Ecospirituality

The Living Earth, Nature, and the More Than Human World

By Khabira Candace Holt

In August I moved from my home of 26 years above the Kootenay River, and between the time of deep snow until early July I had seven outdoor fires burning artwork, books, wooden things, etc., as part of my honoring and letting go of this place so cherished.

By Christine Stevens

 

 

 

The Nature Sutras are a collection of poems inspired by nature. Please click here to view the poems. Please click here to view the video about the Nature Sutras.

‘learn today from yesterday for a better tomorrow’
(in Dhurga language of the South Coast of NSW)

By Arjuna Ben-Zion Weiss

‘In the wake of the disastrous bushfires of 2020, COVID 19 and Black
Lives Matter, join Uncle Noel Butler, Budawang man and Yuin Elder,
and his wife Trish on his ancestral land on the NSW South Coast near
Ulladulla.

By Wali van der Zwan

It may be that darkness has descended over you
in order that He may make you aware
of the value of His blessings upon you.
Hikmah 1982

In a lecture for a Dutch audience, Hazrat Inayat Khan compared the human nature with a piglet and a bee.3 Put a piglet in a beautiful environment, he said, give it pure food and clean hay; it will always discover a little filth somewhere and will walk towards it.
Put the piglet in your garden, and it will walk past the most beautiful flowers; it will leave your tidy paths and search and sniff, until it has found some manure or mud somewhere, to root in it with delight. This is the piglet's way of enjoying life.

By Salim Matt Gras

As a Sufi, I consider it my spiritual obligation to bear witness: to illuminate important truths we tend to overlook or shy away from. What you’re about to read is an op-ed I wrote for Faith and Climate Action Montana, an interfaith organization dedicated to raising awareness that climate collapse is a deeply spiritual issue requiring us to acknowledge our sacred obligation to live in a much more awake and openhearted way.

By Beverly Subanna Nur Gordon

My relationship with the natural world is an ongoing sense of discovery and belonging. Part of my practice is to go out and consciously experience new and familiar environments, and with senses open, fully take in what is present. The explorations always lead to a sense of calm and all-rightness; the ishk is palpable. The following describes one such experience--an October walk in the southern Wisconsin countryside.

By Kamal- Carlos Alberto Hernández Vélez

Disconnected Humans

As a species, we suffer from “Ecological Alienation”, mistakenly believing that the planet, its microscopic life, oceans, plants, animals, climate, and the cosmos work on a level different from humans. This disconnection is also present in many religious dogmas, where nature is said to be created by a Lord who gives humans “dominion”. The negative effects of these beliefs grow more critical each day. 

A Place to Meet, Dance and Meditate

Anahita Mettert and the German Dance family worked together to build a garden dedicated to peace and Universal Unity. Located in Ruhau, the farm of the Sieglin family, it is a place for prayer, meditation, Universal Worship, and the Dances of Universal Peace. The circular Peace Garden has a main dance surface in the center that contains a mandala with eight connected hearts. It honors the religions of the world and the four directions. The Peace Garden is located at Hof Ruckhardtshausen in Southern Germany, a place where seminars for the Dances take place with rooms for guests. For more information, please click here. 

By Arjuna

My journey began in Alice. It was the fourth time I’d been there and each time it’s been different. We stayed in the heart of town at the Diplomat Motel, which was just near the Todd Mall where all the action seems to be. The town is an interesting mix of locals, who are both Aboriginal and of European descent, and tourists who come there in large numbers to see the Red Centre. Flying over this stunning landscape was a very moving experience. The land there felt really alive!

By Shafiya Majid Sharon Mijares 

The message of the Kogi (translates as jaguar people) was directly presented in the early 90s when the Kogi (pronunciation: Kohi) mamas came out of their hidden village to warn that we, the younger brothers, were destroying the Earth, the Great Mother. They realized they (and other indigenous groups such as the Hopi) could no longer protect the Earth on their own.

 

by Karuna Teresa Foudriat

 

      Since the 1980s  Muslim environmentalists have thoughtfully re-examined the Islamic tradition, uncovering the foundation for a sustainable view of the Creator, the cosmos and the human role in nature. In essay collections like Islam and Ecology,[1] in blogs, and at conferences, Muslim theologians, legal scholars, activists, urban planners and even folklorists, gardeners and poets have challenged many of the environmentally destructive practices of modern western society. They have drawn deeply, either knowingly or unknowingly, from the Qur’an, Islam’s original revelation and most revered text.

 by Mary Hansel

Let’s focus on ferreting out that which “transpires beneath that which appears”1  or on the function beneath the strategy. By shifting our focus, we can learn from nature rather than just about nature.

MEDICINE WATERS
Now I have laid bare,
Taken your medicine
In the white foam
Of your thundering river
Now I have become You
Now I have been blessed
Now replenished I go

Into the unknown
On my way home
On my way home.

Karuna Teresa Foudriat’s speaks to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Catskills Kingston, NY, September 21, 2014

Since I’m speaking to a UU congregation, I know I’m preaching to the choir when I point out that we live in uncertain and troubling times. Even as I speak, thousands of people, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, are converging in New York City to encourage world leaders to act responsibly on the issue of the climate change that is threatening to turn into climate chaos.

 The Dance 

 When flickers of sunlight

 dance between aspen leaves

 to land on my face,

 my heart explodes

 like a dandelion puff, 

 scattering love and joy

 to sail to a million distant places,

The Drive

 

It was a long, quiet ride home with you

Full of unspoken ease and acceptance,

and you were aglow, as usual.

Even when I couldn’t catch a glance your way,

I could feel it

And remember the completeness of our round cheeks touching.