Eco-systems – Feminism and Religion

Tortured Turtle by Sara Wright

Yesterday I attended a community event where someone from a rescue organization was holding up the biggest painted turtle that I have ever seen. More than a foot in length. An equally large snapper was lying on the grass surrounded by people.

The point this woman was trying to make is that turtles grow up into large turtles that can end up in rescue organizations. I froze in horror as I took the pictures, tried to get details but the woman was occupied with someone else while she held this creature in the air.

This morning I gazed into a forest that is dripping with dew. Astonishing golden autumn light is gilding the trees as tears fall through the leaves. Achingly beautiful until I see an image of the turtle in my mind. Remembering times when I was young and didn’t pay attention to what a sensitive child KNEW.

All creatures are sentient; all feel pain and fear. The image of yesterday’s turtle highlights everything that is wrong in a world when most people believe that only humans are sentient. Once I thought I believed that too, although the child in me did not. I couldn’t deal with the terrorized child, so I left her behind as soon as I could. As a young adolescent my second (rejecting the child was the first) crisis of faith occurred when the religion I adhered to created no space for the rest of nature or geological time.

Soil Stars and Sexuality: Regeneration as an Embodied Spiritual Practice by Toya L Walker

The garden gives me a place to ask what it means to belong to a living world. In Boston, where my growing space occupies roughly 1,000 square feet, that question takes practical form. There is soil to tend, water to carry, a season to understand, and a body doing the work. My grandparents cultivated land in Jamaica. Returning there helped me recognize how deeply that relationship mattered to my life. Growing in the city became a way to carry it forward under different conditions.

In my book, Growing in a Concrete Jungle: From Soil to Soul, I approach gardening through food, cultural memory, everyday wellbeing, and seed stewardship. Here, I extend those concerns into a spiritual question: What changes when regeneration includes our bodies, our relationships, and our capacity to receive care? I understand regeneration as an embodied spiritual practice when tending life teaches us to attend to the conditions that sustain it. Soil, stars, and sexuality offer different ways to examine that attention.

Soil and the foundations of care

This reflection begins with one garden and one family history. Its spiritual meaning emerges through interpretation and practice. I do not assume that every grower shares my beliefs. The garden offers experiences through which I can ask about the sacred while respecting other understandings of life.

Miriam MacGillis Discusses Thomas Berry’s View of the Universe, part 2 Transcribed by Janet Rudolph

Introduction: Miriam MacGillis is a modern-day prophet who not only holds a broad understanding of cosmology but brilliantly expresses it. She was an early colleague of Thomas Berry, introducing many people to the Story of the Universe. I have had the great honor of transcribing the eight tapes of her lecture series called Education for a Small Planet from 1986. Excerpts from tape 1A can be read here and here.

She was a protégé of Thomas Berry and on these tapes spoke about three principles which have been at the heart of the unfolding of the universe from the beginning. As she says, They are very simple and can’t be separated. I’m just separating them now [to discuss them]. In reality they’re three in one. They are extremely simple. Very often, the simplest things are the hardest things to grasp. But once we really begin to reflect on them and their implications, it’s so logical, so clear, so simple.

The first is the principle of differentiation. I posted Miriam’s discussion of differentiation here.

Below is the long delayed 2nd part, where she discusses the next two principles; interiority and communion. Her words have been lightly edited.

Second principle. The principle of interiority. Or subjectivity. And all that means is that whether we’re speaking about this particular atom or whether this is Harry or Henry or Homer or horse, or hippo, each is its own unique articulation of the universe, its own integrity. It has its own inner spaces, which are unique to itself. Hydrogen is hydrogen, it is not helium. And it is hydrogen because as you probe the inner spaces of that, whatever causes that to be hydrogen in those inner spaces has an integrity that will always unfold hydrogen. And the universe only can be at any moment, the sum total of all of that. And because each is what it is, it’s different.

Monarch Saga Continues in to 2026 by Sara Wright

This summer marks the first year I have not had butterflies in my wildflower garden in August, a very troubling development. June and half of July were good months with some monarchs, many swallowtails and a multitude of fritillaries flying through the field. The latter two were as prevalent in my garden as last year, although painted ladies, pearly eyes, and admirals were scarce. No monarchs around the house this year. On July 15 I saw two up by the corner perching on the milkweed who were probably the same ones I saw just above me on the circle later that day. On July 17th out of state neighbors sprayed their property with pesticides. The wind was fierce. The monarchs disappeared. I have not seen a monarch or any other butterfly since (except one fritillary that appeared briefly last week).

Because I think the same monarchs return to the sparce milkweed patch on the corner before they come here, I immediately looked for eggs*. I kept looking day after day for the rest of the month, noting the bizarre leaf distortion on this small clump of milkweed that I had not seen anywhere else. Due to pesticidal drift from a few feet away? On August 6th I was walking by the distorted milkweed and spied two monarch caterpillars. Oh no!

The Legacy of Carol P. Christ: The Spirit of Capitalism vs. the Spirit of Traditional Rural Life

This was originally posted on Dec 29, 2014

In this picture, Marika from Skoteino Crete toasts our group and downs a glass of her homemade raki. Marika, who is best friends with Christina who makes lunch for us, has just returned from her home next door with her gift of a glass of raki for each of us.

Marika, who has little, is eager to give to us. Hers is but one of many gifts from the heart we receive on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Why is it that we who have so much do not give as spontaneously?

One answer is that capitalist individualism has taught us to count our worth by how much we have and to fear for the day when we will have nothing.

These words may be a cliché, but they hold a profound truth nonetheless.

Heide Goettner-Abendroth tells us that in matriarchal societies with small-scale sustainable agricultural economies, people did not hoard or save for a rainy day. With the labors of their bodies and minds, they took only what they needed from the land. When there was a surplus, they gave parties, sharing what they had with others. Even with the coming of patriarchy, ancient matriarchal customs of generosity survived among rural farmers.

Autumn Equinox ’26 – Seeding by Sara Wright

Everywhere I go seeds are taking to the air or spilling out of capsules, flowerheads, mushrooms and lichens.

Yesterday two women gathered in the local pollinator garden where millions of seeds were rattling in light winds. Hundreds of wild asters had shriveled flowerheads, seeds still hidden. Some bean pods were splitting open spilling out black and white beads. The entire garden was a celebration of what seeds do so effortlessly. Provide for the Future of Life.

Accustomed to a riotous bouquet of blossoms, initially I noted the lack of brilliance that characterized summer in this overstuffed garden! But because we were meandering, I began paying more attention to seed heads while the woman I was with was collecting seeds. The more I looked the more ingenious these capsules, seedheads, pods became! I too began seeding, entranced by the infinite variations on one theme; after a while all I could see were seeds!

This was a perfect day to acknowledge the autumn equinox turning because this was the time of the seeding up and the time of letting go.

Notes from the ‘Field’ in August 2026, part 2 by Sara Wright

Part 1 was posted last week. You can read it here.

Choosing Change:

Because of such poor air quality Coalie and I walk in the morning when the air is clear or isn’t as toxic as it will be by afternoon. For the last two years the ozone level has skyrocketed due to unchecked deforestation, and the ever- worsening particulates burn my eyes. Headaches strike as soon as the air begins to thicken. As a result, summers have become another challenging season with me prioritizing clean air over outdoor time. My Coalie has a small set of lungs and mine are aging.

Although making this transition has been hard on the naturalist who thrives in the woodlands, the outcome is that we have adapted. I am grateful (and guilt -ridden) that raging fires are not at my door. I sense that the trees around me know their sisters and brothers are burning. I also note that when the air quality deteriorates Coalie wants to come indoors of her own accord. The lack of bird song on any day that the air is polluted is astonishing. My guess is that poor air quality is very apparent to all non – human beings.

I used to complain about my sensitivity to moderate air quality. Now I am grateful that my body makes it clear that we belong indoors, not even on the porch on ‘bad air days’ which are increasing in severity. It troubles me to watch others running or biking on the roads for fun. Virtually all other outside work is done with air polluting machines contributing mightily to the problem. The exception is a person like me who chooses to do outside chores by hand. But only on days when the air is relatively clear. But I still drive a car.

Notes from the ‘Field’ in August 2026, part 1 by Sara Wright

I thought that I would tell a few personal animal stories because they are for the most part uplifting and demonstrate how easy it is to develop relationships with just about any non – human being you meet.

Heron – A Visitation

Imagine my astonishment when I walked by the window and saw a heron striding through tall grasses. A sword -like slivery beak and sinewy neck. One glassy eye. Grey blue body. Long splayed feet firmly planted on the ground with each determined step. My dog Coalie barked once and poof – heron was gone. Oh, I was so disappointed.

Baffled, I immediately walked outside trying to imagine what a heron could be doing walking by the house. Illumination struck when I noted a slight depression that led into wild summer greenery. Thick lush ferns hid the ‘pond’, a sunken barrel ringed with stone. Heron must have been on his way to fish there, a place where frogs often hunted from a partially waterlogged, moss-covered log. I parted the greenery as one green frog dove into murky waters. No doubt there were others close by.

Historically herons could be found hunting at the brook. l sometimes glimpsed one flying out of the gorge – a prehistoric being flapping his great, syncopated wings. With worsening drought conditions, the waters were low. Yet, frogs and toads were still abundant the last time I had been down there a few days before – enough to keep mink and weasels around all year. Tell -tale footprints were often visible in the mud.

Miriam MacGillis Discusses Thomas Berry’s View of the Universe, Transcribed by Janet Rudolph

Introduction: Miriam MacGillis is a modern-day prophet who not only holds a broad understanding of cosmology but brilliantly expresses it. She was an early colleague of Thomas Berry, introducing many people to the Story of the Universe. I have had the great honor of transcribing the tapes of her lecture series called Education for a Small Planet from 1986. Below is an excerpt from Tape 1B. It is edited for clarity. Excerpts from tape 1A can be read here and here.

***

Thomas Berry speaks about three principles which have been at the heart of the unfolding of the universe from the beginning. They are very simple and can’t be separated. I’m just separating them now [to discuss them]. In reality they’re three in one. They are extremely simple. Very often, the simplest things are the hardest things to grasp. But once we really begin to reflect on them and their implications, it’s so logical, so clear, so simple.

The first is the principle of differentiation. When we talk about the universe and its guidance system, this principle becomes even more highly articulated when we get to the Earth. It’s a very simple dynamic. Literally, all it means is that from the very beginning everything that is, is differentiated. You couldn’t have a universe unless there was differentiation of its elements. Because hydrogen and helium and carbon or whatever, grow into more complex structures . . it’s because they are different that they interact with each other and in that interaction cause each other to change. They cause each other to break down from being what they are in their simple state. In the dying of what they were in their simple state, they change and become transformed into something more complex.

Missing Trees by Beth Bartlett

The gap in the trees is a painful reminder of the one that is missing. This past winter an ice and wind storm late in the season brought down the aspen that had sheltered our deck. Its absence is more than a hole in the canopy – it is a hole in the heart. I miss its friendly presence, its shelter, its shade. I suspect I never fully appreciated it until now. It is just the latest in a long line of missing trees – trees lost to disease, insects, climate change.

The paper birch were the first to go. When my dad first bought our family cottage in 1964, paper birch trees arched delicately over the cottage, framing it in white branches against the blue sky. Another large birch stood as a landmark on the top of the hill, and another by the lake was the centerpiece of the circular bench built around it. Several more lined the path down to the lake and dotted the hillside.

When we bought our home in Duluth, paper birches graced the yard on all sides. In the woods out back I’d befriended several of the birches, naming them according to their distinctive shapes – there was the “Mama” birch with its bulging pregnant belly, the three then four-clump birches that I’d named after our music group – “Wild By Nature,” and the glorious “Tree of Life” – a magnificent clump birch of at least twenty connected trunks that served as a talisman for me during the most difficult days of my illness and for many years after my transplant.