Ecospiritual Praxis: Cultivating Connection to Address the Climate Crisis

Abstract

This article suggests ecospirituality as a connection point between religion, science, and other disciplines, as well as the relationships between people, the land and waters, the community of all life, and the Divine. Ecospirituality connects different disciplines and highlights the interconnectedness between people and the rest of the natural world, and it also catalyzes action through spiritual experience and meaning-making. A review of different disciplines’ research on ecospirituality is provided. A description of an ecospiritual praxis cycle is offered, based on interviews and survey data. This ecospiritual praxis cycle may be able to help move people toward practical and efficacious actions of care for the community of all life to participate in the collective transformation that needs to occur in order to address the climate and ecological crises. This article identifies disconnection between theory and action regarding climate and environmental knowledge and collective action as one of the main problems, which “undisciplining” religion and science can help overcome.

1. Introduction

In this historical moment, where the global average temperature remained above 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels for an entire year for the first time from July 2023 to June 2024 (Berwyn 2024), where record-breaking heat, flooding, fire, and storm events are too numerous for most to attend to, and as we approach climate tipping points, it is important to take time to assess the scientific assumptions and religious approaches that have brought us here, and to consider what types of actions to take as a global community to ensure human and other life can continue on this planet. Western approaches to science since the Enlightenment have attempted to break things down into small pieces in order to understand the whole, dividing subject areas into disciplines with their own epistemologies and approaches to meaning-making. While this has created the opportunity for specialization and amazing advances in areas such as medicine, it has also had many harmful side effects. Not least of these harms is the separation of science from ethics and justice. At the same time, religion in the Western model has often followed this path of siloing and disconnection, enforcing beliefs in ideas that are disconnected from spiritual experience or relational care, with a focus on hierarchy. This has proven quite harmful, as can be seen in various iterations of Christian nationalism.

Furthermore, although most scientists and many people of faith, as well as many other individuals, are concerned or alarmed about climate change, we are not yet, as a global community, changing our behaviors to live within planetary limits to sustain current species and climate systems (Leiserowitz et al. 2023). Scientists have identified the sources of the greenhouse effect, solutions have been determined, and world agreements have been made, but we have already begun to breach the 1.5 °C of warming that scientists consider the upper limit of warming the planet can experience and still continue to sustain the current climate (Pörtner et al. 2022; Milman 2024). As Gus Speth (2013) famously stated:

I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.

With this call for cultural and spiritual transformation in mind, this article will suggest ecospirituality as a connection point between religion, science, and other disciplines, as well as the relationships between people, the land, the community of all life, and the Divine. Ecospirituality connects different disciplines and highlights the interconnectedness between people and the rest of the natural world, and it also catalyzes action through spiritual experience and meaning-making. Ecospirituality may be able to help move people toward actions of care for the community of all life, which I call ecospiritual praxis. As such, ecospiritual praxis helps “undiscipline” religion and science in ways that address the following two problems:

• The disconnectedness between disciplines and the challenge this poses, particularly in relation to holistic approaches to the climate crisis and other environmental concerns.
• The difficulty, even in people who are concerned about environmental and climate issues, in moving beyond education and awareness to action and behavior change.

This paper will offer a review of different disciplinary definitions and research relating to ecospirituality. Then, ecospiritual praxis will be described, connecting the dots between environmental and climate change concerns and taking action to care for the earth community. Since Christianity is a religion espoused by 63–64% of those in the United States (Kramer et al. 2022; Smith 2017), I am electing to describe ecospiritual praxis within a Christian framework: this population could make a major impact toward a sustainable future if they were to embrace sustainable and just practices. As a Christian from a Quaker tradition, I learn from and respect Indigenous and other faith traditions, and I find it important to articulate care for the Earth through the language and practices of Christian traditions; other scholars could articulate similar adaptations from their own religious traditions. This helps avoid cultural appropriation while recovering Earth care within Christianity. The description of ecospiritual praxis will include adaptation of traditional spiritual disciplines and practices from Christian traditions to help ground and give meaning to pro-environmental behavior change for those for whom connectedness to Christianity is meaningful. The paper will also include the meaning-making and connectedness that occur when people think of their pro-environmental behaviors as spiritual practices. As individuals and communities engage in pro-environmental behavior change in ways that they consider spiritual, this can become an ecospiritual praxis cycle, propelling them to take further steps of care for the earth that can contribute to social transformation.

2. Ecospirituality

Ecospirituality is a term that has emerged from multiple fields to describe the interconnected relationship between human beings and other parts of the natural world. Disciplines such as nursing, ecology, social work, and psychology are recognizing the importance of a spiritual dimension of human relationships with other species and the land, and those involved in religious disciplines are retrieving (in the case of Western Christianity; Habel 2008) or continuing to communicate (in the case of Indigenous traditions) that spirituality is not on a separate plane but that people experience a spiritual connection to the community of all life (Rhee and Subedi 2014). Additionally, ecospirituality evokes feelings and actions of care for other species and the planetary community, which can catalyze individuals to pro-environmental behavior or orthopraxis, rather than simply orthodoxy regarding belief about the importance of taking care of the environment in this era of climate change. This helps with the two problems identified above: overcoming the disconnectedness between disciplines through a sense of interconnectedness between people and the rest of the natural world and moving people toward action to care for other species and the land.

Ecospirituality is the experience of the holy and the sacred through one’s body and relationships with the surrounding world (Hettinger 1995; Wheeler 2022). “Ecospirituality incorporates an intuitive and embodied awareness of all life and engages a relational view of person to planet, inner to outer landscape, and soul to soil.” This was stated in a study of ecospirituality that discovered essences of an ecospiritual consciousness, including “tending, dwelling, reverence, connectedness, and sentience” (Lincoln 2000, p. 227). The words for “spirit” in Hebrew and Greek have to do with life and breath, and as Kearns and Keller (2007) note, “the ancient Hebrew ruach was never an immaterial force but an earth-breath, at once grounding of and grounded in the creation” (p. 13). As such, ecospirituality represents the act of “con-spiring” or breathing with the Spirit and participating with all creation in the most intimate, mutual, and vital act of living (Kearns 2018, p. 117).

In “On Ecospirituality: True, Indigenous, Western”, Almut Beringer (1999) describes ecospirituality as healing the “mistaken modern worldview of human separateness from the natural world” (p. 17). People can then act on that correction by working to heal ecological damage. Beringer (1999) describes the following aspects of ecospirituality: holding nature sacred, God is seen as part of nature (immanent) as well as otherworldly (transcendent) and the entirety of the natural world is a “container for Spirit”, the interdependence of all life requires moral conduct and respect toward the rest of the natural world, and the physical material are not separate from the spiritual (p. 17).

Through recognizing this interconnectedness and the sacred Presence in the world around us, ecospirituality opens up space to collaborate across disciplines in knowledge production and meaning-making, and it offers awareness of different ways of knowing (Coates et al. 2006). If we recognize our personal and collective wellbeing as inextricably bound up with that of other species and earth systems, the importance of social and environmental justice alongside care and relatedness to other parts of the natural world becomes apparent, which contributes to decolonization:

Ecospirituality has the potential to reconceptualize the commitment and values of social work to move “beyond the dualism in the western philosophical project and its own practice models” to merge spirituality and environmental justice with the profession’s traditional emphasis on social justice and personal growth. This serves not only to broaden social work beyond a preoccupation with the social, but also to decolonize professional thinking and shift away from the pre-eminence of individualism and dualism, and the unquestioned acceptance of progress, efficiency and modernity that hamper and prevent effective work across cultures and make it difficult for social workers to fulfil their role as agents of change.

(Coates 2016)

Gray and Coates (2013) identify the following ecospiritual aspects of social work: Earth is sacred, Wholeness (unity consciousness), Emergence, Interdependence, Diversity and inclusivity, Individual in community, and Creativity. Within this ecospiritual framework, one simultaneously holds responsibility for oneself and the collective whole, which helps initiate movement toward social transformation.

Within the field of nursing, environmental meditation was found to be helpful for increasing the health of patients with cardiovascular disease, and the following aspects of ecospirituality were named as themes occurring in the patients’ experiences: time expansion, reawakening, new rhythm, and feelings of healing or raised consciousness. Delaney and Barrere (2009) say, “Participants were receptive to meditating and reported a change in the way they viewed time and reported a deeper connection to the environment, more harmonious relationships, and a transformation in their way of being in the world that consequently enhanced their health” (pp. 367–68). Another study showed a sense of ecospiritual consciousness among a population of holistic nurses, which helped them attend to their patients’ healing in the context of the surrounding world with awareness of interconnected relationships between the patients and other entities around them (Lincoln 2000).

Finally, Billet et al. (2023) performed a set of experiments to determine the correlation between ecospirituality, environmental identity, the New Ecological Paradigm, and moral expansiveness for nature. They did find a correlation between these scales and inventories and the participants’ willingness to take action to care for the Earth. They contrasted ecospirituality with an instrumental view of nature: in an instrumental view, individuals see the natural world as present for the use of human beings, which allows exploitation. Those who scored highly for ecospirituality, on the other hand, held more of a relational view toward nature and were less likely to compromise their responsibility of care even if it required some personal sacrifice. Interestingly, Billet et al. (2023) found that “conservatives are approximately as ecospiritual as liberals”, and spirituality (a personal, unmediated experience of the sacred) is more of a predictor for green action than fundamentalism. While a sense of identity as an environmentalist can help some people act on their values of altruism or biocentrism, it is more effective to encourage action based on ecospirituality than environmental identity, since many conservatives are turned off by the label “environmentalist” (Billet et al. 2023, p. 13).

In summary, experiences of connection to the sacred in and through the natural world, and interconnection with other parts of the natural world, can help individuals care for the Earth and take action toward healing the damage inflicted by Western extractive and exploitative practices. This is called ecospirituality and is found to be meaningful in a range of disciplines. Ecospirituality has been found to be helpful in increasing people’s individual health, and it helps them also recognize the interconnectedness between their own wellbeing and that of the community of all life, encouraging action toward social transformation. Placed in theological language, “Because ecology has to do with one’s home—the root meaning of ‘eco’—ecological spirituality or ecospirituality describes how one relates to the sacred within the context of our natural, global, and even cosmic ecosystems (or homes) of which we all form a part” (Wheeler 2022, p. 1).

3. Ecospiritual Praxis Cycle

Since ecospirituality is a strong predictor of individuals’ willingness to take action to care for the Earth (Billet et al. 2023), it is useful to analyze how this phenomenon occurs. Additionally, ecospirituality is a perspective that is relational rather than instrumental: individuals feel a responsibility of care because they feel connected to the rest of the planetary community, and this motivates them to take steps to actively care for those around them (Billet et al. 2023). Cultivating this sense of connection can help to improve an individual’s physical health (Lincoln 2000; Delaney and Barrere 2009) as well as encourage them to work on system change and decolonization (Coates 2016). Traditional Western philosophical systems posit a dualistic hierarchy, separating mind and body and assuming the mind (logic, rationality, and religion) is more important. These assumptions have contributed to science that emphasizes objective study, disconnecting each segment of information from others, with the effect of obscuring responsibility for how that knowledge is used. It has also influenced versions of Christianity that teach a religion divorced from the material world, with an illusion of supremacy and control of humanity over other parts of nature (Jensen 2016). This breaking down of awareness of relatedness, mutuality, and embodied spirituality has led to the world we see, where people and resources are exploited and used up, where no one and everyone holds responsibility for ethical action, and where we must compete to ascend the domination hierarchy or be destroyed ourselves. Ecospirituality appears to be a path to reconnection, (re)learning how to live more in tune with our relatedness to the land and waters, the community of all life, and the Divine. It can potentially help us overcome the siloing of discrete knowledge parcels so we can reconnect them into a relational whole. What might it look like to practice ecospirituality?

As stated in the introduction, although ecospirituality is not inherently Christian nor does it belong to Christians, it is a perspective that can be found and reclaimed within Christian traditions. Since so much of the harm done to the planetary community through European and American colonization has been based on a perversion of Christianity through the Doctrine of Discovery and an imperialist interpretation termed Christendom, it is important and useful—to me, as an heir of this religious and cultural tradition, and to the world, which has experienced this harm—to reinterpret and reclaim the ecospirituality present in the Christian tradition. In this way, we can contribute to unraveling the propaganda of empire that has overtaken what is really at the heart of the Jewish and Christian traditions: belonging to God and to community, deep care for the land and waters, and liberation.

At the same time, as noted in the Speth (2013) quote above, the problems of the climate and environmental crises have scientific descriptions and explanations, but the causes are not scientific: they are human. The solutions will require cultural and spiritual transformation. While a scientist can describe the problems and the scientific solutions to the climate crisis and issues such as pollution or habitat fragmentation, getting people to actually choose to put those solutions into effect is a different story.

It is hoped that an ecospiritual praxis cycle will be useful to academics in a variety of disciplines. Additionally, practitioners are regular people who are concerned about the climate and environmental crises and who would like to find ways to catalyze meaningful individual and collective action to address these existential issues.

3.1. Methods

Based on a study in which I performed initial interviews (N = 50), demographic and short answer surveys (N = 48), and in-depth phenomenological interviews (N = 16), I developed an ecospiritual praxis cycle (Bock 2024).1 In the survey, participants described the types of pro-environmental actions they take at various levels (from individual and household actions to congregations, communities, and worldview change, as described by (Amel et al. 2017). The in-depth interviews studied the phenomenon of putting environmental care into action as an expression of participants’ Christian faith. Participants were graduates of seminaries, divinity schools, and schools of theology who had pursued an environment-focused degree or taken at least three courses with that focus. These participants stand between the academy and the general population of churches, speaking the language of both, so they are helpful informants in articulating their experiences translating between lived experience and the academy. The study was conducted using critical phenomenology methodology and interpreted as contextual theology.

3.2. Results

Emerging from the data was an ecospiritual praxis cycle. Similarly to the praxis cycles identified by Bevans (2002) and Bergmann (2003), where individuals and groups cycle between theory, action, and reflection, or theology and context, this research identified a cycle of learning, practice, and reflection as participants made meaning of their actions to care for the earth as an expression of their faith. They described taking action for environmental care in ways that formed a motivating cycle between contemplative or ritual practices and practical action. Contemplative disciplines, practices, and rituals helped ground participants in God, the community of all life, and their faith community and helped them sustain their energy for taking action. Actions to care for the environment were taken to live out their faith in the world. As they continued these engagements, they also continued to read and learn from others in their immediate and extended communities about areas of pro-environmental action they had not previously understood. They were often able to form a habitual action from repeated practice. Due to the motivation of engaging in this practice of Earth care with a spiritual basis, they were then able to incorporate new levels of pro-environmental action in their lives by adopting a new practice.

This cycle occurred when participants took the scientific and theological theory they had learned in seminary (or elsewhere) and put it into practice through pro-environmental action. Reflecting on the action, they incorporated it back into their theoretical understanding of their context: their particular place, their community, and concerns around environmental and climate justice. They then took action again, either to continue performing the same action until it was a habit or by adding on a new type of action.

A strategy used to motivate cyclical action by participants in this study was to utilize traditional spiritual disciplines, rituals, or holy days, or imbue actions taken to care for the Earth with spiritual meaning:

• Classic spiritual disciplines were used to support and sustain environmental care.
  For example, the participants used the traditional spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible reading, fasting, and practicing sabbath to help ground themselves in spiritual meaning and a long-term community of faith.2 This helps them to sustain their pro-environmental work when they might otherwise burn out.
• Classic spiritual disciplines were adapted to recognize or reinforce ecological aspects of those disciplines.
  For example, participants adapted the discipline of fasting for Lent for one’s own spiritual edification to taking a Lenten fast as an opportunity to practice a behavior change such as giving up single-use plastic, or intentionally observing a weekly sabbath as a reminder to rest, slow down, and connect with one’s community and the land and waterways around them.
• Participants created or adapted spiritual practices to have an ecological focus.
  For example, they created new communal rituals, such as outdoor worship services, a kayak pilgrimage along a local river, spiritual retreats with a focus on environmental justice and time in nature, an environment-focused film festival with discussions about the films’ connection to faith and theology, community garden gatherings with regular shared meals and/or a formal spoken liturgy, sabbath prayer walks, and holding educational series regularly for youth or adults on environment-related topics.
• Participants engaged in pro-environmental actions as spiritual practices.
  In this case, they took part in pro-environmental actions that are not generally considered spiritual or connected to their faith tradition, but they applied spiritual meaning to these actions. Taking care of the earth as an expression of their faith ensures that actions such as recycling, taking public transit, or engaging in civil disobedience to block a fossil fuel project are imbued with spiritual meaning, providing a context and community in which to interpret these actions.

While the small-scale pro-environmental actions taken by participants in the study did not necessarily make a large or systemic difference to global emissions, these actions are important for the following reasons: (1) they are able to keep the individual engaged in forward momentum, as they continue to take increasingly challenging steps to address the climate and environmental crises; and (2) they connect the person’s pro-environmental actions to a broader story and community, a community across time and places, in which they are participating in their own particular place and community.

One way Christian communities across time have worked toward training themselves to live out their faith is through spiritual disciplines and practices. “Discipline is training or teaching that corrects, shapes, and forms the whole person, body and mind”, and Christians are invited to be disciples, ones who follow the discipline or way of Jesus (Deeley 2010). Pursuing discipleship through spiritual formation, using classic disciplines and other spiritual practices, is

integral for the depth of commitment required to make true and lasting social change. … [T]he roots of spiritual formation are also the roots of social action (Tisdell 2000). While doctrine, dogma, ideology, and institutions might constrain and reinforce power structures, specific practices within religious institutions such as prayer or service might inculcate values such as humility and compassion that contribute to human flourishing in a civil and inclusive society.

(Carr-Chellman et al. 2021, p. 301)

Spiritual disciplines and practices can help make meaning through the lived experience of individuals in community across time. These spiritual disciplines and practices can help people of faith practice and then carry out actions that sustain social change. Though taught by religious institutions, these disciplines can help instill an “emancipatory epistemology” because the “practices and disciplines are important sites of non-commodified resistance to unhealthy social forces. They lay the groundwork for a different kind of human encounter which values mutual recognition, reconciliation, healing, belonging, dialogue, and critical reflection” (Carr-Chellman et al. 2021, p. 301). Therefore, spiritual disciplines and practices may be an important way for people of faith, particularly Christians, to communicate and experience practices of environmental care.

As leaders in their faith communities, some of the participants in this study helped those in their congregations connect with the themes of Earth care that were already a part of their tradition, such as more actively drawing awareness to the rhythms of the seasons and the land with the rhythms of the church calendar, or drawing attention to themes of creation when praising God in liturgical prayers and scripture readings. Others took the opportunity to share their care for the Earth through their preaching and teaching, such as by refocusing the passages of Jesus and his disciples’ fishing on current concerns around fish population declines, or one participant who festooned the worship space with fishing nets holding plastic containers. In this way, these faith leaders not only engage in ecospiritual praxis through their own reading of scripture and practice of holy days, but they also catalyze such actions in their communal ritual spaces. These faith leaders are also able to influence more nuanced pro-environmental practices that become normative for their congregations, such as using glass communion cups instead of plastic ones, selecting biodegradable or reusable dishes for an event, or overseeing the purchase of more sustainable office or cleaning products.3

Weekly sabbath practices also form an important spiritual discipline that allows people to focus on rhythms that are healthy for themselves and others. Practice of the sabbath in the United States has declined significantly in the last century, at least in part because of the ways sabbath laws tend to become legalistic and oppressive. In Jesus’ time, he had to remind religious leaders that “sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the sabbath” (Mk 2:27): it is supposed to be a liberating practice, releasing people to the gift of rest, not an oppressive practice where people are punished for walking too far or picking heads of grain to snack on. Given the legacy of Puritan ideals in the US, sabbath legalism flourished in this country for a time, restricting the types of activities one could engage in and even placing those into US law (Laband and Heinbuch 1987).

The benefits of a regular sabbath are many, and it helps to have a culture or community to practice it with. In some US cultures where resting is seen as laziness unless one is producing something (such as exercise, learning, or a stronger economy due to leisure spending), it is very countercultural to set boundaries around a day and practice sabbath (Brueggemann 2017). Some participants in this study mentioned finding it useful and meaningful to practice the sabbath, sometimes in the basic format of taking a 24-h period each week to rest, and sometimes with modifications with a greater focus on environmental care, such as fasting from technology or communing with a forest or body of water once a week.

Participants in this study recognized with humility that their personal actions were not sufficient to shift the trajectory of climate change. They expressed, however, that these actions were necessary: first for their own sense of integrity, to practice what they preach, as they are sharing their environmental concerns with others, and second because a collective change in behavior would be enough to shift the overall trajectory.

Engaging in these personal environmentally caring actions as spiritual practices motivates participants to continue their acts of environmental care. These actions built up a sense of identity, connectedness, and belonging in the participants, both in relation to their faith and to care for creation. An overwhelming majority of participants also mentioned that seeing environmental actions as spiritual practices provided a deeper sense of meaning than simply trying to change their behaviors on their own.

Although they realize their small actions are not enough to change the trajectory of global climate change, the participants recognize their pro-environmental actions are necessary, if not sufficient. Seeing their actions as contributing toward a bigger picture helped some of them work to interrupt and dismantle systems of injustice toward people groups, other species, future generations, and the community of all life. While they recognize that they are not responsible for dismantling the entire unjust systems by themselves, they consider their own actions as important testimonies against injustice. For white participants, several mentioned that part of their own work is to not assume they can control or fix systemic injustice: it is important for them to do their own small part and not expect to be a savior figure. Many of them are doing the work to dismantle their own internalized assumptions of white supremacy, recognizing their place within the community of all life. African American participants and some white participants connected these efforts to the Civil Rights Movement and environmental racism, and the spiritual disciplines invoked in these and similar movements.

These creative and innovative environment-focused spiritual disciplines, practices, and rituals express a penchant for playful experimentation through an ecospiritual praxis cycle. They are trying new things, transforming traditions they are familiar with, and applying them in a new situation. They are recognizing the importance of forming new habits for this moment in time and recognizing the meaningfulness and usefulness of regular liturgical and spiritual practices, alone and with others, for participating in healing relationships with the land and waters, among people, and with other species.

3.3. Discussion

The ecospiritual praxis cycle catalyzes a dialogical and dynamic interaction between theory and context, much like the scientific method, but with connection to the specific contextual location and the communities with whom one shares space and time. For the participants in this study, they found motivation to continue taking action to care for the earth by assigning spiritual meaning to their actions, and by utilizing structures in their communal faith traditions that can help them live in more just and sustainable ways. As they incorporated new pro-environmental behaviors, they reflected on these actions and their efficacy, and they incorporated new ideas into their theological frameworks.

This can perhaps prove useful for people of faith to practice more intentionally, and as a template that may be useful for those who care for the planet but do not ascribe to a religion. It could be quite impactful if more faith communities consciously practiced the disciplines, holy days, and rituals of their community with attention to how such practices relate to Earth care. If every faith community more intentionally taught people to care for the earth and sustainability through their communal practices, it would go a long way toward transforming society toward a more just and equitable future.

For those who do not ascribe to a religion, engaging in spiritual connection to place and to other parts of the natural world can provide meaning, sustaining power and motivation to keep practicing environmental care. Gathering a group with whom to create and practice rituals marking seasons and other regionally important dates and cycles can help develop a sense of belonging and a sense of place. As stated above, these ecospiritual practices can inspire continued action of care, transcending an instrumental view of nature and encouraging a more relational view (Billet et al. 2023).

4. Ecospiritual Praxis and “Undisciplining” Religion and Science

While many people in a variety of disciplines are studying, writing, and teaching about environmental issues and climate change, it remains difficult to catalyze cultural transformation toward a just and sustainable future. How can ecospiritual praxis help with “undisciplining” religion and science, overcome siloing, and encourage meaningful pro-environmental action?

First, though not everyone will feel a sense of meaning regarding participating in formal spiritual disciplines, it can be a meaningful way to engage those who are Christian in pro-environmental action. Through spiritual disciplines, individuals can feel connected to a faith community across time as well as the community they are currently participating with, and this can help their actions be more meaningful and help motivate them to continue in their action.

Second, many people report that spirituality is important to them, even if they do not belong to a particular religious community (Alper et al. 2023).4 Creating opportunities for people to take pro-environmental action, particularly if they are doing so as part of a group, with an intention of faithfulness to one’s spiritual convictions, could help more people to feel motivated to engage in sustained pro-environmental actions.

Third, these actions, engaged in for spiritual reasons, are helping people develop an ecospiritual connection to place and a community of belonging. Perhaps ecospiritual praxis could be meaningful for those who are scientists or those from a variety of branches of the academic community to also find a deeper sense of connection and belonging, integrating an interconnected awareness into their practice of science or other fields in ways that may help move toward healing the harm done by the hierarchical and individualistic assumptions of empires.

It is hoped that this ecospirituality praxis cycle can be helpful in the following ways:

• Within the religious academy (and related environment-/climate-aware disciplines in the academy), it provides encouragement to teach in ways that can be practiced, that incorporate spiritual grounding, that teach practical and embodied skills, and that help students and people of faith develop or recognize their spiritual connectedness to the community of all life.
• It offers tools and practices from the fields of religion and spirituality that can be used across disciplines to help overcome the sense of disconnectedness that has often been enforced in the Western tradition in recent centuries.
• Advocate for the centrality of justice, equity, ethics of care, and respect for the inherent value of other members of the community of all life, including but not limited to human communities, in solidarity with Indigenous groups and people of faith the world over.

The tools of communal spiritual disciplines and practices, applied to pro-environmental actions, can help connect people to the land and other species and make their actions meaningful. Teaching these practices may help to catalyze an ecospiritual praxis cycle in each cohort of students or each community group working to combat climate change.