their leaders change. And we cannot be intimidated. So we must stand up for what we believe in.”
―Wangari Maathai
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“The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.
…To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle.
Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace.
Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.”
—Terry Tempest Williams
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“The extremists are afraid of books and pens, the power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women.”
― Malala Yousafzai
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“Hey, even Santa Claus believes in you.” –Floyd and Janice, The Electric Mayhem
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“There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.” ―Edgar Allen Poe
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“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” –Mark Twain
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“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility. ”
― Rachel Carson
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“…drink in the beauty and wonder at the meaning of what you see.”
― Rachel Carson

Gratitude List:
1. Bull Thistles. I know that farmers hate them, but goldfinches love them, and I have seen them EVERYWHERE this year–on roadsides, down highway medians. And always, like a beautiful cliche, goldfinches.
2. That cute little chipmunk who sat up on his haunches and looked at me as I was on my way to the dentist yesterday.
3. Hag’s tapers. Midsummer Day, right on cue, the mullein bloomed yellow all over the roadsides.
4. My dental hygienist. She has been cleaning my teeth for decades. She’s excellent at what she does, not only at cleaning my teeth, but at teaching me how to keep my teeth clean myself. She’s an educator. We’re very different people politically and spiritually, and I always feel like I have to sort of brace myself a little for some of the conversation, but she’s sort of become a friend, and I am always really glad when she’s the one who cleans my teeth.
5. Sense of Wonder Camp for Girls. I am eager to go be the storyteller this morning!

May we walk in Beauty!