Spiritual Ecology

How do you review a year? If I was going to review 2024 as if it was a book, I think I would write “thumbs down,” “this plot is ridiculous,” “author jammed so much into this story that it doesn’t make sense,” or something like that. Yet, here I am, leafing through the pages of my planner and thinking, “How…

Today is World Habitat Day which I admit I thought was about wild habitats until I looked it up. The United Nations actually intended World Habitat Day to bring attention to the inequality and challenges faced by humans in cities and other settlements. I was going to write something about squirrels instead but especially considering discussions around the rebuilding of…

When I began my research into St. Francis for an interfaith seminary essay, I knew little of him beyond his designation as patron saint of ecology and the animals. I was curious how he became associated with animals and found a story about a wolf that intrigued me, especially in the context of wolf conservation challenges in the United States.…

A recent study conducted in my state found that turtles in wetlands surrounded by busy roads were more likely to be males. This finding only confirmed what I and other turtle rehabilitators already knew – during the late spring, many female turtles are hit by cars during their annual pilgrimage to lay their eggs. A pilgrimage is a journey, usually…

The red eft appeared from under some leaves and walked slowly down the hill towards the woods, seemingly oblivious to my presence. I shifted my gaze from the sapling that had been my meditation focal point to watch the eft. The bright red salamander stood out against the leaf litter, but the squirrels and chipmunks paid him no mind. By…

If your idea of meditation is sitting comfortably on a cushion in a softly lit, quiet room, with an hour-long recording of Tibetan singing bowls streaming on your tablet while incense smoke curls around you, sitting with squirrels is not the practice for you. If you are ready to be fully present to what is true now, even if what…

“Follow the turtle home,” repeated the box turtle, as he danced across the night sky. Each step sent a cloud of stardust flying, which left a sparkling wake behind him. “Follow the turtle home,” I heard again and again. When the drumbeat stopped, I came out of my first shamanic journey experience confused. What could that message mean? In the…

On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, I’m awake at 4:00 a.m. after another restless night during the COVID-19 pandemic and trying to think of a reason to say, “Happy Earth Day.” In 1970, the first Earth Day wasn’t a celebration, but a protest. Sparked by an oil spill, backed by a U.S. Senator, and organized from the ground up,…

On a Tuesday in September 2017 I had a Shamanic Reiki client in the afternoon, so my parents picked my son up from school. I arrived at their house to claim him as they were finishing dinner. When my father started to push his chair back, I said, “No, stay there. We have to run.” I missed out on a…