Search Results (30)

This paper examines local knowledge, perceptions, and responses to changing climes in the Trans-Himalayan region of Dolpa in Nepal. Rooted within the environmental humanities and shaped by emerging understandings of faith-based ecospirituality, our research partnership focuses on the experiences of the indigenous Tarali Magar people of Gumbatara and neighbouring Shaharatara in the Tichurong valley. Through place-based engagements and drawing on various disciplinary threads and intellectual traditions, we review the effects of changing cultural, climatic, and ritual patterns on the lives and livelihoods of the Tarali Magar community. We explore how (i) agricultural practices are changing and adapting in response to wider systemic transformations; (ii) in what ways physical changes in the weather, clime and climate are experienced and imagined by Taralis through the lens of the Tarali concepts of nham (weather) and sameu (time); and (iii) local knowledge and embodied understandings about the natural and cultural worlds are embedded within Tarali spiritual traditions and religious worldviews. In reckoning with shifts in ecological patterns that disrupt long-standing agricultural practices and the cultural and religious knowledge systems that guide them, we demonstrate that Taralis are indigenous environmental humanists and empirical scientists. Through our study, we uplift culturally grounded, location-specific religious practices in the Tichurong valley and show how members of the Tarali community are contributing to global imaginaries for sustainable futures in our more-than-human world. Full article

This study investigates the theological and philosophical interplay between Rosemary Radford Ruether’s ecofeminist theology and Neo-Confucian cosmology in the context of Korean Protestant Christianity. By exploring intolerant interpretations of the Christian creation story, it critiques the anthropocentric domination of nature and proposes a reformed ecological spirituality. The research integrates Ruether’s covenantal and sacramental traditions, arguing for the significance of “relational consciousness” as a framework for eco-spiritual formation. Drawing from Ruether’s examination of creation myths and Neo-Confucian perspectives, this study asserts the necessity in reshaping Christian theology to embrace human interdependence with nature and the cosmos. It proposes that Korean Christians, influenced by Calvinist theology, must move beyond human dominion over nature to a role of co-creator and nurturer of the ecosystem, advocating for an eco-theological renewal that centers on relational consciousness for spiritual formation. Full article

This article suggests ecospirituality as a connection point between religion, science, and other disciplines, as well as the relationships between people, the land and waters, the community of all life, and the Divine. Ecospirituality connects different disciplines and highlights the interconnectedness between people and the rest of the natural world, and it also catalyzes action through spiritual experience and meaning-making. A review of different disciplines’ research on ecospirituality is provided. A description of an ecospiritual praxis cycle is offered, based on interviews and survey data. This ecospiritual praxis cycle may be able to help move people toward practical and efficacious actions of care for the community of all life to participate in the collective transformation that needs to occur in order to address the climate and ecological crises. This article identifies disconnection between theory and action regarding climate and environmental knowledge and collective action as one of the main problems, which “undisciplining” religion and science can help overcome. Full article

With the advancement of resilience concepts, enhancing resilience capacity has become an effective approach to addressing rainwater and flooding issues. Most rural planning and construction efforts adopt urban planning models from economically developed regions, often leading to surface hardening, which subsequently causes drainage difficulties and severe surface water accumulation during the rainy season. In contrast, traditional Lingnan villages, exemplified by Guangdong’s Changqi Ancient Village, continue to function normally in flood-prone areas, suggesting that their water management knowledge merits investigation. Previous research on rainwater management in traditional Chinese villages has predominantly been qualitative, lacking scientific data support. This study employs an eco-social resilience perspective, combining field surveys and interviews with villagers, and utilizes the SWMM (Storm Water Management Model) software to conduct both qualitative and quantitative analyses of Changqi Ancient Village. The findings reveal the following: (1) The SWMM effectively quantifies rainwater and flood management in traditional villages. (2) From an ecological resilience perspective, the village’s geographical location is crucial. The topography, along with a rainwater regulation system comprising rivers, ponds, ditches, and permeable pavements, significantly influences the village’s drainage performance. (3) From a social resilience perspective, community participation is vital to the long-term stable development of traditional villages. This includes post-disaster collective fundraising by villagers for the restoration of rainwater and flood management facilities, the formulation of village regulations, and the construction and restoration of spiritual sites. (4) From an eco-social resilience perspective, the eco-social resilience system exhibits adaptive cyclical characteristics, where the geographical environment and the local economy significantly shape the ecological spatial patterns of Changqi, while positive interaction between nature and human society ensures the system’s dynamic equilibrium. Full article

Against the background of contemporary debates about the Anthropocene and the attendant danger of global warming and climate change, which is causally linked to the unchecked exploitation of the earth by humans, narratives which embody an earth-centric scientia sacra become tools of advocacy for the ‘resacralization’ of the earth. This paper explores three South Asian river narratives that offer a blueprint for mindfully inhabiting the earth under the shadow of the Anthropocene. Calling for a participatory relationship with the holiness of water, they challenge the construction of water in a rapidly globalizing, uneven society shaped by a colonial hydrology in which the ecological relationship between land and water is out of balance. Drawing attention to the multiple ways in which the human and non-human world are enmeshed in the Anthropocene, these narratives engage with environmental justice concerns and challenge the hierarchy or perspectives and worldviews regarding accepted notions of subalternity. These texts construct a triptych suggesting an embedded ecotheology of the material and the spiritual, thereby sensitising the reader to the endangered waterscapes of the Anthropocene and also to the promise of the Symbiocene through an awareness of the fluid relational field that we share with the greater-than-human world. Full article

Climate change evokes many kinds of emotions, which have an impact on people’s behavior. This article focuses on three major climate emotions—guilt, grief, and anger—and other closely related emotional phenomena, such as climate anxiety/distress. The article explores ways in which these emotions could be engaged with constructively in religious communities, with a certain emphasis on Christian, monotheistic, and Buddhist communities. These religious communities have certain special resources for engaging with guilt and grief, but they often have profound difficulty working with constructive anger. The ways in which these emotions can affect each other are probed, and the complex dynamics of climate guilt are given special attention. Based on the work of psychologists Tara Brach and Miriam Greenspan, a four-step method of engaging with these emotions is proposed and discussed: self-reflection, exploration of various forms of these emotions, contextualization, and creative application of various methods to channel the energies in these emotions. The article draws from interdisciplinary research on eco-emotions, religion and ecology studies, and psychology. Full article

Moving from an era of dam building to dam removal brings additional perspectives to indigenous water governance and hydrosocial relations in the Klamath River Basin (US). This collaborative research initiative with the Karuk Tribe builds greater understanding of the sociocultural impacts of Klamath dam removal and river restoration through Karuk knowledge. Addressing a knowledge gap around the social dimensions of dam removal, we held focus groups and interviews with Karuk cultural practitioners, tribal leaders, and tribal youth in the six-month period leading up to demolition. Extending beyond a focus on infrastructure removal or single-species restoration, we consider how Indigenous environmental relations and cosmologies are embedded in dam removal and river restoration. Specifically, Karuk knowledge shifts the significance of dam removal by elucidating deeply interconnected ecological, cultural, and ceremonial relations that are co-constituted with the Klamath watershed, thereby recasting dam removal as a holistic eco-cultural revitalization initiative. This reconfigures dam removal goals to include improving community health and well-being, enhancing spiritual elements of river restoration, responding to colonial legacies, and engaging tribal youth. In the Klamath case, restorative justice becomes possible through Karuk participation in river restoration to facilitate the revitalization of reciprocal relations held between Karuk people and the Klamath River—including Karuk eco-cultural and ceremonial practices for restoring balance in the world. Full article

Starting from the observation that there is a gap between knowledge of the environmental sciences and practical engagement, for example, in climate change or biodiversity loss, this article explores one possible explanation for this situation—namely, the process of objectification inherent in science. It then proposes to remedy the situation by defending the idea of a ‘first-person ecology’. This term refers to a field of research and practice that looks at the relationship between humans and nature from the point of view of the embodied and situated nature of lived experience. The lived experience of nature at the heart of a first-person ecology is first studied from an epistemic perspective using the concept of recognition, inspired by the Frankfurt School philosopher and sociologist Axel Honneth. It is then approached from a phenomenological perspective, using the emerging field of ecospirituality to describe the characteristics of this experience. Full article

This essay takes initial steps on a journey with an Irish eco-spiritual philosopher, the late John Moriarty. As a gateway into his broader oeuvre and way of thinking, we explore Moriarty’s image of the Christian mystical Easter journey—the Triduum Sacrum—as a vision for humanity and the planet. After briefly reviewing his spiritual biography, we consider Moriarty’s re-framing of the story as a journey to the bottom of a symbolic Grand Canyon, a mystical trail beyond historical time to a primordial unity before the evolution of the species. There, the total integration of the natural ecumene is experienced. For Moriarty, this journey leads not only into the past, but prefigures a pilgrimage that everyone can—and should—take. Analyzing primarily his own writing, we highlight the intercultural roots and ecumenical connections of Moriarty’s work, which draws extensively on spiritual traditions and contemporary debates from across the world. On that basis, we sign-post directions for further research into a potential post-Christian ecology as a new way of thinking about the earth and our role on it, based on an attitude of Gelassenheit. Full article

This article discusses the notion of ecotheology, its origins and the conceptual framework of meaning, particularly within Christian theology, in order to establish its relation to the notion of ecospirituality. The article researches how ecological theology may ground an ecological spirituality. Then, it uses both notions to (1) analyze Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter Laudato sí, (2) identify what models of ecotheology are used in his approach, (3) trace significant ecotheological dimensions, proposals, practices and lifestyles conveyed, (4) investigate if it is possible to identify the presence of an ecospirituality, concluding affirmatively. Finally, it asks whether Laudato sí’s ecospirituality is only meaningful and operative within a Christian spiritual framework or if, in many respects, it may be also inspirational and significant beyond a Christian realm of meaning. It concludes that Laudato sí’s ecological spirituality offers common ground for synergies with other religious, non-religious and secular ecospiritualities which can be synergic contributors to the creation of networks of action and meaning that can be implemented in order to develop a common passionate and effective protection of our world on environmental matters. The methodology used is a critical and hermeneutical documental analysis by means of reviewing significant literature in this area of knowledge. Full article

This article explores the notion of the “magic of a place” and the way a space attracts groups and individuals who follow various forms of vernacular or lived religion and spirituality. The space is Sintra, an “enchanted” mountain facing the westernmost point of Europe, the Roca Cape. Classified by UNESCO as Cultural Landscape, Sintra is a unique place, a “sensuous sacred geography”; its sacredness comes from its natural setting, combined with historical layers of religious use and the way these are nowadays interpreted by individuals who live spirituality as “sensational forms” (configurations of imaginations and sensations in a context of religious and spiritual traditions). Thought of as an encapsulated magical place where innumerous groups perform their ceremonies, meditations, and spiritual retreats, Sintra is a scenario where Tweed’s discussion on the sacredness of a place is highly suitable and transreligiosity and spiritual elasticity are the norm. Furthermore, through the ethnographic data presented, we will see how, within this “spiritual elasticity” directly relating to the astonishing nature of the Sintra mountain, individuals find relief for their personal crises or their collective eco-anxiety. Full article

In his works on ecological philosophy, Bruno Latour develops an interesting perspective on religion and pluralism. He proposes a new worldview, in which religion is reinterpreted in view of a Gaian philosophy. He extends ‘pluralism’ beyond the anthropocentrism that dominates modern humanism. In his book Facing Gaia Latour includes nonhuman beings in a larger community and works towards a larger concept of eco-humanism. In this paper, I try to reconstruct his position by showing that the philosophical foundation for his interpretation of religion could be called ‘terrarism’ and is to be classified as a form of new materialism. This new interpretation of materialism has postmodernist origins (inspired by Gilles Deleuze), but it is not identical to it, because Latour distances himself from ‘postmodernism’. He wants to positively contribute to a new ontology. My point is that Latour’s ‘terrarist’ grounding of religious pluralism obstructs any foundation of transcendence and, finally, congests a really pluralistic ecumene because he still adheres to the postmodernist idea that we should renounce to a unitary principle of being. His ideas on eco-humanism and pluralistic ecumene could gain momentum if we opened ourselves to a more holistic and spiritual way of thinking, retaking Lovelock’s conception of Gaia. However, Latour’s new-materialistic interpretation of ‘animism’ can be seen as a positive contribution to a new perspective of the world that definitively sets ‘materialism’ aside. Full article

Contemporary ecospirituality is built on a double articulation between ecology (science) and spirituality (religion) and can be intertwined with practices and beliefs stemming from neopaganism and, more broadly, an animist vision. The study presented here is anchored in social anthropology, which adds an important empirical dimension that is often underrepresented within the contemporary debates of ecospirituality and the philosophical approaches to science and religion. I therefore propose to begin by describing the methodology I am using. Then, I will outline the sociological (and historical) roots of ecospirituality. Thirdly, I will present the main different currents that make up ecospirituality. Finally, I will end this article by exposing the different types of knowledge produced by ecospiritual actors, reconciling intuitive knowledge and rational knowledge. Full article

This article will explain how garbage care can be a way of realizing eco-spiritual care in the multifaith context of Indonesia. In Indonesia, the environment is a common concern, and waste is also a common problem. With a qualitative reflective method, the activities in garbage care are reflected in an eco-spiritual care perspective. Eco-spiritual care is an effort to assist human beings to find themselves in their environment. This reflection concludes that with a phenomenological approach, garbage care will make people find their ‘oneness’. This will underlie the renewal of attitudes toward their lives in a deeper, more positive way. In addition, this reflection on the eco-spiritual will broaden the understanding of pastoral care that has existed so far, because eco-spiritual care is not only for people who are sick, but those who want to find their natural selves. This also means that the meaning of eco-spiritual care is much broader than pastoral care because it means giving ‘good food’, not just shepherding and merely giving spiritual food. Indeed, it must be a good and healthy spiritual food to let people grow better spiritually. Full article

Centring on embodiment, gendered eco-spiritual responses to nature, enchantment and environmental crises in the Anthropocene, this paper explores engagement with nature as a spiritual experience and resource through ‘Celtic’ Christian prayer walks in the Isle of Man. Web-based and printed materials for the walks are analysed for references to nature and environmental responsibility, and the complexities of personal, gendered and theological relation to nature and the environment are explored through participants’ accounts. The analysis is attentive to participants professing Christian faith and institutional affiliation as well as those without affiliation or faith, and to their gendered experience. Themes identified include nature-inspired ‘Celtic’ spirituality; personal relation to the non-human (the divine, nature and nature-as-divine); the landscape as a liminal ‘thin place’; and social and environmental responsibility. The paper concludes by signalling the potential for bridging between pilgrimage-centred enchantment and eco-spirituality in order to mobilise engagement with and for the environment in the Anthropocene, including environmental conservation activities, lobbying or protest. Whilst eschewing gendered stereotypes, empirical findings evidence gendered patterns of engagement and responses to different expressions of spirituality. Attention to these differences could facilitate the engaging and mobilising of different cohorts of pilgrims with environmental agendas, inspiring personal and collective environmental action. Full article