Today marks the final meditation for the autumn season, and part 3 of the Stewardship quote series.

Read slowly and reflect. The new year is coming!

“All civilized governments are now realizing that it is their duty . . . to preserve, unharmed, tracts of wild nature, with theron the wild things the destruction of which means the destruction of half the charm of wild nature. . . “ — Theodore Roosevelt, African Game Trails

“Conservation can be defined as the wise use of our natural environment; it is, in the final analysis, the highest form of national thrift — the prevention of waste and despoilment while preserving, improving and renewing the quality and usefulness of all our resources.” — President John F. Kennedy

“Alive, the grizzly is a symbol of freedom and understanding – a sign that man can learn to conserve what is left of the earth. Extinct, it will be another fading testimony to things man should have learned about but was too preoccupied with himself to notice. In its beleaguered condition, it is above all a symbol of what man is doing to the entire planet. If we can learn from these experiences, and learn rationally, both the grizzly and man may have a chance to survive.” — Frank C. Craighead, Track of the Grizzly

“A key question is that of our ethical obligations to the nonhuman world. The very notion rattles the foundations of occidental thought. Native American religious beliefs, although not identical coast to coast, are overwhelmingly in support of a full and sensitive acknowledgement of the subjecthood – the intrinsic value – of nature.” — Gary Snyder, “The Rediscovery of Turtle Island.”

“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road – the one “less traveled by” – offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of our earth.” — Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

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Thanks for being with me during this month’s reflective journey on Stewardship. The winter season begins Friday. Watch for more great winter reflections beginning next Monday, December 24, 2012.