About EcoSpirit

The Story and Mission of EcoSpirit

With these programs co-sponsored by EcoSpirit, you will make discoveries about living in a sacred manner as if the earth is alive and important. The focus of EcoSpirit is to learn from and to experience the Nature Wisdom Tradition of many cultures. Here you will learn to make deep connections and be in communion with creation.

From the beginning of history humans lived in communion with creation. They understood intuitively that the wonderful blue-green earth had been formed by creative energy. The earth, landscape, plants, animals, rivers, elements and forces of nature where acknowledged as part of an ongoing creative process in which they sought to live in harmony. Their knowledge accumulated over the centuries and developed into a Nature Wisdom Tradition for their people enabling them to survive and prosper in close relationship with the land and waters. In many tribes certain people were especially adept at retaining, utilizing, teaching and passing on this sacred knowledge and thus were given special honor. Special rituals and celebrations developed around the natural cycles. The organizing and facilitating of these worship experiences often fell to certain gifted individuals who were gifted. Their Nature Wisdom was passed on to each generation in song, poetry and story. 

The coming of agriculture shifted the focus to the welfare of domesticated animals, and the cultivation of food and other useful plants. The ancient Nature Wisdom continued to serve the hunters, gatherers and others who lived more closely with the land. Urbanization moved people further and further away from the knowledge and appreciation of the environments that continued to nourish them in a new but less sustainable manner. The urbanized humans developed religions which were much different from the Nature Wisdom faith and belief systems. In fact these new city religions began to hold suspect the Nature Wisdom of the “less civilized rural folk.” The old sages and keepers of the rituals and nature wisdom were persecuted and even murdered. With their deaths much of the knowledge was lost. Those who continued in the old ways were less vocal and became more secretive in their practices and worship.

The scientific revolution distanced people even further from the appreciation of Nature Wisdom. The world was now seen as a huge machine populated by humans who held dominion over the other, “soulless” creatures who were understood in mechanistic terms. 

With the very recent maturation of science, the earth began once again to be seen as a collection of interwoven webs, interconnected one with the other and with the natural cycles, land and seascapes. The term “ecology” was coined to speak of this new science of the “study of the home.” Ecology and ecological thinking is the world’s current Nature Wisdom tradition. But this science lacks the spiritual and sacred understanding of what even scientists call “Gaia”—in honor of their understanding that the Earth is a living organism. The ministry of the Institute of Sacred Ecology expressed in EcoSpirit is an attempt to help present-day, urbanized people once again connect with natural world and experience the excitement of being in communion with creation. This ministry takes several forms. Explore each area and you may discover the information and inspiration to live an ecological balanced and spiritual life. 

The ministry of the Institute of Sacred Ecology expressed in EcoSpirit is an attempt to help present day urbanized folk once again connect with natural world and experience the excitement of being in Communion with Creation. This ministry takes several forms. Explore each area and you may discover the information and inspiration necessary to invite you to seek to live in Communion with Creation by living an ecological balanced and spiritual life.

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