As the shaman guided us to turn to the east, our hands outstretched to the sky in supplication, I looked around and took in a series of absurd facts:
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That the roughly 50 of us invited to Highgrove Gardens in Britain to explore new directions in climate action were dressed in prim suits and summer dresses, while the handful of Indigenous elders among us from Mexico, Hawaii, the Amazon and South Africa were decked out in elaborate feathers, beads and hand-tooled leather.
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That the air was full of smoke from a bonfire, a smell that reminded me that half of my house had burned down in the Los Angeles area wildfires only eight months before.
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And that about 20 feet away, his royal arms in the air, was Charles, the king of friggin’ Britain.
This gathering in July was sponsored in part by an environmental group I work with called Grounded, and it was one of many I’ve attended in my newfound role as a part-time climate activist. You see, about six years ago, during my daily practice of sitting in my underwear and sending out angry tweets to climate science deniers, I looked at myself in the mirror and decided it was time to be more than a keyboard warrior.
Absurdity aside, the event at Highgrove cemented one central idea: To transform our relationship with our planet in this time of climate crisis, we need to value nature as profoundly sacred. Spiritual, even.
As global warming speeds up, the impacts are growing more frequent and destructive. Just last month, my family and I had to evacuate our cabin in Oregon because of wildfires worsened by a heat wave, our fourth evacuation in the past six years. (I’m starting to take this personally. I mean, give me a break, Oh Vulcan, god of fire!)
Between heat stress, habitat destruction, food scarcity and increased parasites, biodiversity loss is also increasing exponentially. According to the National Audubon Society, over 30 percent of California’s native species are threatened with extinction.
We can pass all the legislation and sign all the international agreements we want, but if most humans have learned to treat the earth as an A.T.M. to suck resources out of, and a garbage can to dump waste and pollution into, there is a much deeper imbalance.
Without respect for nature, our hearts stiffen, as the Lakota leader and author Luther Standing Bear wrote in 1933: “The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too.”
Around the same time, Black Elk, the Oglala Lakota holy man, wrote, “Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer” in “Black Elk Speaks.”
Encouraging more people to make a spiritual connection with nature may sound ambitious if not downright delusional. But it is something that the political right and left could potentially embrace. The left might find this in science and the beauty and interconnectedness of life. The right might find resonance in God’s creation and the stewardship of agriculture, and in the conservation of land and water.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why should I listen to 1970s hippy-dippy, tree-huggy concepts from the guy who played Dwight in “The Office”? We need climate action, stat! Laws. Accountability. Renewables instead of coal and oil.
And to that, I draw upon my years of improv training and say, “yes, AND!”
We must pass laws to cut emissions and we must deepen our relationship to the majesty of the Earth. Awe is a gateway to deeper environmental healing. It can inspire us toward ever more committed action.
But what exactly do we do, weirdo? I mean easier said than done!
If we want to plug into the wonder of nature we need to start by actually spending time outside.
Rachel Hopman-Droste is one of many scientists who have studied the neurological changes that happen when we have regular contact with the outdoors. She found changed cognitive functioning and reduced stress and anxiety.
She came up a 20-5-3 rule for spending time in nature: Go outside for 20 minutes three times a week, for example a stroll or time in a park. Spend five hours per month in a semi-wild place such as a forested park, lake or river. Spend three days once a year off the grid in a cabin, tent or on a boat without a cellphone.
Granted, it’s going to take a lot more than camping and dog walks to move our culture’s relationship with nature in the right direction. But it’s a start.
It was actually at a Baháʼí religious youth camp in Seabeck, Wash., where we sang for hours around a campfire, collected shells at the beach and prayed and meditated under a cathedral of Douglas firs, that I first discovered blissful interconnectedness with nature. Perhaps instead of obsolete classes (I’m looking at you cursive!), we could systematically impart that same spirit in a nondenominational way to our children. We can call on leaders from across the political spectrum to prioritize teaching our children about conservation and the majesty of the natural world through outdoor experiential learning.
Back in Britain after the fire ceremony, our sundry group circled in to learn from the wise men and women who had come from Latin America, Hawaii and Africa. Civilization, they told us, has, for the last several hundred years, had a relationship of extraction with our sacred Mother Earth. Instead we need one of sacred regeneration.
Regeneration is the key word in this conversation; it points to the cycle of death, growth and life. Regeneration is hope.
Since that unforgettable afternoon, I have let this concept sink in so that it motivates me to make my steps upon this Earth be more like prayers. And so that the fires in the future are the kind that involve Indigenous elders (and perhaps the king of friggin’ Britain).
Rainn Wilson is an actor and the author of “Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution.”
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