The following is a Lakota Sioux prayer
Four Directions Prayer
Creator, it is I. Thank you for today’s sunrise, for the breath and life within me, and for
all of your creations. Creator, hear my prayer and honor my prayer.
As the day begins with the rising sun, I ask, Spirit Keeper of the East, Brother Eagle, Be with me. Fly high as you carry my prayers to the Creator. May I have eyes as sharp as yours, so I am able to see truth and hope on the path I have chosen. Guide my step and give me the courage to walk the circle of my life with honesty and dignity.
Spirit Keeper of the South, Wolf, Be with me. Help me to remember to love and feel compassion for all mankind. Help me to walk my path with joy and love for myself, for others, for the four-legged, the winged ones, the plants and all creation upon Mother Earth. Show me it is right for me to make decisions with my heart, even if at times, my heart becomes hurt. Help me to grow and nurture my self-worth in all ways.
Spirit Keeper of the West, Brown Bear, Be with me. Bring healing to the people I love and to myself. Bring into balance the physical, mental and spiritual, so I am able to know my place on this earth, in life and in death. Heal my body, heal my mind and bring light, joy, and awareness to my spirit.
Spirit Keeper of the North, White Buffalo, Be with me. As each day passes, help me to surrender, with grace, the things of my youth. Help me to listen to the quiet, and find serenity and comfort in the silences as they become longer. Give me wisdom so I am able to make wise choices in all things which are put in front of me, And when the time for my change of worlds has come, Let me go peacefully, without regrets, for the things I neglected to do as I walked along my path.
Mother Earth, Thank you for your beauty, And for all you have given me. Remind me never to take from you more than I need and remind me to always give back more than I take.
– Vera Dery, 2002
I recently came across a wonderful website that has important messages to all Americans and secondarily to all the people of the world. It is a collection of quotes, comments, beliefs, and some history of the Native Americans. Please have a look at this site.
Spring Flora
Respect Mother Earth
Whenever men have intervened in nature, the results have been disastrous. We have not learned to live in harmony, respecting the seasons, respecting wildlife, respecting up to the smallest insect. Everything has a reason or a place in Mother’s home. Mother Earth has enough resources to feed and clothe us and to provide for our daily needs.
Why is it necessary to destroy and deplete her and to take more than is needed, creating an imbalance? This poses a danger to all humankind. Nature abhors imbalance and will always react in ways humans cannot predict.
Look at what is happening in the Amazon. The deforestation of the rainforest, hectare after hectare, caused by man’s greed, eliminates the biggest lung on earth which significantly contributes to climate change.
An absolutely fascinating book
With this book, you will visit 100 of the most spectacular geological formations. You will travel places like the Aleutian Islands in Alaska and continue to the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
This is a fantastic tour. It shows aerial and satellite photography, and it explains how each site was formed. If you are an armchair geologist, a million-mile traveler, or just a person who likes watching from an airplane window, this book is for you.
It is the dramatic history of the earth. Explosions, collisions, upheaval, and erosion. All these happenings leave distinct marks on the earth’s surface. One should not forget the impacts caused by meteorites, leaving our planet with a new face.
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What this website is about
Earth Treasures is dedicated to identifying the ample ways Mother Earth provides health and beauty for all who seek her gifts, from ancient to modern times.
Looking at our planet, outstanding beauty can only inspire one. The variety in nature is astonishing. From flora to fauna, the colors of the sky, and the countless minerals in the ground, it is all a pleasure to behold.
Hidden in the earth there are many-fold treasures, and humankind has been looking for them since the beginning.
Primitive man used stones for many purposes. But stones have unique properties. Some stones were rough and good for grinding grain, while they could work other stones to a sharp edge to make tools. Some were shiny and had a vibrant color. They kept these as talismans or decorations. So men started looking for stones to meet these specific purposes.
Modern man can look at stones and imagine the past. He can see the grinding patterns on the millstones, the flakes of obsidian left where arrowheads were made, the wonderful gems and precious stones that were used as currency, charms, and for healing.
I will discuss these and many other aspects of Mother Earth’s gifts in subsequent posts.
Before you leave, you might want to visit Recommendations. It is a special page I have made for you with a collection of things you could find interesting.
Photo Source: Private
Comments
Danielle
Wow! The Four Directions Prayer is just a-m-a-z-ing! I have never prayed that deep all my life. I have my hands together in prayer. Thank you! I am going to print it out and put it up and I will repeat it everyday. It is comprehensive and covers everything I have ever wanted to say in prayer.
We have so many blessings through the earth and you are bringing many of those blessings to our attention through your writing. It is such a blessing. I have gained so much insight from the little that I have read so far. Your website has such interesting information and it has uplifted me. You just made my day. Referring to that rain forest as the earth’s lung is such a good way of putting it. It makes it vivid what the deforestation is doing to nature and to us.
I am curious about what you wrote about the stones and so I am going over to that article to see what there is to discover.
Thank you Taetske.
🙂
~Danielle
admin
Hello Danielle,
Yes, I also think that prayer is beautiful. Whatever your beliefs are I think anybody can use it, like a Universal prayer. As a small child, I was fascinated by the Native Indians and their way of living in harmony with nature.
Well, you are making my evening telling me that I made your day, thank you.
Thank you for visiting.
Regards, Taetske
Kari
Hi Taetske
I love the beautiful prayer. I to am a believer in mother earth and what she has to offer and unfortunately there are way to many people out there that use her up like a kleenex. Blow their crap at her and trash it. I like the info that you have on healing stones too. Thank you for your grand insight and Blessed Be. Kari
Taetske
Good Morning Kari,
Thank you for leaving a comment on my website. I hope you have downloaded your free PDF?
Nice to hear that you are enjoying the different articles on my site. It is true we are abusing Mother Earth and that has consequences. We should reconnect with nature again and then harmony will return.
Regards, Taetske
Randi
What an interesting article this was. It is a real eye-opener too to just how much we take for granted or just continue to take instead of giving back. I appreciate the insight and the information you provided to us! It was a great read and very enlightening. Thank you for providing such valuable information!
Taetske
Good Morning Randi,
Thank you for visiting my website and leaving a comment. I hope you downloaded your free PDF?
Many humans do not take in consideration that Mother Earth is a living being. We are destroying and abusing her at an alarming rate. It is already very visible that this has consequences for all of us. So sad, as living in harmony with nature that can be avoided. The human race still has a lot to learn.
Regards, Taetske
Netta
Taetske, thank you for helping me start my day with a blessing. Native peoples (the ones who survived) were always aware of nature, I think.
Please accept this poem that I wrote many years ago, following the traditional Navajo “Walk in Beauty” prayer. It does have a few elements that are Hawaiian in it as well…mostly ’cause that’s what I am. (Hawaiian-ness has this tendency to come out in my work.)
In beauty, may I walk…
In beauty, may I walk.
All day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons may I walk.
On the trails marked with smooth stones may I walk.
With mo’o (lizards) about my feet may I walk.
With the wai (water) about my feet may I walk.
With beauty may I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.
[by Netta Kanoho]
Taetske
Good Morning Netta,
That was so kind of you to sent me this lovely prayer you wrote yourself. It touched my heart, thank you.
We have the obligation to take care of Mother Earth. At the moment we do not live in harmony with her anymore and that has shown worldwide to have grave consequences.
Thank you for your comment. I hope you have downloaded your free PDF?
Regards, Taetske
Anusuya
The Lakota Sioux Prayer:
Prayer in four directions touches my heart and shivers me out of excitement. It is the best of prayers I have ever read. I can’t say for sure I pray every day even. This means a lot to me and the rest of the world.
The earth:
i love it to be intact. But it is unfortunate to view the decline and destruction of precious resources, either be in the forest and landscape destruction naturally and unnaturally it is heartbreaking to watch. I was washing the big tsunami wiping out part of years old Japanese civilization in front of our eye.
It is painful to see 1000s of old trees being the sacrifice to build buildings.
Earth is beautiful as is. The water, fresh air the clean sky, clear water of spring and rivers, forests filled with everything you need: food or medicinal plants does not need much makeup. While commenting this I remember the Yellowstone park- the old faithful glaciers, the color of spring depending on pH of water, the copper mountain, the free animals of all sorts demonstrate a glimpse of the panorama of the earth.
This website is one of its kind. I wish to visit again and again. Thank you for writing this post.
Taetske
Good Morning Anusuya,
Thank you for your visit and for leaving this nice comment. I hope you downloaded your free PDF?
Yes, Mother Earth is beautiful and it hurts to see when people willingly destroy this beauty. We have turned away from nature and look at what is happening. On my other website, I also talk about this. Turning away from nature has grave consequences for our health.
We have a responsibility to take care of this planet as it is our habitat. Hopefully also for future generations, this will be a beautiful place to live.
Regards, Taetske
Randy
What a wonderful gift you have given me today. The “Four Directions Prayer” sent a tingle throughout my body as I read and actually prayed the prayer. I have a good amount of Native American blood running through my veins. My great grandmother was 100% Chippewa and there are some other ancestry lines mixed in as well. I have always felt a closeness to nature and for that matter, the great Mother Earth.
I have spent a lot of time backpacking in Michigans UP and have always referred to Lake Superior as “Mother Superior”. There is nothing better than spending time nestled in the arms of Mother Earth and listening for her guidance. Humankind would do well to live life as the Four Directions Prayer has outlined.
Thank you for this, I will be printing out the prayer so that I can add it to my daily meditations.
Randy
Taetske
Good Morning Randy,
Thank you so much for your nice comment on my website. I hope you downloaded your free PDF?
Michael who emigrated from the U.S. to Spain in Aug. 2016 has Cherokee blood in his veins and is very proud of that. He is an Environmental Engineer and worked many years in that field. You can see we are a good match.
As I do not like technology who would have imagined I would start 2 websites 2 years ago? Now I realize this gives me the opportunity to write about things which are close to my heart.
If all people would follow the guidelines of this prayer the world would not be in the sad mess it is in.
Regards, Taetske
Debs
Hi,
What a kind and caring article. I loved the ”Four Directons Prayer” Not only did it give me chills but made me think about my surroundings and how precious our Earth really is. Mostly in our day to day we go about it but never have a thought to what is really going on around us. With the 5G looming in on us. What an impact it will have. The UK don’t seem to care. This is terribly sad. I have signed the petiton. Let’s see what the outcome is.
Honestly to see caring websites like this is so important.
Thank you for sharing the prayer it gave me a moment to reflect.
Beautiful article. Thank you again 🙂
Taetske
Good afternoon Debs,
Thank you for stopping by again. Your kind comment is really appreciated.
Yes, that prayer is beautiful and I find it very fitting to this website.
5G will make a lot of people sick and they will die long before their time. Humans are not right in their head with all these dangerous inventions. What can we do? Protest, that is the best way and then choose decent leaders. Leaders who have the well being of the population in mind not how they can fill their pockets.
Regards, Taetske
Debs
You are 100% right. I stand with you. Thank you for making us all aware. You are amazing 🙂
Taetske
Good afternoon Debs,
Thank you for stopping by. I hope you will find interesting things on my website. Mother Earth is so special and we should take good care of her.
Regards, Taetske
Anna
What a beautiful prayer, thank you for sharing it with us. Thank you for reminding us of the importance of respecting our mother earth. We live our very busy lives forgetting that without our earth, none of this would be possible. Your reminder is beautifully written and it touched my heart.
Your about this website section is very nice. Your recommendations page has a variety of useful information. I personally am interested in healing stones so that was very helpful to me.
Taetske
Good afternoon Anna,
Thank you for your visit and for your comment. I hope you downloaded your free PDF? Tulip widget.
Nice to hear you enjoyed your visit to my website. Stones are one of my passions, and that is why I started this website. Over time, the whole thing spread to posts having to do with the environment.
We should be grateful we may live our lives in such a beautiful place.
Regards, Taetske
LineCowley
Us humans as a race have certainly managed to cause sooo much destruction to our beautiful planet. Not enough people are aware of the plastic waste in our oceans and the devastation that fast fashion has on our natural resources.
I will check out your recommended book of Aerial Geology as I am not familiar with it.
Taetske
Good afternoon Line,
Nice to see you again and thank you for your comment.
We are definitely not treating Mother Earth well. We cause a lot of damage and I wonder if future generations will still have a habitat where they can live. Polluted air, water, land, and food. How could it get this bad?
Yes, I wrote a post on fashion and its negative influence on the environment. When you put everything together, it is a big mess.
Regards, Taetske