The Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh was asked what we need to do to save our world. “What we most need to do,” he replied, “is to hear within us the sound of the earth crying.”
Representing a diverse set of spiritual traditions, Spiritual Ecology is a spiritual response to our present ecological crisis. The physical reality of climate change, the biodiversity reality of species loss, the ecological reality of a life systems under siege are not by accident; they are the effects of how we chose to live on this earth. Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that
(These are) the bells of mindfulness,” calling us to be attentive, to wake up and listen. The earth needs our attention. It needs us to help heal its body, damaged by our exploitation, and also its soul, wounded by our desecration, our forgetfulness of its sacred nature. We need to act from a place of real awareness, attentive to the outer and inner need of the earth.
This collection of essays implores us to move through the barriers to this recognition and return, as a matter of spiritual and physical survival, to our natural reverence for life.
“There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet.”
— Brooke Medicine Eagle
