“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”

- Henry David Thoreau

(Source: burning-soul)

Alternate text:

Yoga is something that is very fun and something that is very challenging. In yoga we stretch and put ourselves through some really rigorous sets of asanas, but it’s also something that we play in. Ultimately, we’re just trying to achieve balance.
— Michael Franti

(via Happy National Yoga Month! | The Considered Kula)

I always loved this quote from “Willy Wonka.” We can be so focused on the constraints society imposes that we forget the freedoms we have.

We know so little about the compassionate life with which we share this planet. Whitman had it right.

“I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained; 
I stand and look at them long and long. 
They do not sweat and whine about their condition; 
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins; 
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God; 
Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with the mania of owning things; 
Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived thousands of years ago; 
Not one is responsible or industrious over the whole earth.” 
— Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

beingblog:

The Elusive Footage of Elephants Mourning
Colleen Scheck, senior producer

This week’s guest, Katy Payne, was one of the scientists interviewed in a recent 60 Minutes feature about the ongoing study of elephant behavior in the Dzanga forest clearing in the Central African Republic. This is worth watching because it contains beautiful and moving footage of elephant interaction, including how elephants behave after the death of a young calf in 2000. I believe, though have yet to confirm, that this is the footage Katy Payne describes in our program:

“…We were keeping a video record. It was very painful and hard for us to do so, but we did this for the rest of the day and all the next day. And during that time, more than 100 elephants, unrelated to the calf, walked past the place where the little corpse lay on the ground. Every single one of them did something that showed alarm, concern, or somehow showed they were aware of something novel that they were approaching. Some of them took a detour around. About a quarter of them tried to lift the body up with their tusks and their trunks, sometimes trying over and over again. One adolescent male attempted to lift up this little corpse 57 times, and walked away from it and came back five different times.”

The feature focuses primarily on efforts to create an “elephant dictionary” from studying vocalizations, including infrasonic sounds. Katy Payne is as warm and passionate as she was with us, giving some impressive imitations of elephant vocalizations herself.