Reconnecting with Earth: Ecospirituality as the Missing Dimension in Spirituality and Sustainability Education

Abstract

This chapter proposes ecospirituality as the missing dimension in Education for Sustainability. The period 2005–2014 is the UNESCO Decade for Education for Sustainable Development, and the transdisciplinary field of Education for Sustainability (EfS) has the goal of fostering an environmental stewardship approach to life on Earth. But EfS rarely includes a spiritual dimension which has the potential to ground students’ experience in a recasting of the I-It to an I-Thou relationship with Nature. Extreme consumerism, burgeoning human population, and spiritual impoverishment have led to a radical disconnection of humans from Nature, and many young people fear the future, believing themselves to be powerless to change direction. While the exploitation of Nature has underpinnings in the Abrahamic religions which privilege the human over the rest of creation, in recognition of the convergence of cosmology, ecology, and spirituality through ecospirituality, religions are beginning to recast themselves to take account of the global ecological crisis. Thomas Berry (2000) describes this recasting as “moments of grace,” where humanity begins to understand its deep connection within the evolution of the universe and that human wellbeing is intimately entwined with the wellbeing of Earth’s ecosystems. Indeed humans would seem to be born with an empathetic orientation toward Nature. Thus, positive age-appropriate ecospiritual experiences are critical for developing concern for the environment, without which children may develop “ecophobia” (Sobel, 1999). The chapter concludes with a discussion of approaches and resources for ecospirituality education.

Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sounds and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of the clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human

Thomas Berry