We need to start with some elementary Lakota, a Canadian language. They've given us this phrase -
MITAKUYE OYASIN.


It means: "Everything is connected." The Congregation Renewal Team chose this phrase to describe the gathering of some eighty Edmund Rice Network members who were invited to come to Surrey, in British Columbia, south-east of Vancouver, in April 2007. Their aim? To explore, and share, our spirituality.

Rosemary Heights Retreat Centre, where Mitakuye Oyasin happened, is surrounded by a fringe of forest, on a ridge overlooking the Nicomeiko River. The river snakes its way south-west across boggy fields and blueberry farms to enter the Pacific Ocean.

In the fringe of forest, there is a track. I walked this track every day, as spring opened its wings. The tangles of twigs and bare branches sprouted vivid greens and sticky buds and the moist earth broke into unfurling fronds. Every day I saw something new in the forest – a new bird, a new plant, a new animal.

Some of these acted as guides to what I was experiencing inside the large meeting hall where over eighty members of the Edmund Rice Network were at prayer each day. I wonder what image flashed into your mind when you read ‘at prayer’? Let’s say, rather, they were at spiritual practice, for thus did our presenters often describe what we were doing in there.

Our ten days together involved intense practice. Our three creative spaces (two well equipped art rooms and a music room) yielded a continuous stream of beautiful things that slowly spread over our walls. Outside, in the forest, pink salmonberry, white elderberry and yellow Oregon grape burst into flower.

Vancouver is no place for the faint-hearted. It lies on the margins of two continental plates, that have been grinding against each other for 175 million years, forcing up the Rockies in the process. The glaciers of the last Ice Age (only 15,000 years ago) have left great granite boulders strewn across the grounds of the centre. Our presenters came to us came to us from traditions that have endured enormous pressures too – Indigenous wisdom, the Earth itself, war-torn Judaism, the Tibetan Buddhism of exiles, strife-ridden Christian and post-Vatican Catholicism, persecuted Sufism.

Vancouver sprawls across deltas and estuaries, rivers and fjords, between a wall of snow-covered mountains and the wide Pacific. Mitakuye Oyasin (‘We Are All Connected’) arose from meetings at the margins of different worlds. It was a time of growing tips and uncurling fronds. Spirals were everywhere. It was spring.

One day I saw an owl, beset by two noisy jays. Some of our meeting was in silence. Tenzin Palmo and the Buddhist practice of becoming aware of breathing brought us mindfulness. Like an owl in a dark cedar forest, the Network may need to “go within, in order to move ahead”, in Ken Wilber’s phrase. After such experiences, we understand more – and talk less.

A wren sang his territorial song in the undergrowth every day. The First Nations presenter, Priscilla Solomon, kept orienting us – moving us through a solar cycle of east, south, west and north, and the healing journey this entails. At a time of restructuring for us all, never has the wren’s song (“This is where I am”) been more urgent! Within the Network, I sensed currents began to flow – the Gulf Streams, the El Nino flows, that bind the planet in those erratic rhythms and cataclysms we call ‘weather’.

It was the Sufis, Mira and Hafiz, whirling, moving our circle in dance, and the Jewish rabbi, Michael, rocking, as he chanted psalms, that gave us the movement we needed. Weaving, breathing, sounding, around our common Heart. As if in confirmation, a bald eagle soared in slow circles above us one afternoon, as we practised on the lawn.

Pity the Catholic presenters! They came at the end of our time to connect us with our own roots. Yet the vision granted us, of our Church, was from another turn of the spiral. The bird that appeared that day was the pileated woodpecker – pounding away at rotten wood, hard-headed, with a harsh cackle, but flaunting such a flaming scarlet crest!

I left Rosemary Heights with my heart awake. For our Edmund Rice Network, I suspect it was a spring.

 

 

The Eco-Justice project of the Edmund Rice Network has entered a new phase. 2006 was in some ways the 'year of commitment'. Various groups within our Network, communities, schools, other ministries, whole provinces, and the Congregation Leadership Team, took up the challenge of Eco-Justice.

Some, like the Province Leaders and their Deputies, in Antipolo (The Philippines), set themselves goals. Others were invited/encouraged to explore eco-spirituality and/or to implement the Earth Charter wherever they lived and worked. Some hesitated.

Meanwhile 2006 saw unprecedented public interest, across the globe, in the 'Great Transition' - what it takes to shift from an unsustainable lifestyle to a sustainable way of living. Climate change seems to have accelerated this shift in public atitudes.

2007 is shaping up to be a 'year of learning' in Eco-justice. No longer just the steady stream of information from the media, but I mean the learning that comes from 'getting our hands dirty'.

Across the globe, our Edmund Rice Network is taking up the challenges posed us by our local ecosystems, and their global connections, and all the questions these raise for us. This website, and a myriad of social justice publications, are where we can glimpse ourselves at work on this vital project.

Restoring local ecosystems? Australians, Indians, Peruvians, Irish are working on this. Rising sea level? Our people on Rarotonga, Hawaii, Fiji, East Timor, Negros, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and all coastal cities are facing this. Sustainable schools? Our students on five continents are proposing practical alternatives.

Be part of the ferment. Live the change you want to see.

 

 

Many people ask me, "What is eco-spirituality?" I sometimes counter with, "Do you love your local ecosystem?" It seems to me a simpler question and an easier task!

Learning to love your local ecosystem is a series of simple activities and rituals that will bring you closer to the Earth and deeper into your own soul. You will experience more goodness, beauty and truth, and you will be learning how to build a relationship with the Earth.

Does Jesus want us to love our local piece of Earth? In his basic manifesto (Matthew's 'Sermon on the Mount') he explicitly says, "Look at the birds in the sky! ... Think of the flowers growing in the fields." He invites people into their local ecosystem, to find God at work there.

The first trick is to find it! Those living in rural settings will probably have just as much trouble as those living in cities. Much of what we see is a complex of weeds and introduced species. But a few books, maps and some walking will bring us to pockets of local vegetation. Cherish it!

Then, like any relationship, you need to spend time there - even, 'waste' time there. Learn all you can. Observe, absorb. Feel textures, pick up smells, listen for the soft rustlings.

Strengthen the budding friendship with gifts of your presence and attention. Share your new relationship with your friends and family. You will in time develop little rituals - when and where you acknowledge the local ecosystem, and your feelings for it.

In your musings, in your reflection, let it speak to you. The Earth has its own purposes, its own needs, its own integrity. As part of it, you need to be in communion with it. It can be a little harder for us humans!

Through you, the Earth will speak to others. It will continue to nourish you, as it always has. And your spirituality will be grounded in a living, evolving, enveloping mystery.

 

 

As I moved around the globe, where we have over 200,000 school students actively learning (my rough estimate!), again and again the students came up with suggestions for making their schools more sustainable.

Most judged our schools at the moment to be unsustainable. Their use of energy, water, paper, and other resources, and their production of wastes did not balance their contribution to supporting the local ecosystem or recycling materials.

Of course, our schools aim to produce 'intangibles' - education, religious commitment, a passion for social justice and eco-justice. These are hard to measure. But their opposites (ignorance, prejudice, cynicism, apathy) are heavy costs that society must carry - and pay for.

The students I met readily grasped that their schools' 'ecological footprint' could be improved. I hope to use this website to publish some of their suggestions, so others are inspired to act. Here is a sampling.

• Use school sewage to produce biogas (Seniors, Mt Sion, Arusha, Tanzania).

• Plant the local rainforest trees in the school (Yr 12, St Mary's, Vunakanau, PNG).

• Harvest rainwater in the school (Yr 10, St Joseph's, Bajpe, India).

• Recycle paper (Yr 12, St Anselm's, Birkenhead, England).

• Separate school waste into biodegradable and recyclable (Yr 8, Colegio Cardenal Newman, Buenos Aires, Argentina).

• Set up an Eco-Club in the school (Junior, Archbishop Curley, Miami, USA).

Each school is a unique 'system'. Cooperatively, holistically, creatively, each of our Edmund Rice schools can be a vital component of a sustainable society and a sustainable planet.