Religion and Ecology 2026

Reading Homelessness Countering the Destruction of Home by Kip Redick challenged the way I think about both ecology and spirituality. What struck me most is the idea that “home” is not just a physical structure but an event, a lived relationship. Drawing from Martin Heidegger, Redick describes dwelling as a kind of embodied participation in a community that includes not only humans, but also earth, sky, plants, animals, and even tools. I found myself reflecting on how rarely I actually experience that kind of dwelling. So often, I move through spaces quickly, distracted, or focused on productivity rather than presence. However, as I have continued to take classes with Dr. Redick, I try to be more intentional and aware of nature. The essay made me more aware of how deeply modern technology shapes the way I relate to the world. Through thinkers like Jacques Ellul and Emmanuel Levinas, Redick argues that we have turned the world into “standing reserve”, something to be used efficiently ra...

Although the phrase “Energy is Eternal Delight” originates with William Blake, Gary Snyder’s work in Turtle Island extends this idea into an ecological framework where he grounds that energy in the living processes of the natural world. He challenges the mindset of an overdeveloped society obsessed with extraction and constant expansion. He does this by reframing energy as something living and cyclical, rooted in ecological systems. Energy, in this sense, is not a commodity to be depleted but a flow we are a part of. This perspective closely aligns with Henry David Thoreau’s philosophy in Walden. Thoreau’s experiment in simple living counteracts the idea that the natural world exists as a paradise available for human taking. Rather than viewing land as a divinely granted resource meant for domination, Thoreau approached nature as something to observe, respect, and live alongside. At Walden Pond, Thoreeau was not just studying nature, he was discovering himself within it. By stripping a...

Spending time immersed in nature, essentially the wilderness, is quintessential to who I am. Throughout my childhood to now, I would become rather cranky if I was unable to spend time outside. My dad, a pastor in the Church of the Brethren, would always encourage this nature-seeking behavior in me. He would describe wilderness as God's creation, explaining to me that it is part of our purpose as good Christians to tend to God's creation and ensure its health and vitality. Imagine my confusion then, when reading Changes in the Land  by William Cronon, I learned that the early American colonists (particularly the Puritans) believed that it was their God-fearing responsibility to "tame" the wilderness, subjecting it to the scythe and plow.  Within the bible itself, the wilderness is often used as a tool to communicate a test for the people of God. For example, as described during the book of Numbers, Moses had to lead the Israelites through wilderness for 40 years to mak...

  Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”  So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Exodus 3:1-4, NKJV        I was assigned to present on chapters seven and eight of  The Ecology of Eden.  The chapters are called "The Mountain of the Gods" and "The Tower of Babel," respectively. These chapters begin to probe for the mythic content which informs the way we connect to the world around us. Two models for what Evan Eisenberg calls a 'world-pole...

While watching the documentary-style film on the Gaagudju shown in class, the notion of a Dream Time really sparked my interest. The equivalence of the Dream Time and what we'd consider to be the "mythos" of the people is clear; I am more interested in the linguistics of the term and how that relates to the people's cultural history. The standard definition of dreaming is a unifying human experience where the mind explores to its own curiosities during sleep, often to be forgotten soon after rising from slumber. There are a couple of possible explanations as to how this phenomenon translates into the religion of the Gaagudju. On one hand, to describe a period of history as the Dream Time is to suggest that it is not sharp in the people's memory, but rather a hazy reflection of what was. This implies that there was a rigid period of time that has since passed where the events of the Dream Time took place. The caveat of this theory is that there had to have been a m...

The Zuni people of the American Southwest align with the cliff-dwelling groups of the region, although they themselves have a number of unique traditions myths. One such myth, a story I read for my entomology class last semester, features the dragonfly as a spiritual entity responsible for the rains. From the sources I found, the story begins during a period of drought in the people's village. The people decide to leave their home in pursuit of more fertile lands, however, they leave behind a young boy and girl in their hasty diaspora. The young girl is understandably saddened by her abandonment, which prompts the young boy to create a corn-husk doll  to comfort her. As the time since the people left grew longer, the girl began to pray to her doll every night. One day the doll found new life and flew away from the boy and girl, causing the great sadness for the young girl. Thankfully, her sadness was short-lived and the doll, which had become a dragonfly, returned to the village an...

During my time in the 2025 Summer Scholars program I visited a number of urban green spaces to observe their viability for wildlife and determine species diversity. One of the sites I frequented was an abandoned stretch of woods and swamp on Denbigh Blvd, behind the Food Lion on the Southern side of Interstate 64. The site totaled 74 acres and featured well-established forest, secondary succession forest, fields wrought by invasive species (Chinese clover, Japanese stilt grass, English ivy, etc.), wetlands, and a shallow central pond totaling about 20 acres. Species of frogs, turtles, and snakes were seen along side deer, coyotes, beaver, and raccoons. Unfortunately, feral cats were also present. As my project progressed I started to wonder about the history of the site. How did it come to be that this relatively healthy green space existed in its unprotected state in the middle of Newport News? Thankfully, CNU's very own Dr. Gary Whiting was part of the restoration process that oc...

     After watching the in-class movie/documentary, I began to reflect on my own Indigenous roots and the similarities between our cultures despite being separated by thousands of miles of water. What really stuck out to me were some of their myths and some of their beliefs about the land and world around them. Since the documentary, I looked into the Dreamtime myth, the belief that their ancestors are what created everything: the rivers, trees, land, etc. I also looked into some of their artwork and compared it to traditional art from my tribe that I'm familiar with. The artwork shared similarities with ideas of spiritual beliefs, relations to land and animals, and history and ancestry.      An important distinction between the two artworks is that Aboriginal art is more land-centered cosmology, and Algonkian art is more relational ecology: law, creation, and identity are related to Aboriginal art, while animals, plants, spirits, and relationships are key ...

       Gary Snyder wrote the following:  "Delight is the innocent joy arising with the perception and realization of the wonderful, empty, intricate, inter-penetrating, mutually embracing, shining single world beyond all discrimination or opposites"       Wow, Gary, what a thought! It's hard to say why exactly this struck me. Perhaps, it is because this is the first time I have seen an experience so fundamental to my experience expressed in words. Why haven't I reflected on this before? Maybe in the moment of experiencing this delight one is too full of rapture to pause and think. Why stop a beautiful thing?       It must be a kind of delight which causes humans to pause and to consider making a movement toward the Beautiful. I see the sun setting, clouds dancing in the sky, and birds singing hymns as they fly into the coming night. I stop and realize no painting has ever amounted to this much splendor. I am inside the mag...

I read Chapter Three of The Ecology of Eden by Evan Eisenberg and found it both fascinating and deeply unsettling. In this chapter, Eisenberg explores the powerful “alliance of grass and man” and how it has dramatically reshaped and degraded the vitality of the Earth’s soil. He reveals that soil is not inert matter but a living community. The organisms within it recycle organic material, retain moisture, fix nitrogen, and make nutrients available to plant roots. Despite understanding the essential role of soil biodiversity, modern society continues to damage and desecrate it. I was especially struck by his observation that a single tablespoon of healthy soil may contain “5 billion bacteria, 20 million fungi, and 1 million protoctists.” In that small amount of earth, there is often more living biomass below the surface than above it. There is an entire ecosystem beneath our feet, one that pesticides, herbicides, and industrial agriculture have systematically disrupted. Eisenberg explain...

 Ecology and Dune       Of all popular media, Dune is perhaps the most ripe for discussion pertaining to religion and ecology. The universe of Dune (the 'Duniverse' if you please) looks at a distant-future human empire which sprawls across the stars. In this setting, humans must navigate the hyperspace lanes required for interstellar travel by use of a drug called 'spice' which only comes from the planet Arrakis. In the Duniverse, spice gives its users a kind of prescience where they were able to see many possible futures, allowing them to navigate in space. Since Arrakis is the only planet where spice can be found, it becomes the focal point of the vast empire's economy and power. The native people of Arrakis, the Fremen, are then caught between the various noble houses which comprise the empire. What's most fascinating to me about the Fremen is that they are engaged in a secret effort to transform their planet (naturally a vast desert) into an oasis by hoardin...

  Blog Post #1 The Gagudju People: Australia’s Twilight of the Dreamtime (1988): In class, we watched a film called Australia’s Twilight of the Dreamtime. The film focuses on the Aboriginal group in Kakado called the Gagudju. The Aboriginal people see the land and all living beings, including humanity, as belonging to a single life force, a belief that is enshrined in the Dreamtime and explored through the wildlife and the Gagudju's art, myths, and dance. The creation of cave art solidified the connection between the Dreamtime or mythic time and the physical world. The rock art is similar to what the Celts called “thin” places, or locations where the veil between two worlds is closer. The continuation of layering art upon one another sustains the power of the cosmos. However, with the colonization of Kakado, the Gagudju’s lifeways were changed, as they were prohibited from painting in their sacred caves. Aboriginal law and the continuation of art are crucial for the Gagudju’s subsi...

 During today's class, one of our classmates shared her essay on the Iroquois creation story. I thought this was actually really interesting, because I had never heard of it before. One thing that struck me as particularly interesting was the main theme of reciprocity and balance. For example, the earth (Gaia) as an independent resource was interesting to me. Through Gaia, other environmental constituents also spring up, such as trees, grasses, dirt, the ocean, the rivers, etc. These features give humanity sustenance, breadth, and life. This is where the reciprocal practices come from. Using these materials and the natural world for our benefit, yes, but there's more to life than just this.  I've always thought that the Native worldview is so much better than our own worldview. I think when we get so involved in ourselves, materialistic and capitalistic culture, we lose sight of what really matters - community and the ecosystem we live in. Its not just about the things we h...

      In the  documentary "Australia's Twilight of a Dream." The two main methods of Aboriginal painting  were explored, these methods are rock painting, which can take place inside caves or on rock faces, and a type of painting known as bark painting, where an artist first cuts a large sheet of bark from a tree then cures the bark to make it suitable for painting, before painting a red background on the bark to make the images stand out. The act of painting is a religious practice for the Aboriginal people and is said to connect the artist to their mythic origin, which in Aboriginal culture is referred to as the Dreamtime, a time when ancestral animals, such as giant Kangaroos, created the world. The artist paints these animals to ensure they will continue to exist in abundance. Aboriginal people go to caves to worship their religion and ask permission from the spirits to enter. This is similar to Western religious practices in the sense many of us have communa...

       In the documentary "Never Cry Wolf", a biologist travels to Alaska with the intent to research wolves.       To gain valuable insight into their behavior and habits, he lives alongside the wolves to understand them  on a scientific and non-scientific level. His main objective for studying wolves was to see if they were decimating caribou populations, like what the scientists and outdoorsmen claimed they were doing at the time (the nineteen sixties), when wolves were still being regularly persecuted, in large part due to this belief. It turns out that during this study, the biologist noticed that the wolves were not feeding primarily on caribou and other large game, like what the scientific knowledge at the time insisted, but they were instead consuming mostly mice. Something the scientific community at the time said was impossible due to the assumption that the wolves would not get enough calories from a diet heavily based on mice. In ...