Spiritual Ecology

 I guess I have been dancing around this one for awhile, without even knowing. 

And my blogs and thoughts so far, while they surely have been influenced by authors, speakers, conversations and podcasts, have been my own journey. Now I see (of course!) I am not the first and I am not alone. 

I throw myself head first into Spiritual Ecology. 

Perhaps all I have said and all I have to say has already been said better than I could ever say. And yet I must document the resonance I feel with spiritual ecology. I feel found.

Here it is: "Surely we need to recognize that there is a direct relationship between our outer, physical, ecological predicament and our forgetfulness of the sacred in creation." wrote Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee in 2010 in his article about spirituality as the solution to the climate crisis. "We cannot redeem our physical environment without restoring our relationship to the sacred."

YES. 

Remember. Redeem. Restore. Relationship.  

Of course, this connection between spirituality and earth care is fundamental. As I said in my very first post, it is the oldest principle there is. And just as I have stumbled here through intuition and instinct, many others have been making this connection in many different ways since forever. How exciting to know there is a name, a field, a discipline, a body of work on this -- Yes, in English, in Western thought, but that is where I come from too, and it can help to broaden my understanding of the overall universal process.

How did I finally get here?

Since its launch, I have been following Emergence Magazine. It has kind of been the mix of my church and my work, a soul-sensitive submersion when I wanted to reconnect heart with to-do lists. As Emmanual Vaughan-Lee says at the beginning of every podcast, it is the "threads connecting ecology, culture and spirituality." I had never put those elements together before consciously, but every piece that comes out by them is deeply meaningful and taps into something I feel to be so true and necessary. I learned they are based in spiritual ecology, deeply connected to this line of thought and body of work.

Now as I start a cursory exploration into what is spiritual ecology, I see names pop up that I have been familiar with but I did not know were part of this discipline. It is like putting favorite authors together into one room to have a conversation on the same topic that I am fascinated with, to see it from all different angles. Like Judy Chicago´s The Dinner Party, article-style.

As excited as I am to have stumbled into this room, I feel like I arrived late to the dinner party, I sat down in the middle of an ongoing conversation that I have been missing out on, and that I will never catch up. But I also feel I have something to contribute, and that delving into this material is my crucial next step to developing my own ideas and orienting my work.

I think my path started at the beginning, like all of us. As a child, I remember my mom organizing events around earth care, at church and school. I liked it but did not connect deeply to recycling and river clean ups and even planting trees as a spiritual practice. And yet, my favorite hymn was All Things Bright and Beautiful and I experiencied deeper communion sitting in the forest than the sanctuary. I did not know what all that meant, but I do know it unconsciously led me down the path I am walking now. 

Several years ago, I attended a week-long leadership retreat called the Byron Fellowship for emerging environmental leaders. I felt called to do it, even though I never identified as being an environmental activist. I did not make the connection between earth care, spirituality and food systems even then. I remember even telling someone I felt like I did not quite belong, like I wasn´t an "environmentalist" the way the other participants were. And I remember her telling me, you will figure it out, you will see someday how you fit into this work. That was true! I see it now, and wish I could go back and articulate the connections in that space and to that group!

The connection between earth and spirituality was most alive for me when living in Peru. I will never forget the first time I took part in a Quechua circle ceremony, for the opening of an eco-market in Lima, Peru. The Maestro handed out coca leaves, 3 to everyone. I doubted taking it, feeling like it was the bread and wine at communion, and I wasn´t eligible. I turned to the person who was beside me that day and asked, can I take it? He replied, Are you human? I felt the coca leaves between my fingers, blew my blessings and gratitude across them into the air as the Maestro showed us, and then dropped them into the offering in the middle of the circle. I was part of it, and I felt blessed.

As I continue to live into practices of earth-based spirituality and orient my life´s work toward intentional, spirit-led, sacred-principled activism around food and agriculture, I am thrilled that this canon of works is newly open to me. And even this feeling of having missed out, of having not taken advantage, just adds to my motivation to devour all I can now about spiritual ecology. To have those conversations, to open my eyes and ears, to learn from those around me, to ask questions and listen. Living into the sacred principle as I go.