If I am aware, each moment is an experience of membership. Unaware, I might not notice the hawk, now circling low outside my window.  But if I let it arc into my awareness, the hawk and I are suspended together in a fleeting, fragile moment.  When it dives and disappears, I turn to the north.  A flock of small birds crests the cypress hedgerow behind the house.  The slender green branches at the top nod slightly.  The unmown hay below is still.
            Membership is offered repeatedly, a tapestry of sunlight and shadow, texture, creatures and earth.  In such a moment I feel embedded. I realize I am not merely alone but also integral.  In that more resonant state, I am enriched by an abundance of information from the surrounding display.
- Anne Hillman, The Dancing Animal Woman

What does it mean to respect life?  I've grown to understand that life is in everything; every substance has life.  I've learned from my elders that even a dust particle has life; that a dust particle has bits of pollen, bits of minerals--just like the seed of man, but smaller than a pinpoint. . . I think about that, and then I look at my son and think about all the thousands of vessels in just his arm alone...
See, the process I've been taught is this:  If I were to build a cradleboard for my son, I'd go to the forest, I'd identify the tree that I want to use, and I'd go in there bearing gifts of life.  I'd take my four sacred stones.  I'd take my cornmeal.  I'd take the prayer song give to me.  I'd offer a prayer, and then I'd talk to my brother, just like I would talk with you if you were my brother and I was asking to borrow your son.  I wouldn't just take him.  I'd talk to you, probably specify why I need him.  And you'd tell me what rules to follow to borrow your son.  And I would offer corn pollen because I'm going to take a little bit of life from this tree.  I'm going to take a branch to form a cradleboard, which will help my son.  But I don't have the right just to take it.   I have to give something.  It's like an insurance premium you know.  If you want to be covered, you've got to pay a premium.
- Steve Darden, Navaho, The Search For Meaning by Philip L. Berman

The great German author Thomas Mann wrote, "Art is the spirit in matter, the natural instinct toward humanization, that is, toward the spiritualization of life..." Man's conception of art as the natural instinct toward humanization, or spiritualization, provides a bridge uniting the fine and the practical arts, the spiritual life with the art of creative living. . .
            This conception unites the work of Gandhi with the Japanese tea ceremony, the mission work of Albert Schweitzer with Mozart's Magic Flute, Navaho sand painting with the great cathedrals of Europe, the work of Mother Teresa with that of Goethe, the poetry of the Troubadours with the scriptures of India, the work of Albert Einstein with that of the anonymous but devoted local elementary school teacher. All of these are art because they spring from what Mann calls the natural instinct to humanization. 
- Laurence G. Boldt, ZEN and the Art of Making a Living