Spiritual Ecology: Remembering Our Place in the Living World

In a time marked by ecological crisis, social fragmentation, and collective fatigue, many people are sensing that something deeper than policy or technology is required. Spiritual ecology offers a vital perspective: the understanding that the environmental challenges we face are inseparable from an inner crisis of disconnection—from our bodies, from one another, and from the living Earth itself.

Spiritual ecology invites us to remember that we are not separate from nature, but participants in a vast, animate web of life. It asks us to move beyond purely intellectual or abstract frameworks and to reawaken ways of knowing rooted in relationship, reverence, and embodied experience. When we listen again to the land, to our bodies, and to the more-than-human world, we begin to restore a sense of belonging that is essential for both personal and collective healing.

From Inner Disconnection to Outer Destruction

At the heart of spiritual ecology is a simple yet profound awareness: the harm we inflict on the Earth mirrors the harm born of forgetting what is sacred. When land, water, bodies, and communities are treated as objects rather than living presences, patterns of domination and extraction take hold. Spiritual Ecology calls us to examine not only ecological degradation, but also the belief systems that sustain separation—hierarchy over kinship, control over reciprocity, speed over presence.

By cultivating humility and joy in being part of the natural world, we begin to move toward an ethic of responsibility, care, and love. This shift is not about guilt or perfection; it is about relationship. It is about remembering how to listen, how to feel, and how to respond from a place of connection.

Thinking With the Whole Body

A key theme within spiritual ecology is the reclamation of embodied intelligence. Modern life often privileges thinking from the neck up, yet our bodies are extraordinary instruments of perception. Sensation, intuition, emotion, and movement are all ways we receive information from the world around us.

This understanding is beautifully explored in Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram. Abram invites readers into a poetic and experiential journey that restores the sensuous, animate Earth to the center of human awareness. Rather than transcending the body in search of meaning, he encourages us to “think with the whole body,” allowing the land, the weather, and the presence of other beings to shape how we know and understand truth.

The Spiritual Ecology Circle at The Red Shoes

Beginning January 8, we invite you to step into this work through our Spiritual Ecology Circle, a facilitated book study and discussion series grounded in Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. This circle is offered in a hybrid format, and pre-registration is required to receive the Zoom link.

The Spiritual Ecology Circle grows from the recognition that healing our relationship with the Earth is inseparable from healing our inner worlds and our relationships with one another. Together, we create a space that is both safe and brave:

• A safe space to explore emotions, grief, wonder, and longing related to nature and ecological challenges, while feeling held and supported.

• A brave space that invites us to stretch, question assumptions, and expand our perspectives with honesty and care.

This circle is spiritual at its core. We will explore and gently challenge belief systems that create separation between humans, the Earth, and the Cosmos, including patterns such as sexism, racism, ableism, speciesism, materialism, perfectionism, and other forms of hierarchy that perpetuate harm. Our shared work centers connection, curiosity, and a return to wholeness.

Participants are invited to reflect on their willingness to sit with discomfort, to hold multiple truths at once, and to practice skills such as silence, deep listening, vulnerability, presence, compassion, and non-judgment. In this circle, we are all both students and teachers. Strong emotions and differing perspectives may arise, and we commit to meeting them with confidentiality, grace, courage, and love.

Beyond the Book: Living Into Interdependence

In addition to book study and dialogue, the Spiritual Ecology Circle aspires to include a range of experiences over time, including talks, rituals, workshops, scientific presentations, and field trips. These offerings are designed to deepen our understanding of interdependence and to reconnect us with a sense of reverence, responsibility, and possibility in a living world.

About the Facilitator

The Spiritual Ecology Circle is facilitated by Lilia Kapsali, an outdoor educator and certified Nature-Connected Coach devoted to helping people cultivate embodied awareness, emotional intelligence, and meaningful connection with the natural world. Lilia holds an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences and a Master’s in Outdoor Environmental Education from the University of Edinburgh. Originally from Cyprus, she worked in nature conservation before making her home in Baton Rouge. You can learn more about Lilia at https://presencingnature.com/.

Through her coaching and facilitation, Lilia supports individuals in crafting lives rooted in connection, self-realization, and harmony with the greater web of Nature. Guided by a lifelong vision of cultural transformation, her work honors diverse ways of knowing, including the wisdom of body, heart, soul, and the more-than-human world.

An Invitation

If you are curious about what it might mean to truly belong to the Earth again, or if you are longing for a radical shift in how you experience yourself and the world, we invite you to join the Spiritual Ecology Circle. Together, we practice remembering—through dialogue, embodiment, and shared presence—what it means to be fully alive within a living world.