Marcus Aurelius: 'Always think of the universe as one living organism...'

"Always think of the universe as one living organism with a single substance and single soul, and observe how all things are submitted to the single perceptivity of this one whole, all are moved by its single impulse..."
Marcus Aurelius. Meditations. Trans. Maxwell Staniforth, 4:40. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1964. Quoted by Jacob Needleman. Why Can't We Be Good? New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2007. p. 143.

"The land is one organism. Its parts, like our own parts, compete with each other and co-operate with each other. The competitions are as much a part of the inner workings as the co-operations. You can regulate them--cautiously--but not abolish them."
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River. New York: Ballantine Books, 1970 (originally 1949). p 190.

"The new view is based on solid research...their findings lead to the conclusion that separateness is out of the question in Nature. The biosphere is all of a piece, an immense, integrated living system, an organism."
Lewis Thomas, Foreword to Microcosmos. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan. California: University of California Press, 1986, 1997. p. 9.

“Here is what I learned once I began studying whooping cranes: only a small part of studying them has anything to do with the birds. Instead we counted berries. Counted crabs. Measured water salinity. Stood in the mud. Measured the speed of the wind.
It turns out, if you want to save a species, you don’t spend your time staring at the bird you want to save. You look at the things it relies on to live instead. You ask if there is enough to eat and drink. You ask if there is a safe place to sleep. Is there enough here to survive?”
"The Crane Wife." CJ Hauser. The Paris Review. July 16, 2019.

The planets and stars beyond us, the germs within us

A "macro view" from Edwin Tenney Brewster:

As we comprehend no man's religion until we know his world-view, so we understand no man's world-view till we discover his astronomy. The earth itself is for each of us the stage on which he sets his opinions. The sun and the planets and the stars are the background against which his drama of history is played.

A "micro view" from Margulis and Sagan:

The environment is so interwoven with bacteria, and their influence is so pervasive, that there is no really convincing way to point your finger and say this is where life ends and this is where the inorganic realm of nonlife begins.

Edward Abbey on seeing the synergy and inventing God from it:

Fred explained his theory of irrational numbers, binary electives and organic equations. Would lead, he argued, when he found the key connection, to a kind of cybernetic thinking machine that could digest numerical data in such quantity and at such velocity that science itself would make a quantum leap into whole new dimensions of power over nature.

Got too much power already, Bob argued...

Power is our destiny, Fred argued in return. We are bound for Andromeda and beyond. The Earth is but a footstool to the stars. God is our goal, God is our fate, and by God if God doesn't exist we shall create the S.O.B.

Neale Donald Walsch reports having this conversation with God:

God: Do you see the balance?
Neale Donald Walsch: Of course. It is ingenious.
God: Thank you. Now please quit destroying it.

Sources

Edwin Tenney Brewster. The Understanding of Religion Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1923. p 37.

Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan. Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution Foreword by Lewis Thomas. California: University of California Press, 1986, 1997. pp. 92-93.

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, p 47

Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue. Book 3. Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc., 1998.