scholarly journals The Wind’s Prayer, the World’s Sabbath: Spirit and Place in Lance Henson and Wendell Berry

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 697
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Burkemper ◽  
David C. Mahan
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Environmental Activism ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Wendell Berry ◽  
The World ◽  
Ways Of Being

Although a vast body of poetry celebrates the natural world and addresses issues concerning the environment, it can be overlooked in the discourses of environmental activism. In this paper, we seek to demonstrate the unique contributions that poetry makes to a thoughtful, and in this case, theological, engagement with our present environmental crises. Here, we create a conversation between two poets of two different religious traditions. Cheyenne poet Lance Henson’s poem “we are a people” reimagines humanity’s self-conception in light of earthly interconnectedness from the perspective of his own Native American spiritual sensibilities. Christian poet Wendell Berry’s poem “Sabbaths IV” (1983) relocates our understanding of Sabbath beyond its liturgical designations and practices, asking us to attend to “the true world’s Sabbath”. We offer close readings of these two poems that mark the distinctions that emerge from and interact with their respective theological visions, but also where they find common ground. Through this work of reading literature theologically, we argue that these poems both refine our attentiveness to the earth as the site of religious import and consequence, and call upon readers to enact other ways of being in the world amidst the climate catastrophe that are inspired by faith and spirituality.

scholarly journals Occasionally, He’s a Somniaticidal Maniac: Stephen Graham Jones Reclaims Home and History

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-91
Author(s):  
Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Environmental Activism ◽  
Native American Literature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mother Earth

Environmental activism and preservation of the land, acknowledgement of our shared responsibilities to the planet, to unci maka, to Mother Earth, to our home; these are obligations of love we as human beings embrace with devoted regularity. But what happens when we look at stories that might destroy the world entirely, might remold, reshape, reclaim and remake (or perhaps even “rename” in a restorative move) our histories and homes? What is the reception for works that defy the expectations of devotion to the environment in Native American literature one genre at a time? That address historic erasure by reshaping the future? This paper will examine some of Stephen Graham Jones’s prolific works, including Sterling City, “How Billy Hanson Destroyed the Earth, and Everyone on It,” as well as Chapter Six, all published in a variety of platforms and collections. In each instance, the worlds as home and future history described are decidedly reclaimed, perhaps for good reasons, and perhaps for not so good reasons. The worlds offered to choose from, however, are ones that will likely give you nightmares, or at least pause, even in the daylight.

Tending this Fragile Earth, Our Island Home: The Pope's Encyclical in Dialogue with Ecomimesis, a Design Model for Conservation Stewardship

2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-766
Author(s):  
Lillian C. Woo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Pollution ◽  
Anthropogenic Impact ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Design Solution ◽  
World Population ◽  
Natural Ecosystem ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World

In the last fifty years, empirical evidence has shown that climate change and environmental degradation are largely the results of increased world population, economic development, and changes in cultural and social norms. Thus far we have been unable to slow or reverse the practices that continue to produce more air and water pollution, soil and ocean degradation, and ecosystem decline. This paper analyzes the negative anthropogenic impact on the ecosystem and proposes a new design solution: ecomimesis, which uses the natural ecosystem as its template to conserve, restore, and improve existing ecosystems. Through its nonintrusive strategies and designs, and its goal of preserving natural ecosystems and the earth, ecomimesis can become an integral part of stabilizing and rehabilitating our natural world at the same time that it addresses the needs of growing economies and populations around the world.

scholarly journals Language-ing the Earth: Experiential Renewal for a Relationally Sensitive Environmentalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-56
Author(s):  
Patrick Howard
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Relationship ◽  
Living World ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
Human World

This paper investigates human relationship with the larger living landscape that is grounded in experiential renewal. Phenomenology is antithesis to the process of abstraction and objectification through which the world as we experience it is diminished by conceptualization and categorization. Recent studies to understand the natural world as a hermeneutic text offers important reflections on the human mediation of the meaning of the more-than-human-world and assists in understanding the implications of our encounters with the world. Phenomenology, however, is unique in its capacity to bring to expression, rather than silencing, our relationship with the natural world and our human inherency in it. This paper explores phenomenologically sensate reciprocity as it is encountered in lived experience. Through deepening our attunement for our embodied integration in a living world we may relearn and restore a capacity to dwell more thoughtfully with newfound sensitivity, respect, and restraint in the ecosystems on which we wholly depend.

Inference Towards the Best Explanation: Reflections on the Issue of Climate Change

2015 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Holt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Qualitative Evidence ◽  
The World ◽  
Main Factor ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Science is an organized enterprise of inquiry which tries to tie together multiple strands of evidence to craft coherent explanations for disparate patterns in the natural world. Philosophers call this enterprise “inference towards the best explanation”. Such inferences at times depend upon detailed quantitative models, but at times one can rely upon the confluence of multiple strands of qualitative evidence. Humans are having unquestionable influences upon many aspects of the earth system at present, on land, in freshwater systems, and indeed the ocean, including devastating impacts on biodiversity. There are many patterns in the world at present – shrinking glaciers, shifting seasonal patterns in species’ life histories, and altered spatial distributions – which point to the signal of climate change, independent of the details of quantitative climate models. Yet, there are many other factors at play, often confounding clear assessment of the specific role of climate change in observed changes in the world. A deeper synoptic understanding of the drivers and impacts of climate change would be incredibly valuable and is urgently needed, even if in the end (though this seems increasingly unlikely) anthropogenic drivers were not the main factor underlying observed climate change.

1. Pilgrimage around the world

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Reader
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Spiritual Tourism ◽  
The World ◽  
A Site

Pilgrimage is a global human phenomenon spanning cultures, religions, and continents. Some pilgrimage centres attract millions of pilgrims each year creating an important ‘spiritual tourism’ industry. ‘Pilgrimage around the world’ shows that some sites are not faith-specific; Jerusalem has great significance in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and is a site of pilgrimage for all three. Not all pilgrimage places are internationally significant, however—many are essentially local in nature and involve replications of more famed and distant ones, allowing people who cannot travel far to simulate the pilgrimage. The detail of pilgrimage practices may differ across religious traditions and countries, but there is much common ground, even with ‘secular’ pilgrimages.

scholarly journals WENDELL BERRY: MEDIATING BETWEEN CULTURE AND NATURE

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 118
Author(s):  
Firas A. Nsaif Al Jumaili
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
Human Society ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Wendell Berry ◽  
American Poet ◽  
Environmental Reform ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Simple Life ◽  
New View

Wendell Berry who was born in 1945 is an American poet, novelist, environmental activist and a farmer.  Berry worships nature and constantly resorts to it but not to retreat from society to a simple life of nature or to escape from social obligations. Rather, he emphasizes the need for a new view of nature that goes beyond the mystical treatment of nature. This paper aims to review Berry’s efforts as a poet to mediate culture and nature through his words. Berry emphasizes labour and the cultivation of land for he is in between the civilized and the wild. Berry argues that culture and nature cannot be separated, and his conviction of the close connection between poetry and farming can be understood accordingly. Berry made great efforts through his works to reform the relationship between civilization and the earth. Unless human society renews the vision of its relationship with the natural world, there will be little hope of substantial and permanent environmental reform. This paper is hoped to inspire other poets, especially Asian poets to promote similar ideology in their works.Keywords: Culture, meditation, nature, place, wildernessCite as: Al Jumaili, F.A.N. (2017). Wendell Berry: Mediating between culture and nature. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 2(2), 118-126.

scholarly journals Ecology and Society. Impacted Ecosystems. Part I

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-29
Author(s):  
Marina Frontasyeva ◽  
Alexander Kamnev
Keyword(s):  
Social Indicators ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
Exponential Population Growth ◽  
Great Acceleration ◽  
Economic And Social Indicators ◽  
Exponential Population

Abstract The Earth has existed for more than four billion years and has sustained life for three billion. Human beings have existed for just 200,000 years, yet our impact on the planet is so great that scientists around the world are calling for our period in the Earth’s history to be named ‘the Anthropocene’ - the age of humans. The changes we are now making have exacted a heavy toll on the natural world around us, and now threaten the planet’s ability to provide for us all. Problems of Ecology and Society in the new geological era as the Anthropocene - ‘the age of humans’ - are overviewed. The name is widely recognized as a useful classification of the period in which human activity has created and continues to generate deep and lasting effects on the Earth and its living systems. Examples of the interrelated effects of exponential population growth and massively expanding consumption of natural resources called Great Acceleration are given. Updated ‘planetary dashboard’ of environmental, economic and social indicators charts the trajectory of the Anthropocene are briefly summarized.

scholarly journals Is Psalm 104 an expression (also) of dark green religion?

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hennie Viviers
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Close Association ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Dark Green ◽  
Deep Sense

Bron Taylor defines dark green religion as follows: ‘… a deep sense of belonging to and connectedness in nature, while perceiving the earth and its living systems to be sacred and interconnected’. Can Psalm 104, with its conspicuous focus on nature, also be described as an expression of dark green religion? Utilising especially the dark green values of belonging, interconnectedness and sacredness, it was found that the psalm aptly confirms Earth as home, illustrates a deep-seated kinship with other living creatures and acknowledges nature as intrinsically worthy or sacred through its close association with God. Of the four kinds of dark green religion, Gaian Naturalism and Naturalistic Animism (‘Darwinist’, naturalist view), Gaian Spirituality and Spiritual Animism (supernaturalist view), the psalm belongs to the last-mentioned, acknowledging Yahweh as upholding and ‘permeating’ the harmonious whole of creation. The poet is, however, also well informed of ‘natural’ knowledge of his environment (for his time obviously). The psalm’s joy, awe, astonishment, humility and fear (to a limited extent), being almost overwhelmed by awesome nature, are emotions that can also be shared by adherers to the naturalist view, those who doubt if there is some spiritual world running parallel to the natural world. The religious-like experience of naturalists provides common ground with the religious and enhances a much-needed change of view of respect towards nature.

Introduction: Being in Outer Space

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Adam Pryor
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Geological History ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The World ◽  
Ways Of Being

This work represents a transdisciplinary theological project. It is committed to fostering mutual understanding that stretches transversally across disciplinary boundaries by thinking through how tenets of astrobiology intersect with various reflections on human ways of being in the world and belonging to the world. The structure of the book is broadly inductive. The chapters provide a series of specific examples drawn from astrobiology, doctrinal reflection on the imago Dei, and reflections on the Anthropocene, to suggest an alternative approach to framing how human beings meaningfully are in the world and belong to it. Braiding together these diverse traditions, I suggest the Earth is not only a living planet but an artful one. To be an artful planet requires we take seriously geological history and the significance of the geological agency of homo sapiens. It also requires that we, as members of a species, own our responsibility for inducing new technobiogeochemical cycles into our planetary history.

Epilogue: Ad Astra Per Aspera

2020 ◽  
pp. 188-200
Author(s):  
Adam Pryor
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Imago Dei ◽  
World Today ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Existential Concerns

What happens when the Anthropocene and the imago Dei become corroborative symbols in the astrobiological contexts that shape our engagement with the world today? My argument has been that, in the face of various instances of ecological crises, the Anthropocene symbolizes the existential concerns at stake in this devastation so that we better understand that our way of meaningfully orienting our existence toward the natural world is askew. To remember that we are the imago Dei can give us courage to stay with the trouble of this disorientation a moment longer and imaginatively play out new realities that confront the inevitable ecological devastations that have been wrought upon the earth.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document