“What does it mean, to live in a way which acknowledges our embeddedness in the world, and our relationship with everything which participates in it along with us? It begins with remembering that, when you are in a relationship with someone or something, communication goes in both directions. Try approaching the world like this: don’t just identify that bird as a robin, and listen to his complex and beautiful song – talk to the robin in return. Let him listen to and come to know your song, just as he would come to know the caw of a crow or the husky night bark of a fox. Don’t just see that this is an ash tree, and listen to the sound that is made when the wind passes through its leaves. Let the tree listen to the sound that is made when air passes over your vocal cords. Open your mouth and let the sound out. Let the tree hear your voice. Read it a poem – maybe a beautiful poem in praise of trees. Why not praise the tree? Maybe this is what that song thrush is doing, singing way up there in its heights.” – ‘The Enchanted Life’ by Sharon Blackie

“Ultimately, to live an enchanted life is to pick up the pieces of our bruised and battered psyches, and to offer them the nourishment they long for. It is to be challenged, to be awakened, to be gripped and shaken to the core by the extraordinary which lies at the heart of the ordinary. Above all, to live an enchanted life is to fall in love with the world all over again. This is an active choice, a leap of faith which is necessary not just for our own sakes, but for the sake of the wide, wild Earth in whose being and becoming we are so profoundly and beautifully entangled.” – The Enchanted Life by Sharon Blackie