The Lost Names of God: A Solstice Reflection

I come to this pinnacle of the solar year, this hot and heightened sun, with a posture of vigilance, a stance that might not be all too surprising given our times, but one that is consternating all the same. Already in our Pacific Northwest part of the world, the fires are burning. Smoke cloaks the sun's intensifying rays, amplifying the heat. Seattle's urban streets are buckling under the sweltering strain. Gun violence is already intensifying (the corollary between inescapable urban heat and social tensions is a studied reality). While children may be enacting the summer rituals of swimming and sandal-wearing, there is a sense that the adults are diligently looking over their shoulder, or even up at the smoke-filled sky, discerning when to return to the relative refuge of home.

Not the picture that you might have expected to kick off this quarterly newsletter offering, I'm sure. And not one that I necessarily want to write about either, and yet.... And yet, it speaks to the grief that I know I am not alone in experiencing as each consecutive season brings with it more suffering change, so markedly different than the perception of the assured rhythmic seasonal changes in which I grew up. And yet, even that which I knew was its own iteration of shifting environmental degradation that had become its own version of an accepted and normative existence. This psychological and sociological phenomenon is termed shifting baseline syndrome (SBS), which is increasingly recognized as one of the fundamental obstacles to addressing a wide range of today’s global environmental issues. When one forgets over the course of a couple years, decades, or generation what once was, or who once was, it becomes near impossible to advocate for those places, people, or other remarkable forms of existence. Do you remember the Passenger Pigeon? Probably not, and if you know about its one time form of life, its likely you don't stand around missing it.

We are a forgetful and fickle species, us humans, and if we continue to not remember, we will end up forgetting what has been lost. But even in our forgetfulness, there is something deeper still that remains, a cellular memory that longs for what once was; a longing for a home that no longer exists.

While working at the University of Newcastle in Australia, ecophilosopher Glenn Albrecht coined a word that seeks to describe this feeling. 'Solastalgia’ – a gladstone of the words ‘solace’ and ‘nostalgia’ – is used not just in academia but more widely, in clinical psychology and health policy in Australia, as well as by US researchers looking into the effects of wildfires in California. It describes the feeling of distress associated with environmental change close to your home, and speaks to growing unease around what this loss portends for the future of all life on our planet. 

The magnitude, rate, and extent of the changes that humans have made to the Earth’s more-than-human world are hard to grasp. What is easier to grasp is the idea that it has always been this way. And yet, we find that we are awaiting the fist summer sight of the Monarch butterfly flitting through the wasting away Sword ferns, but the waiting is endless; or we realize that the ache in our eyes is do to the relentless searching for the nesting pair of Red tail hawk that have been in the Big leaf maple down the hill for twenty years...but they are no longer there. The solace found within the dynamic constancies of one's environment is waning as the "lived experience of negatively perceived environmental change to one's 'sense of place' and existential well-being is increasing" (Glenn Albrecht Murdoch, 2010).

The human caused degradation to our home planet is causing massive species extinction. Indeed, we are within the Anthropocene Extinction, or the sixth mass extinction, which is one of the most significant events in the history of the Earth. Every day there are unique and particular life forms that are closing their eyes to the hope of a future. And with each eye lid shuttering, I would maintain that we are losing embodiments of the sacred. Every species that becomes extinct is a lost name, and form, of God.

Ecotheologian Sallie MacFague's seminal work has been around our metaphoric language and symbols used to describe and define the divine. In our era of global heating and climate catastrophe, she urges us away from metaphors that describe God as separate from the world and creation--words and resulting paradigms related to monarchy, kingdoms, hierarchies, dominions, etc. Instead, she advocates for the mindset shifting metaphor of seeing the Earth as the Body of God. Sit with that for a moment. The Earth: The Body of God. How does this land with you? If we lived within this worldview, how would it change how we are presenced upon this planet? This understands the world, and its host of wild and wonder-filled life, as sacred, every aspect and being a numinous element. So when the Passenger Pigeon, Monarch, and Red tailed hawk no longer exist in the air, or when the Salish Sea resident Orca population rings the death knoll at the brink of their extinction, we are literally witnessing a diocide, the killing of God.

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What do you do when you lose something? You ponder its whereabouts, and then go out to look for it, and sometimes you end up recovering that which was lost in places that surprise you. We have lost the knowing that the earth is sacred, that we are surrounded by hallowed presences who bear witness to our lives, as well as express their own inherent divine qualities. Grief is a handmaiden to loss. Studies show that within the realm of environmental grief and anxiety, practicing nature-based rituals and ceremony can help one be resilient in these grief-filled seasons, and be a way to respond to feelings like solestagia.

Seek through the practice of ceremony. Find a recovered and reconnected way of understanding that the holy is Here. And hope beyond hope, may your ceremonial search yield the surprise of the divine ground of being that is within your particular place.

May something within this Summer season whisper to you, beseech and beguile you, rooting you deeper into the places you call home. Or perhaps you haven't yet found your way home, and this is why you are here. May you be invited into a ceremonious way of living that seeks to recover the sacred within the wild.

Waymarkers' mission is to bear witness and act as a guide to your journey, to your rooting and to your rising, and to your pilgrimage journey of belonging to this wonder-filled and wild world. May the wisdom-seeds that were planted this past Spring be about the critical work of differentiation and particularity. May that they become the wild and precious fruit that only you can bear and bring to the world. May something in the potent summer heat and long, light days ripen in you your purpose and your belonging. May that the sun, present and demanding, remind you that it is time to become; for it is now time to allow Summer's heat to transform the seed into an offering. And in this work, may you observe and be guided by waymarkers~ones from the wild who will accompany and apprentice you, reminding you of the way back to the belonging we have within the sacred reality that we live within an ensouled world.

Cultivate the Wisdom Within the Wild: Biomimicry as a Spiritual Practice

Boehman, Jessica. Bedtime Stories. 2013.

“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.” -Joseph Campbell

We are approaching the threshold of Winter, and these days that come before that elemental edge are known as Advent, a sacred time of the year when rituals attune ourselves to the growing darkness and when hope is kindled by the coming of light.

But before the light is the darkness—a darkness that is the deep color of sunless earth. All life is being drawn into the depths of soil, a migration of descent that is both a lull and a longing. Life is slowing down, quieting, and entering caves and underground caverns wherein sleepy darkness will be the only thing that will satiate this elemental pull.

And yet isn’t it ironic that the farther the Western mind moves from celebrating this season and the upcoming solstice for its earthen guidance and wisdom, the brighter the holiday lights become; the louder the market cries for over-consumption; the more frenetic the pace and demand of over-worked holiday cheer? This is a way that is contrary to the descent the more-than-human world engages as they wait for the light.

Every Advent I see new methods, books, and calendars that aim to connect ourselves to the meaning of this season. These seem to exist at the margins, hardly able to compete with the trumpeting chaos of holiday calendars and over-played carols. And while I admittedly do attempt to engage these new titles or traditions as a way to center and slow down the pace, I find that rarely do the intentions last as there is little grounding and rooting into the reality of what my body longs to do—this longing to go inwards and follow the others with fur and four-feet, to find the kind and nourishing dark within my inner-self.

Truly, the light that breaks with promise on the heels of the Winter Solstice only has power because of the darkness through which we have just come. But how can we truly know the Light if we’ve been kept from going into the Dark?

This Advent I want to do something different, or more aptly, something deeper. I want to look to what Nature is doing, how the wild is behaving, how Earth is quieting and model something of a spiritual practice of it. Instead of buying another book to guide my Advent season, I want those with rhizomes and heartwood, those whose voices rise to moon-howl, those who curl confidently within their fur to counsel my quest for holy days that leave me with a renewed sense of faith, hope, and love. I want Nature to be my scout this season towards an ancient nativity, showing me how to rest like roots; when to withdraw like wolves; and when need for warmth demands a festive fire with family and friends.

These days before the brink of Winter will be ones where I lean into and look deeper into the principles of biomimicry, an idea that by imitating models, systems and elements of nature we might discover ways to solve complex human problems. Frankly, there is no way anyone can engage the news and social media and not see the human and ecological grief and suffering that is happening all over this world. And I believe that Albert Einstein was absolutely correct when he said:

We can't solve problems by using the same thinking we used to create them.

Our anthropocentric attempts to solve our human-engineered problems need to be reoriented—rewilded to the rest of the whole from which biotic life is bound. If the Winter Dark is the time when the natural world renews itself for the regenerative life-burst of Spring, how do we expect to do the same if our Winter looks no different than the frenetic force that pressures the Western world to be lit year round?

We know we are intimately connected to earth-systems. Our bodies get sick when our planet is sick. Our ability to flourish is fastened to the potential for all life to thrive. We have awoken to this reality in the eleventh hour of climate chaos. Janine M. Benyus, author of the profound and popular book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (1997) says this, “We are awake now, and the question is how do we stay awake to the living world?” I would say, it will take practice—disciplined regular and repeated rhythms or patterns of behavior that bring about this awoken state of perception. Following are the nine basic principles of biomimicry that come from Janine M. Benyus’ work:

Nature runs on sunlight

Nature uses only the energy it needs

Nature fits form to function

Nature recycles everything

Nature rewards cooperation

Nature banks on diversity

Nature demands local expertise

Nature curbs excesses from within

Nature taps the power of limits

How different are these than the common consumptive energy of this season? And how different would the holidays be if we engaged them from a spiritual practice of biomimicry? My sense is that we would be incredibly awake to the sacred and wild world in ways that would transform how we experience these threshold days of this season. We would come to find that we have enough. We are enough. And from this place, we will be able to open up and sink deep into this beautiful dark and rooted place.

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Advent Practice

Instead of spiritual practices that that lead us away from the dark, demanding a journey towards the light as if it wasn’t already within us, let’s re-engage rituals that place us here, that designate the dark earth as holy ground, sacred soil within which we rediscover the life that has always been within and with-out all things. Over the course of Advent, engage each of the nine elements as an invitation into a personal and spiritual practice.

• Take 2-3 days to reflect and respond to each principle and imagine ways in which you can bring that principle into practice. Begin by simply reframing each principle with the personal pronoun, “I.” For example, “I run on sunlight.” “I use only the energy I need,” etc.

• How does this statement feel to you? Is it true? Does it invite a response of longing or desire for a different way of being? How does this challenge you in this season? It becomes very interesting to think of these principles through the lens of holiday gift-giving, and even holiday activities and festivities; these foundational aspects of the natural world don’t work within a world of capitalistic consumerism, over-consumption, and narrow religious views.

• Let’s take this reframing into our inner-world, our soulscape. Are you able to restate the basic principles of biomimicry as a spiritual or soulful practice? Does your spiritual tradition or practice reward cooperation? Does it demand local expertise? If yes, how? If not, how are you being invited to a biomimetic lens of your faith?

• What rituals can be created to honor the sacred rhythms within the principles of biomimicry? Perhaps you bring in a cup full of dark humus earth into your home and create an Advent altar with it, pairing it with a candle. Do you already have an Advent wreath for your family table? Place the cup of earth at the center! This creates an earthen awareness for darkness and connects to the question: “What do I need to stay grounded through this season?” In our family we gradually begin turning off electric lamps or lights in our house and replace them with candlelight so that our eyes can begin to re-sensitize to the dark; by the time we are at the Winter Solstice we have only candle light within our home and boy can you feel the dark! This is a dark that is hard to come by in the city as light shines year round in the night from street lights, cars, businesses, exterior house and condo lights, etc. I also like this move towards the candle light as I find that we move more slowly in the house when only candles are lit. This honors what our bodies want to do naturally in this season, instead of the push to rush towards the coming light.

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“Seeds grow in the dark—so do we.
Let’s stop making such a virtue out of the light.
Let's turn toward what’s in the shadows and breathe it in,
breathe it here, meeting it face-to-face until we realize
with more than mind that what we are seeing
is none other than us in endarkened disguise.
Seeds grow in the dark—so do we. 
Let’s not be blinded by light
Let’s unwrap the night 
Building a faith too deep to be spoken 
A recognition too central to be broken 
Until even the darkest of days can light our way.” 
― Robert Augustus Masters

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Spring Rewilding Retreat: Rising Up Rooted Like Trees

In May I went away on my personal Spring Rewilding Retreat out east in the lowland forests of the Cascade Mountain range. This was a set-apart time to lean into Rainer Maria Rilke's wisdom when he said,

“If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.”

What wisdom, what sacred intelligence lay rooted within the soil and with all of the forest community? What guidance might I receive from Creator through the meant-for-ness of this place? This is what I sought after as I made ready for time away in the woods. 

Its important to note that this practice is not just all prayers and serene postures; it is just as much about play! So, with this invitation to play in mind, I found a little treehouse I could book and play I did! Simply climbing up into the holding and nesting branches of the tree that held my lodging reminded me of my child-self. Equal to the wisdom sought in the interconnections of the Spring season; Eastern cardinal direction; and the element of Fire (correspondences which find their alignment within the ancient Celtic tradition), was the curiosity of my child-guide. I have discovered that this internalized version of my girlhood-self has become a guiding voice that speaks to me in the way that she so longed to be spoken to so many years ago. It is her that says, "Climb that tree! It will be fun and you are strong and brave and can do it!" She is also the one that deeply remembers the transformative power of the woods, for she is the one who drank the nourishing milk of the faerie tales and myths and reminds me of their powers. So, I followed her when she excitedly invited me into the transformative power of the trees with the rallying cry, "Into the woods!"

For three days I was immersed within the folds of the forest. I stayed within a little treehouse at Tree House Point. Unbeknownst to me, there is quite a following of this place due to its popularity gained through a reality television series on tree houses. So, when I was asked at registration if I was there because I was a fan of the TV show, I said no, "I'm here on a rewilding retreat!" I think we all were refreshed by new perspectives! In spite of its niche popularity and fan base, this was the perfect location to lean into the glory and magnificence of this particular bioregion.

“The corresponding symbologies that are in play during this Spring season are ones that invite one into their birth and their becoming. Ancient Celtic wisdom associated creativity and new life with Springtime, East and Fire.”

These themes of emergence are strong within the sacred meanings within these associations and invite one into a soulful journey that leaves the hearth and home of the Winter Quadrant; this quadrant is an invitation into the powerful transformational qualities of the forest, the location where all the nature symbols become embodied. This is the landscape where conversion occurs and those childhood faerie stories began to work their magic on me once again. Within their mossy and tendrilled tales were characters who were transformed by the woods and all who they encountered there. I was in need of renewal, the imaginal, the creative force that sparks up new life. Within this forest I would find the flame of sacred inspiration! 

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My treehouse was aptly called "Nest," and here I felt held up high above the forest floor, able to watch and witness life from the overstory. Birds beckoned from within the walls of my small woodland dwelling and without; I was eye to eye with blue jay, robin, wren, and chickadee. Within these walls (and throughout the Spring season) I read, and such glorious writers and works align with this bioregion! John Muir, David Haskell's The Song of Trees, Sean M. Conrey's The Book of Trees, Dr. Qing Li's Forest Bathing (the Japanese art and science of shinrin-yoku), Richard Power's The Overstory, and Peter Wohlleben's amazing work, The Secret Life of Trees all acting as my guides, coming alongside the deep indigenous wisdom that understood the sacredness of trees, affirming their place within cosmologies, with the emerging science that shows how truly intelligent and sentient these beings are. This To the Best of Our Knowledge podcast on The Secret Language of Trees was also a delight I    listened to several times. Other writers were more akin to a soul-guide for me, leading me into my inner-terrain and teaching me how my soulscape would grow from encounters with grief, especially when confronted with ecocidal evidence of colonialization and conquering mentalities and histories. Bill Plotkin, Francis Weller and Mary Reynolds Thompson all offered language to infuse the this landscape with sacred meaning and soulful growth. From this arbored place of learning, reading, and writing I would emerge; descending to the adventure that awaited on the forest floor as I followed the metaphoric crumbs through the woods towards my longing and belonging

“In the forest much is sensed and not always seen.”

— Mary Reynolds Thompson

I took long walks in the woods, these wanderings inviting solitude and aloneness. This time was completely different than being lonely or alienated from everything else. This was a time to allow my senses to tune in to the relationships that surrounded all of me fostering connection. For beneath me was the vast networks of mycelia, roots reaching to form familial connections that pass nourishment, information, and care along. Above me were the family trees: branches and trunks that told of storied and wise mothers, offspring, and the deep desire to be and behold. And all around me was the feeling of literally being transfused with veriditas, the greening power of God. This bioregion began working its deep and rooted truths on me. Within the wooded canopy you stay with questions, not the quick answers. Its not about racing through the trees to a finish line for there is no straight forward way in the woods. These timbered halls echo with the meaning of the journey, offering circuitous paths and passages, the wandering the value, the walking revealing universal truths. An authentic life will not travel the well-worn road traveled by many. Here a different worth is weighed. Eco-spirituality writer Mary Reynolds Thompson talks bout how the forest teaches that "No longer is  expediency, efficiency, and uniformity most prized." Rather, here in the the wild our soul awakens to the creative impulse and power that resides within the Spirit of a place, "a place that thrums and thrives with creativity, authenticity, and diversity." 

Once one begins the journey of wild soul discovery, there is a distinct divergence from popular paths; the trailhead allures and assures of something more, something deeper, something transformative. An authentic life leads to the woods and one's metaphorical red cape and basket of goods for Granny become the very things that ensure radical change. 

Beside all of this vibrancy and evidence of new life there appeared a shadow-side. There was a demand to remember the past that cut and clawed, crushing the indigenous life that flourished here for thousands of years before white European settlers laid their severe and severing claim. Beside every second generation old growth tree was the old growth one that was cut down, viewed only for its value as a resource; seen not as something sacred, but as a storehouse of wealth and power. I felt deep sorrow for the ancient groves that no longer stood and grief for the leveled and logged life, felled by the axe and saw. Hear me well, I did not move through these woods with disdained judgment and pious partisanship. No, this was a tension I held and attempted to stay in. A tension held between two poles, one hand holding the pole of indigenous wisdom and traditions, and the other the pole of Western modernity and capitalist claims of unlimited growth. Between these two places, within this tension, is the high seat of Spirit, that holy presence that can look to the past with discernment and empathic wisdom and to the future with a hope for flourishing and regenerativity. By staying present to both the past and the possibility, I felt I was able to tap into the place, growing roots that tapped into listening to the sacred and holy intelligence of this forestscape, leaning into the historic complexity of the recent history here too. My hope became an enflamed imagination for what this second growth forest could be if allowed to grow undisturbed for 200 years, allowing the tree canopy to grow and increasing in biodiversity. The nurse logs and decaying stumps, while evidence of a slaying, also are the nourishing sites for life!

I traveled through the forest valley, created and carved by the ancient presence of the lower Snoqualmie River, which cascades in a flurry of 276 feet of sacred force known as the Snoqualmie Falls. Snoqualmie Falls is a nationally significant cultural site of great spiritual importance to the Snoqualmie Tribe, whose people traditionally inhabited this valley, hunting wildlife and collecting plants and fish. For the Snoqualmie Tribe (sdukʷalbixʷ), the significance of Snoqualmie Falls can be understood through the cosmological legend of Moon the Transformer. The story was recorded by anthropologist Arthur C. Ballard (1876-1962) in the early 19th century, as related to him by Snoqualmie Charile (sia'txted) (b. ca. 1850). This story was formed from this place, the earth manifesting into language and legend in unique particularity. Confronting the violent history of conquering colonialism comes unbidden as the commercializing of this sacred falls into a utility and recreational source cannot be ignored. This is complex and intersectional, I understand. However, what happens when we strip away the sacredness of the Earth is a removal of personhood, the essence that gives a being rights, voice, and story. I'm not advocating for appropriation of indigenous stories; I am asking that we learn from these stories that percolated up from this landscape. Listening to the numinous within native tales is to give the land its tongue again, and then it is our work to listen and learn from her language. 

“Remember the earth whose skin you are...”

— Joy Harjo

We weren't placed on the earth, we emerged out of the earth. Indigenous cosmologies, creation origin stories, emphasize the interrelatedness between our natality and the nourishing and numinous topographies of Earth. The Hebrew Bible creation story within Genesis chapter two is no different. Even in this indigenous Christian myth there is an explicit connection to humanity being formed of the earth: "then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7 New Revised Standard Version). This is not mere dust, this is humus, the nutrient rich dark soil created when leaf litter (duft) covers a forest floor, creating a thick layer of humus. In addition to the plant material in leaf litter, humus is composed of decaying animals, such as insects, and other organisms, such as mushrooms. These ancient myths capture something of vital importance: the landscape is our ancestor, our kin. Mary Reynolds Thompson says it this way, "Four billion years of Earth's wisdom are embedded in your cells. It is time to awaken to the whole magnificent geography of your soul."

We are formed out of the earth and our bodily composition mirrors the interrelatedness. Not only do our physical forms find mirroring traits and characteristics of the earth, but we discover that these topographies image something of our soul too. Ecotheologian and cultural historian Thomas Berry says, "Beyond our genetic coding, we need to go to the earth, as the source from when we came, and ask for her guidance, for the earth carries the psychic structure as well as the physical form of every living being upon the planet." (Dream of the Earth, 195). There is a psycho-spiritual connection we feel in various landscapes. This resonance informs where we are actually from (our own indigenous heritage); what may be the location of our current soul formation; and it may also inform an inner-landscape that is our actual soulscape, our inner nature that mirrors features of the outer world, or outer nature. Within this sacred and soulful ground is where we and Earth meet, expressing ourselves to one another and offering amplification for one another as well. The forest not only teaches me not only about itself, but even more about me. There is an inherent connection between not only our physical bodies and the earth, but also our psyches. These bioregions restore lost or exiled aspects of ourselves and in the rediscovery of ourselves, in our re-membing of ourselves to Living Earth and the great community of things who make up life on this planet, we begin to participate in restoring the earth as well.

I have discovered that while all Earth's sacred landscapes speak to and through me, I resonate most with the woods. I find I long for the shelter of the woods over the comfort of other bioregions. Within the towering timber I find myself deeply at home, able to express myself in my meant-for-ness. The forest is not just external or extrinsic although I literally love to be in the woods. It is also archetypal. The forest is a place of being lost, finding one's way, roots, emerging strength, creative and nourishing energy, and sometimes (most times) it involves the process of even being found. I have come alongside Dante in the famous opening lines of his "Divine Comedy":                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

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“In the middle of the journey of my life,
I found myself in a dark wood;
for the straight way was lost”

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Forest Rewilding Practices 

Within the 140 pages of the Waymarkers Rewilding Workbook, you will find many invitations to prayers, practices, rites and rituals that will assist in your tuning into the natural world. This sacred setting is no less than our soul's resonance with the natural rhythms and seasonal movements found within the natural world. I find that as every new quadrant of the Rewilding Wheel begins, I am more than ready to learn and lean into the lessons contained within the corresponding bioregion. This Spring I delighted in all things Fire, Forest, and Flowering. It truly felt like the embers of the anima mundi were catching the tinder of the forest duft, sparking my creative imagination and inspiring me to walk into the metaphorical woods, wandering into the mythopoetic text of transformation. There have been many new ideas that have been birthed in this season, sacred life being formed that will begin to take on shape in the requisite work and production time of the Summer quadrant of the Rewilding Wheel. I look forward to sharing these in the season to come!

Following are a few of the personal practices I engaged with to deepen the forest mood in me, and cultivate a daily awareness of how this particular landscape expresses the Holy and becomes a sacred messenger as well. 

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With the sacred symbolism of Fire within this Eastern Springtime quadrant, I wanted to play with fire this season. I engaged the challenge of learning how to make fire with a bow-drill, an ancient fire-starting method that is more about relationship and rhythm than ever even getting a fire started. Again, even in this act, I was learning about how this season and bioregion is about holding the question not rushing towards the answer. My son, an eager and natural carver, willingly assisted me with the creation of the bow-drill. We are grateful to the good folk at Taproot Magazine who provided a very helpful and meaningful tutorial on this practice.  

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A thread that binds together the energy of the Fire and the Forest is found within the idea of inspiration. Forests help the world breath, and they have the capacity to inspire us as well, a word that comes from the Latin spiritus-breath. We use our breath to bring an ember to life and to live as a flame. We talk about a spark lighting up our imagination. Both the imagination and inspiration are the fertile ground in which new ideas emerge, a forest floor full of seed life and nourishing root systems, awaiting the light of the most primal life force, the sun, to awaken it and it bring it into form. Within the forest we witness the universal truth that we rise only when rooted. 

By bringing these seasonal and nature symbologies together into a bioregion, the Rewilding Wheel, the sacred circuit that guides these practices, aims to reroot oneself back into the rhythms, wisdom, and patterns that create this planet and our own flesh, feelings and ways to connect to the Sacred. 

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This past season I loved the sensual experience of cedar. By infusing my lava stone amber necklace every morning with cedar essential oil, I was offering myself the blessings of the trees. This scent carried itself with me all day so no matter where I was, I had an unconscious connection and access to the health benefits of being within the forest. I would even add a drop to my face cream ensuring that I was anointed with this woodland oil!

I also would light a tea candle in my essential oil diffuser (this copper oil diffuser is the one I use daily for my morning rituals), adding cedawood oil while facing East, saying prayers of gratitude for the emergence of a new day and for that great big flaming fire ball that is the origin of all life. It really became a favorite time of the day to gather in my senses and orient them to this season and bioregion and attune my senses to how God speaks through these elements. 

When I  placing the oil within the beads of my necklace or my oil diffuser, I    would offering up this simple prayer:

Creator God who makes yourself known through the tall and resilient strength of the cedar tree, bless to me this day. May my life be like medicine to those who are hurting, nourishment to those who are hungry, and warmth to those who may need shelter and clothing. May I grow rooted in your wisdom, like the cedar grows rooted in the soil, so that I too may rise within your strength. Amen. 

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Drinking delicious cups of fir tip or source tea became another meaningful ritual this past Spring. Bright lime green and tender needles burst with new life and amazing nutrients, truly what my body appeared to be desiring after the cold and dark winter. This cup of liquid vitamin C and electrolytes was medicine for the Coast Salish peoples, and is still enjoyed today for its vibrant characteristics. There are many ways to enjoy fresh fir or spruce tips, but truly mine was in a steaming cup of water with lime and my dad's honey. I am fortunate that I'm able to forage these tips locally within my homescape, and I hope that you too can engage in this practice that demands a knowing relationship with your forest friends. Please do forage responsibly and honorably; do no harvest tips from trees that have been sprayed or treated with herbicides and honorably harvest with a deep sense of gratitude and reciprocity. Take the time to introduce yourself to the tree and express gratitude for the gift of food and medicine she is providing.

You can prepare a hot tea by taking a handful of spring tips per 3-4 cups of boiled water.  Cover and let steep about 10 minutes. Add lime (or even a stick of cinnamon!) and honey to taste. 

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Listening in Place as Practice & Poetry-A Workshop with David Whyte

On Saturday, March 3 I had the opportunity to do a workshop with the cultural luminary, David Whyte through The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology's Alumni Lecture Series. Following are some of the thoughts and themes that came through our sharing, interaction, and play.

__________

When we listen deeply to the places that create our homescapes, our bioregions, we learn the stories of the land and create an imagination for how to mutually belong within these places. This practice of listening becomes a ritual in that it connects us to the great belonging within the community of creation, and also invites the Spirit to break in afresh, posturing us forward toward possibilities of a flourishing future. These are acts of remembrance and re-membering, practices that remind us of our interrelationship with the more-than-human world and bring us back into membership within this assembly. 

The practice of listening in place will ultimately draw forth sorrow and lament, especially when one begins to attune to the silence of the beings (biodiversity) that are no longer there. How do we respond when the natural world no longer functions with resilience, when the bird’s song is still and the forests no longer refresh after the fires?

Where is the habitat of hope when the ice melts, the seas rise, and the forests burn? Can we find it in the silence? Will the still small voice call from within the wilderness, calling us to lean deeper into the silence and there find our true belonging?  

Ecotheologian and ethicist Larry Rasmussen says it this way,

“We are not so much at home on earth, as we are home as earth.”

The integrity of the natural world renders our most basic and fundamental task: to live in such ways that ensure a flourishing and regenerative life for all of the created world and for all future generations within it. So how we live in our particular places does matter as we are meant to be in deep relationship with the whole assembly of creation. David Whyte's poetry guided us into an imagination for this relationship, a kind of dialogue with the natural world and the particularity of place that transforms one's soul. He spoke of this growing sense of interrelationship as a journey, a pilgrimage that would ultimately lead one to and through the most fundamental questions of life. 

For me, my practice of of listening to my place has brought me to and through a question and process of acknowledging how my understanding of stewardship was based on superiority. My decades long urban forest restoration work hit a false floor; for me to continue to learn from this land, I had to engage in not just restoration, but personal deconstruction. And so I began the work of learning how my Whiteness granted me the privilege of choice to move to the Rainier Valley, and allowed my access to systems to change land policy. I had to confront the reality that white supremacy allowed me to be a steward of this land. And that even the theological idea of stewardship was one based on hierarchy, dominion, and power. I learned about how the oppression of the earth and the oppression of people are two sides of the same coin—you will not have liberation of one without the liberation of the other. My practice led me into important times of learning from tribal elders, who taught me that the land speaks. They showed me how they listen to the land. I began to realize that my understanding of stewardship had actually caused me to become deaf to the sacred soils of my particular place. 

Stewarding this forest would only allow so much access to the spirit of this place. I had to begin the work, the practice of perceiving and participating within my bioregion. Bioregionalism is what environmental activist and poet Gary Snyder calls the “Spirit of Place.” To know the spirit of a place is to realize that you are a part of a part and that the whole is made of parts, each of which is a whole. I began to reconstruct my understanding of Cheasty through a whole perspective, leaning into the wisdom and teaching inherent in the land. It is this process of listening into a place, or perception and participation of a place, that will reveal sacred stories and ultimately encourage a move towards solidarity and a deep sense of belonging within our bioregion. Bioregional awareness teaches us in specific ways.

Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place and it must be grounded in information and experience. Learning about the forest through the lens of sacred and storied ecology has not only taught me about the land, it has taught me how to be human and a member of an ecological community.

The lessons of the forest are those humanity need most right now. 

Within this practice of knowing, we can find our habitat of hope. A habitat of hope acknowledges the suffering that Western stewardship has wielded that has resulted in the silencing and extinction of species, and it invites a new way of seeing, a new way of being that is in solidarity with the natural world. It is Aldo Leopold’s think like a mountain. I’ve found it as I’ve begun to think like a forest. It is looking at the landscape through the lenses of foundational power, intersectional engagement, and revelatory awareness so to bring us into a profound sense of home and belonging as the earth.

 Through this workshop, David and I attempted to bring these lessons to the participants. We brought in elements from my homescape, lowland urban forest plants that were honorably harvested for workshop attendees to co-create nature mandalas, an activity that encourages a way of meeting and knowing the natural world that invites communion and revelatory understanding. The 13th century Japanese Buddhist priest, write, poet, and philosopher Dōgen once said,

“When you find your place where you are, practice occurs.” 

The mandala, which is ancient Sanskrit for “circle,” is a symbolic circular design that portrays balance, symmetry, and wholeness. Mandalas are found in almost every culture, and can serve as a sacred reminder of the path we seek to walk. My nature mandalas, which I co-create monthly, are a continuing practice of learning the land—connecting to the plant and tree life that make up my homescape, learning from them of the medicine and food they offer, leaning into their seasonal stories, remembering our interrelatedness and meant-for-ness. This is a practice of forming what theologian Steven Bouma-Prediger calls an ecological perception of place. That is, a practice to get to know your ecology by becoming familiar over time with as many components of your ecology as you can. In other words, this is a practice of learning to listen and attune to storied and sacred land.

 And so this workshop was one that brought us through the terrain of our imagination, a journey that led us to participate with the sacredness that is within the wild world that exists all around us. It was a time of inviting a profound shift in how we understand ourselves in relationship with the environment that values it for its inherent integrity and particular revelatory qualities.

I am deeply grateful to The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology for inviting me into this opportunity to share of my experience and learning, and to David for his willingness to share space with me in this context. May we all be inspired to engage this deep work of practicing listening in place! 

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Are you curious about co-creating nature mandalas as a spiritual practice? Read more about this way of learning with the land here! 

The Wilderness Will Return You Home

This morning I sang an ancient song that reminded me that the tree's of the field clap their hands and that the hills break forth with singing. Today's lectionary reading from Isaiah 55 invited an empire-orientation to remember the wilderness and to return. For the ancient Hebrew people, there was a critical connection between who they were and where they were. In the wild was a place of wholeness and belonging. Is the wilderness still calling to us? Are the forests clapping (or burning?) and mountains singing (or moaning?) for us to return and re-member our selves and understanding of the sacred? 

Wilderness is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving beings flourishing accord to their own sorts of order. This is the is-ness of a place; where what one is intended to be, is. In ecology we speak of “wild systems.” when an ecosystem is fully functioning, poet and writer Gary Snyder says that “all the members are present at the assembly.” 

To speak of wilderness is to speak of wholeness. 

Rewilding is a term that is used in ecological circles to describe the processes of large-scale conservation efforts aimed at restoring and protecting natural processes and core wilderness areas. This is a way of restoring and returning a landscape to its natural, uncultivated state with the reintroduction of species—both plant and animal—that have been driven out or exterminated based on human behavior. I have been about this ecological restoration work in Seattle’s urban forests since 2007. Restoring the forest is one thing, can this practice also lead to human restoration? 

There is a movement that seeks to apply similar rewilding principles to human beings. And in this approach the definition of wilderness, wildness, wilding, or rewilding spans a spectrum with the most general definition seeing rewilding as a process that takes us out of our human-centric selves and into an on-going ecological relationship with the natural world and becoming respectful co-inhabitants of a place.

Rewilding then becomes a process of becoming whole once again. 

I apply this ecological, conservation term and framework to the soul-scape, understanding that the human spirit has been largely domesticated and hemmed in by various religious traditions and teachings, as well as commercial and capitalistic belief structures. These traditional systems affirm humanity as the apex of creation at the cost of the rest of creation. As a result we have cultivated a disconnection, to the point of a collective amnesia, from how place forms and shapes us culturally, personally, and spiritually. Our empire orientation has caused us to forget the wilderness; we have forgotten the revelatory voice and sacred song of creation.

We are being called back to the wilderness to become whole with the Sequoias, with the pines, finding our completion in the patterns of the seasons and songs of the mountains.   

Emergence

This is merely a note to awaken you to what is emerging here at Waymarkers. I graduated with my Masters in Theology & Culture from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology and a specialization in Thomas Berry's Universe Story from Yale University this past June. In these past years, my studies, research, and writing have all reached towards Waymarkers in some way, shape, or fashion, wondering about how my learnings would integrate into my work that shows up in the world wide web through Waymarkers.  These summer months have seen this wonderings become more clarified, and these emergences will begin to show themselves through a new website and offerings, expanded writing themes beyond that of pilgrimage, and engagement with theories around ecotheology, sacred ecology, and a reverence for creation as the dwelling place for the divine. I hope this is enough to pique your interest and that you will feel invited to journey along with me upon paths that will take us deeper into the wilds where Creator can be heard speaking through all created things.

Seminary Musings: Connected to the Other through the Stars and Soil

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On this Day of Epiphany, and before my next term at school holds my time hostage once again, I wanted to take a moment to share some of the emerging thoughts that have been personally prominent these past few months.  As we take time today to reflect on the legendary Three Wise Men, kingly magis who had deep knowledge of the links between the Divine and the cosmos, may we too ponder how we invite our celestial neighbors to inform our sense of awe of the Grand Story in which we continue to participate. 

I returned to seminary with an understanding that I needed a framework of academy and community to speak into inklings and intuitions that I have based my vocational experiences upon.  My work of the last 10 years has been based on ideas that promote living on behalf of the Other and the Future as a way of delving into a meaningful life that furthers the peace of heaven on earth.  These reflections have led me to actively engage our urban neighborhood in a call to see our local urban forest as both "other" and the future in that there has been a traditional treatment of this land that is akin to oppression, misalignment, marginalization and fear.  My hunch over the last many years has drawn connections with how we treat our native landscapes and how we treat one another.  It is no longer a surprise that this particular Southeast Seattle forest is also one that is stymied by outdated models of conservation and policies that have prevented and prohibited access by the City's most diverse and traditionally underserved community.

This is all to say, the intersection of urban place, the environment, and how this all informs our spiritual identity has been driving my academic pursuits, and will continue to be the lens from which I look at my learnings and studies.  I would like to share with you all my "Theological Anthropology" paper that was assigned for one of my courses last term.  Yes, this is a vulnerable display of my academic blunderings, but my desire is to stay transparent with my Waymarkers community in what I'm learning, and where, I (and this on-line community) is heading in the future.  I would love to hear your thoughts and reflections on this paper!  With that, please do read on with great grace for my professional attempts.  Perhaps a bringing along cup of tea would assist in the softening of the reading!  And may this be an invitation for us all to be like the Three Wise Men, and continue to look up to the stars as guidance for our journey on the soil of this good earth below.

A Theological Anthropology: Loving Your Neighbor Well Through the Land

Different faith traditions from all over the world uphold the basic tenants of The Golden Rule or the ethic of reciprocity.  Echoes of this wise code, from Hinduism (“Treat others as you would yourself be treated.”) to Native American spirituality (“Live in harmony, for we are all related.”), carry a similar semblance of the demand that people treat others in a manner in which they themselves would like to be treated (Princeton University, Ethic of reciprocity, n.d.). The intrinsic morality that is bound in this maxim, as delivered by YHWY in Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD,” contains essential attributes of the way humanity is called to live in connection with the Creator through kinship with others on this planet.  The triune nature of the Trinity makes God’s self known through diversity in relationships with the other and revelation through Nature, and subsequently models and informs how one lives wholly and well in intentional relationship with other people and things.  It is through the mutual respectful engagement of all living things—be it neighbor or nature—that a justice-oriented response to living occurs; one that discovers and responds to the goodness of God through the integrated presence, and subsequent love, of the other and the natural world. 

The Western Judeo/Christian ethical standard to love one’s neighbor as one’s self demands that one exists fully and well when in relationship with human beings and other living things for it is in the exposure and experience with others that God is encountered.  With the call to love one’s neighbor as much as one’s self, there is an inherent challenge to enter into a degree of relationship that removes the other from a place of isolated alienation to a place in the community, even to the extent of being the one who literally lives next door.  By use of the glaring call within Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29, Guitiérrez (2000) courageously claims that love for God is activated by loving the neighbor, particularly the wounded or needy (p. 149).  Guitiérrez dares people of faith to see the neighbor as someone other than the like-minded person with whom one shares similar dreams and passions, and adjacent real estate in a suburban cul-de-sac.  He states, “The neighbor is not the one whom I find in my path, but rather the one in whose path I place myself, the one whom I approach and actively seek” (Guitiérrez, 2000, p. 153).  Based on an intentional relocating of the other, or relocating to become neighbors to the other, one can shift objectifying macro-perceptions to the personal, integrated stuff of one’s very own lives, and lean into the dynamic lifestyle of transforming Other to Neighbor to Self where the self-preservation with which one is born is willfully desired for all who live and exist.  

This justice-oriented approach of integrating the other into one’s daily life finds theological grounding in Jürgen Moltmann’s (1993) ecological doctrine of creation.  The monotheistic standpoint of God resulted in a historical perception of a God that was disconnected from the created world, but maintained a powerful presence as ruler and owner of all therein.  Moltmann (1985) states, “As a result, the human being—since he was God’s image on earth—…was bound to confront his world as its ruler” (pg. 1).  As dominator, the human being could be excused from a relationship with all of creation and move into roles of objectifier and oppressor.  This role as ruler, which again allowed the human to relate to a monotheistic God, justified actions against anyone other-than-himself and an exploitative use of the earth and its resources.  This way of understanding God clearly has ill effects on the globe and its community; therefore Moltmann (1985) offers a Trinitarian perspective of God that binds all of humanity and creation in a relationship created for the common good:

If we cease to understand God monotheistically as the one, absolute subject, but instead see him in a Trinitarian sense as the unity of the Father, the Son and the Spirit, we can then no longer, either, conceive his relationship to the world he created as a one-sided relationship of domination. We are bound to understand it as an intricate relationship of community.

(p. 2) 

The Trinitarian nature of God provides a relational model that mandates a knowledge and understanding of the other, and a relationship that results in a bond from stranger to that of neighbor.  

This transformational process is made available because of the incarnational nature of God and the Christian’s call to embody Christ.  The nature of God is relational as seen in the Trinity; therefore we are bound to understand God in relationship with community.  Barsness (2006) understands this relational encounter as hallowed when he states “Our relationships must be held sacred, for it is the nature of God to reveal himself incarnationally” (p. 45). It is in relationship with others, where Christ is embodied, and where humanity becomes the Imago Christi.  So, when care is extended for others, it is Christ caring; when forgiveness is offered, it is Christ forgiving; when reconciliation is engaged, it is Christ healing and reconciling through the embodiment of the human experience.  To dispense God’s healing and wholeness through encounters with others, to be present to their pain and needs requires a physical presence to those wounded places and people.  Martin Buber (1970) would say, “God is present when I confront you. But if I look away from You, I ignore him. As long as I merely experience or use you, I deny God. But when I encounter You I encounter him (p. 28).  It is in this call to the genuine encounter with another human being or life with nature (Buber, 1970, p. 57) that Moltmann’s (1985) doctrine of creation and Guitiérrez’s (2000) liberation theology weave together into a critical challenge for humanity in the 21st century; the future of fecund life on this planet will be determined by the ability to extend justice and love for neighbor to include the rights of the earth and the greater community of things with whom life is shared on this planet.  Indeed, to be an image-bearer of the Imago Christi involves loving respect for all of God’s creatures.

Moltmann (1985) states, “The dignity of human beings is unforfeitable, irrelingquishable and indestructible” (p. 33).  To see the human in a state of inherent goodness transforms how one views the other and has vast implications for how relational engagement ensues.  To stand with an understanding of created dignity invites one to seek out the Divine in one another; we are challenged with the beauty of truly encountering the Imago Dei in others in our neighborhood.  Furthermore, this posture of dignity has implications for the planet and beyond.  Aquinas says: “God wills that humans exist for the sake of the perfection of the universe” (as sited in Fox, 2011, p. 28).  This same inherent goodness can be applied to the natural world, which also participates in worship and adoration of the Creator God.  Aquinas also stated:

Because the Divine goodness could not be adequately expressed by one creature alone, God has produced many and diverse creatures so what is wanting in one in the representation of divine goodness might be supplied by another.  Thus the whole universe together participates in the divine goodness.  (p. 28)

This is a celebration of the diverse order of created things and underscores the importance of a relational view of the diversity of the Trinity.  This perspective also recovers a sense of the sacred in local neighborhoods and the greater landscapes beyond by acknowledging the inherent goodness and revelatory means of Creation.  However, implicit in the genuine encounters available with the other on a sidewalk or forested trail, is the need to rediscover the vastness of God’s immanence beyond our world.  There is a need to recover a sense of this grand divine cosmos, a whole in which all of humanity participates as image bearers of God.

The Imago Christi participates in this elaborate perspective as well.  Cultural historian and spiritual ecologist Thomas Berry (1987) is explicit in placing his vision in the lineage of the Cosmic Christ, which is written of in John’s Gospel (Christ as the ‘light in all things’).  He writes:

If Saint John and Saint Paul could think of the Christ form of the universe, if Aquinas could say that the whole universe together participates in the divine goodness more perfectly and represents it better than any single creature whatever, and if Teilard could insist that the human gives to the entire cosmos its most sublime mode of being, then it should not be difficult to accept the universe itself as the primordial sacred community. (p. 38)

This is a clear and grand picture beyond the anthropocentrism from which the Christian consciousness needs to depart; a move in this direction not only affirms the dignity of humanity, but that of the other, which includes the vast and great cosmic community of which our planet is a part.  This is a bold movement from seeing God as the absolute subject, which increasingly stripped God of his connection with the world (Moltmann, 1970, p. 1).       

The effects of a monotheological thought regime has wreaked havoc on the marginalized and on our planet.  In fact, it could be argued that geoengineering (the intentional large-scale modification of the earth and weather patterns by dominating humans) schemes have become uniformly disastrous as we see the heart-wrenching effects of damming and deforestation on our planet and within our communities (Jenson, 2013, p. 11).  McFague (2002) provides a helpful theological framework of traditional models of the God-world relationship and why these models result in thought patterns and behaviors that are detrimental to the earth, the greater community of things, and ultimately, even personally.  She suggests a critical shift to the agential model by asserting that the world is God’s body (p. 40).  To understand this in light of Buber’s (1970) life-with-nature relational sphere allows one to fully accept and engage the natural world as revelatory (p. 58).  While Buber would have understood this relation to be with individual animals, rocks, or elements, this intentional awareness of the potential of a genuine encounter with the natural world is evidenced when he writes, “something lights up and approaches us from the course of [its] (the tree) being” (Kramer, 2003, p. 52-53).  During an I/Thou encounter with a natural thing, there is the unique particularity of the thing that “speaks;” this is relational evidence that the created world emanates from the Creator.  The resulting effect of Buber’s (1970) relational sphere with the natural world and McFauge’s (2002) agential model offers freedom to live fully and transformational into local neighborhoods, thus affecting global trends. 

            To divorce God’s presence from the created world has had profound effects on the human and community experience.  The resulting disconnect from nature can be seen the world over; while it is evidenced in the power-over posture that has resulted in geoengineering sciences, it is also evident on local levels in how traditional cities have been designed with little access to Nature in mind.  “People with less access to nature show relatively poor attention or cognitive function, poor management of major life issues, poor impulse control,” says Frances Kuo, a professor at the University of Illinois, adding that humans living in a neighborhood stripped of nature undergo patterns of social, psychological, and physical breakdown similar to those observed in animals deprived of their natural habitat. “In animals, what you see is increased aggression, disrupted parenting patterns, and disrupted social hierarchies” (Louv, 2013, n.p.).  One cannot live the designed life of wholeness and health without engaging the natural world.  There is a profound link between how one engages creation and subsequently treats the other, and their neighbor.

The resulting negative psychological implications of removing access to nature in urban communities has been noted and strong voices are now coming to the table to encourage urban leaders and designers to re-imagine how to integrate natural and wild landscapes into cities and neighborhoods.  Richard Louv (2013), the author of the renowned book Last Child in the Woods, also contests that genuine encounters with the natural world will have profound effects on our communities on neighborhoods.  Note his list of the seven comprehensive effects of access to nature on communities: improves psychological health, may help reduce domestic violence, natural playgrounds may decrease bullying, encountering other species help children develop empathy, greater biodiversity in cities can increase social and family bonding, and more nature in one’s life can offset the dangerous psychological impact of climate change (Louv, 2013, n.p).  There is something physiological that occurs within the human when exposed to the unpredictable environment; the body, mind, and spirit positively reacts when experiencing the earth beneath their feet and the euphoric effects impacts not only the individual, but also the community for good.  Creation is designed to be revelatory and provides not only the environment for a genuine encounter with God, but also is the context for where people engage others in a sacred space of dialogue.  Jones (1985) speaks to this socio-wilderness dynamic when he says:

Without the occasional abrasive brush with the unexpected, human life soon becomes a mere matter of routine; and, before we know where we are, a casual indifference and even brutality takes over and we begin to die inside. The shock breaks open the deadly ‘everydayness’ that ensnares us and brings something awesome and terrifying to our reluctant attention: the believer’s name for that ‘something’ is God. (p. 84)   

Clearly, there is something of the essential goodness of God that is bestowed on God’s creation for the effects of natural environments to have such profound effects on a person.  To not have exposure and experience with nature can lead to the brutal posture that objectifies and exploits the other.   To see the inherent goodness in nature and its intended presence in the lives of humanity leads to a therapeutic stance that acknowledges how the surrounding landscapes can participate in the healing and wholeness of individuals and communities.  The mysteries of God will be better accommodated when we recalibrate God’s creative landscape to include planet earth and every creature that lives here.

Our neighborhoods are never singular communities, but are actually a mesh of myriad overlapping networks. We all belong to many different communities, from the diffuse (i.e. a professional association, or an online message board), to the intimate (i.e. a family, or a group of friends).  In consideration of the paramount impact of how a landscape informs an individual and how they connect to the other in their community, there is an emerging theory called “Placemaking” that aims to create a balance of uses in public spaces that serve the many communities at once; in this way a landscape can serve as a therapeutic response to the needs of a neighborhood.  A single place can’t do everything at once, so “Placemaking” prompts us to look for convenient and clever ways to make limited space serve multiple functions.   De Botton and Armstrong (2013) have suggested that by balancing ones need with those of the people by which one lives, one finds their place, literally and figuratively, within a community of neighbors.  By inviting the presence of a place to participate in the lives of communities for a common good, there is an acknowledgment of something profound and beyond human-limitations that is unleashed: God moves back into the neighborhood!

 The challenge of loving and caring for one another well in the 21st century requires one to recover a primordial sense of the vast mystery of God and apply that energy to paying attention to the earth.  Our love of neighbor needs to be extended to the greater community of things on this planet and our neighborhood needs to considerably broaden to include our universe as well.  Historically anthropocentric views have concerned Christians with the redemption of this world alone, and have disconnected the very nature of a connected, covenantal God with the diversity of his inherently good creation.  Nobel Peace Prize two-time nominee Ervin Lazlo (2011) attests that “seeing ourselves as separate from the world fuels selfish and irresponsible tendencies: we are only responsible for ourselves, and not for ‘foreigners,’ ‘competitors,’ and ‘others’” (p. 117).  In bringing the care of the earth into the folds of reconciliation, there is acknowledgement that human-centric modern history has caused great harm to marginal people groups, and environmental injustice to a host of living beings on this planet, as well as a severe disconnect from the goodness with which the earth was designed, and how that endowed goodness was created to participate in the whole person and health of a community.

In returning to a grand sense of awe before the God of the Universe, God’s relationship is placed with humanity into the context of billions and billions of galaxies.  This profound placement of the Great Mystery has immediate effects on how we engage and encounter the other and all living things.  “The experience of our connection with each other and the universe would inspire solidarity among people and empathy with all life on earth” (Lazlo, 2011, p. 124).  While God is intimately present as one’s neighbor on the front porch, to allow God’s cosmic vastness and presence in creation will inspire a critical mass that espouses values of sustainability, peace, and personal and social responsibility.  In this way, the embodied life of God is seen on earth.  The wisdom of the ethic of reciprocity, or The Golden Rule, unleashes love and empathy for the other and transforms all life on earth into one’s very neighbor. 

References

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       Psychology and Christianity, 25(1), pg. 45-54.

Berry, T. (1987). The earth: A new context for religious unity. InA. Lonergan and C. Richards(Eds.),

       Thomas Berry and the new cosmology. Msytic, CN: Third Publications.

Buber, M. (1970). I and thou. New York, NY: Touchstone.

Chaney, A.J.B. (n.d.). Ethic of reciprocity. Princeton University. Retrieved December 4, 2013, from

www.princeton.edu/~achaney.

De Botton, A. & Armstrong, J. (2013). Art as therapy. London: Phaidon Press Limited.

Fox, M. (2011). Some thoughts on Thomas berry’s contributions to the western spiritual tradition.                                                                       In E. Laszlo & A. Combs (Eds.), Thomas berry dreamer of the earth: The spiritual ecology of

 the father of environmentalism (pp. 16-31). Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.

Gutierrez,G. & Nickoloff, J.B. (2000). Gustavo Gutierrez: Essential writings. New York, NY: Orbis.

Jensen, D. (2013, September/October). Dead end: on killing the planet in order to save it. Orion

       Magazine. 32(2), 11-12. 

Jones, A. (1985). Soul-Making: Desert way of spirituality. San Fransisco, CA: Harper and Row.

Laszlo, E. (2011). Berry and the shift from the anthropocentric to the ecological age. In E. Laszlo & A.

Combs (Eds.), Thomas berry dreamer of the earth: The spiritual ecology of the father of environmentalism (pp. 16-31). Rochester, VT:            Inner Traditions.

Louv, R. (2013, November). A momentous week for the children and nature movement: Big pediatric

       and public health news and a boost from the interior. The New Nature Movement. Retrieved from http://blog.childrenandnature.org/.

Love, R. (2013, August 22). Restoring Peace. Psychology Today. Retrieved from

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/people-in-nature/201308/restoring-peace.

McFague, S. (2002, March 13-20). Intimate Creation. The Christian Century, 36-45.

Moltmann, J. (1985). God in creation. Norwich: SCM Press Ltd.