The spiritual practice of reverence helps us cultivate democratic virtues of equality and justice for all - including Earth and all her inhabitants. . . .
You needn't be able to saunter, though, to savor Earth's offerings. In How to Have More Love in Your Life, Alan Epstein suggests this springtime practice:
"Spend time in a flower garden. Stay there as long as you wish, but make sure your visit is long enough to take in the various charms that the world of blossoms and petals provides. You can sit in a chair or on the grass, lie down looking up at the flowers from below, or walk around. However you choose to spend your time, be aware that you are a guest in someone else's home - nature's - so act accordingly.
"If the day is warm and sunny, savor the rays and imagine how the flowers must feel at this very moment. Look closely at the variety of blooms, at the different shapes and colors, at the way the individual blossoms grow out of their leafy sheaths. Now use your sense of smell to take in the stunning array of fragrance, all of which can be divinely overpowering. ...
"Now see if you can transcend your individual senses and feel the presence of the garden inside you. Try to become just another flower, at home in the garden as if you were in your own house or place of worship. Can you let go of your humanness for a time and transform your existence into something else? Can you lose yourself in a place that men and women have celebrated since time immemorial? What does it feel like to be a flower, to be the object of affection of a bee?"
— Alan Epstein in Practicing Democracy with the Earth by Habib Todd Boerger