The fate of our rivers around the globe today is hugely influenced by the field of civil and environmental engineering. Engineers, along with municipal officials, architects and landscape architects, are responsible for designing the human world we live in, from the buildings we live in to parks, bridges, highways and neighborhoods.

Life offers a plethora of opportunities to help others and to "leave the world a better place." When I found myself run ragged embracing so many good causes, I had to stop, look at which challenges I was effective at, and which efforts give back life and love. (Some call this picking your battles.) From these I wrote my "mission statement." After that, before adopting a new challenge, I permit myself to ask if it fits my mission. The statement? Long ago I heard the maxim, "In the end, we will save only what we love, and we will love only what we have been taught to love."

For centuries regarded as a Goddess, the River Ganges was granted “legal personhood”. Here is a brief story of her legend, and the urgent need which led to her “personhood.”

Jen Frey, of Brigid's Way and the ONE visioning council, recounts a sacred journey down the Tiputini River in the Amazon region of Ecuador, guided by Rocio Alarcon. We are introduced to the concept of Sacred water Pugyos, and get a glimpse of the power and mystery of this region. 

We offer gratitude to the Rivers of Life. The rivers which have carved the lands and fed all the creatures, which have washed and nourished and shaped the people.  We are thankful for the life-giving waters,  the moving waters, the shining waters. For waterfalls, eddies, currents, for ever-changing patterns, for leaping fish, otters, invertebrates.

Photos of past Damanhur, Italy trip from Jen.

Elyse Pomeranz describes her ways of communicating with trees through heart-perception, imagination and art. 

Though even ceremonies of desire are waning from our culture, still, we can go further and become acquainted  with the practice of ceremony which seeks no-benefit at all. We can draw forth again,  from our ancestors and wisdom cultures,  the simple and profound rituals offering gratitude for all that we receive from other realms. Primarily, specifically, especially, from the vast ecology of the natural world that sustains life on Earth.

Jen Costa, of Elder Moon School of Herbal medicine, leads us through the process of making medicine from the bark of healing trees.

When I first moved to Champlain Valley Cohousing in Charlotte Vermont, I was shown a large oak tree out in the forest land owned by the community. We walked through the thick forest of young trees and underbrush that had grown around a tree they called the Mother Oak, shading her from the sun and taking nutrients from the soil. I was stunned by her majestic presence 

In this dawning of a New Year, greeted by the luminous full moon, who drew so close to Earth and opened our hearts with her beauty, ONE wishes you awakening, blessings and resolve in 2018.

Druidry is an ancient and evolving spiritual path that originated in the British Isles. Druids align with the spirit of the earth below, the moon and stars above and the elements around and within us. Trees are our teachers and Nature is our church. We gather in groves as well as circles of standing stones to do our magic.

A few days before our harvest of Christmas trees, I make an offering. I offer prayers of gratitude and thanksgiving to each and every tree and to the Spirit of the Land. ... I found one of the elders that was tagged to be cut and gave my offering of beads standing in front of this most gracious being.

Thank you for your instruction to stand strong, to be exposed and seen in all your irregularities. My strength is to be like you in these ways.

Poem by Rachel Baird on the subject of evolving out of a duality consciousness, and the spreading of unity consciousness-our natural state.

We offer gratitude to the Life-giving Trees. You whose green breath sustains our breath. You who have created the atmosphere in which organic beings can thrive.  Thank you, trees for the music you make with the wind, for the way you gentle the rain into the earth, for your sheltering, protection and inspiration.

Our sanctuary garden is at Derrynagittah in the west of Ireland, 29 acres of magical land deOur sanctuary garden is at Derrynagittah in the west of Ireland, 29 acres of magical land dedicated to the sacred. I moved here with my family in 1995, coming with the intention of working with Nature to co-create a place of beauty, a sanctuary where the plant world would be honoured and where people could come for healing, to learn about plants and the spirit that resides within all beings.

At Zen temples, in medieval monasteries, and in modern day retreat centers, gardens have played a key role in spiritual practice. Uplifting, calming, healing places where humans and natural forces work in harmony to create beauty--these sanctuaries invite meditation and prayer. Recently I attended a retreat at an "Eco-Sufi Village" and wandered into an herb garden that carried me right into that spirit of sanctuary.