Ecotherapy Newsletter

ecotherapy news Healing our relationsHip witH nature ... ecopsycHology in action ... psycHotHerapy as if tHe wHole world mattered ...

“nietzsche announced the advent of nihilism; but as graduates of the first ecotherapy certificate program, your presence announces an advent of possibility.”

— craig chalquist, ph.d

Angela Varner

LILY TRUONG, one of 11 students to complete JFK University’s Ecotherapy Certificate program, with founder Craig Chalquist.

Earth gets good news: certified ecotherapists Commencement speech recognizes new graduates as modern ‘sensitives’

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ighty-four years ago, Hermann Hesse published a novel, Steppenwolf, in which the protagonist stands for the type of person who is sensitive to shifts in collective consciousness.

Recalling Nietzsche as such a sensitive—“I give you the advent of nihilism”—Hesse’s novel diagnoses the suffering not only of individuals, but of the times themselves. For times out of joint impact the sensitive right through their individually felt wounds.

What Hesse, Nietzsche, and others predicted we now live: the end of an age of technocratic hubris and capi-

talized colonialism, an end announced by social systems, economic systems, and ecosystems crashing around the planet. Which raises the question: What do sensitive people of our time register?

Everyone here today feels the wounds of our planet in your very flesh. In fact, it is the ecotherapist’s task to remain open to that level of wounding so you can help other people stand theirs.

Ideally, you encourage them to move from passive victimization by “ecoanxiety” and other ailments of alienation from the natural world into deeper contact with and appreciation of Earth, our home, our origin, and source of embodied healing.

Yet sensitive people sense future possibilities, as Hesse described so often in his writings. Just as the intuitive of his time sensed the oncoming tide of worldwide disorganization, so the Continued on next page

Fall 2011

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he International Association for Ecotherapy was founded in 2002 as a virtual organization of psychotherapy clinicians, counselors, healthcare professionals, coaches, guides, students and educators who are practicing or teaching in the emerging field of ecotherapy (applied ecopsychology).

For a free subscription to this newsletter contact publisher and executive editor Linda Buzzell, M.A., M.F.T., founder of The International Association for Ecotherapy at lbuzzell@aol.com. Reach layout and managing editor Nicholas Boer at nickboer@yahoo.com

CONTENTS Roszak’s Legacy .......... Page 2 Young Professionals......Page 3

What’s the Buzz.............Page 4 Engaging Eco-emotion...Page 5 Columnist: EcoSoul........Page 6

Flesh, Fruit & Veggies....Page 7

TO APPLY: For info on the online Ecotherapy Certificate Program at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, Calif. go to www.jfk.edu and search for “ecotherapy.”

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intuitive of ours sense what waits beyond it: the just and sustainable world community we must build to survive and flourish on our homeworld.

Nietzsche announced the advent of nihilism; but as graduates of the first ecotherapy certificate program, your presence announces an advent of possibility. Remember that when you forget that the chaos and madness around you signify the birth pangs of a new planetary community, one informed by a new series of deep en-

“it’s customary to give advice at graduation ceremonies, and i will — work together.” gagements with Earth’s remarkable systemic intelligence.

It’s customary for educators to give advice at graduation ceremonies, and I will, if only one piece of advice: work together. If you stay together and support each other, you will not fail. You will not fail because you are writing the new story for our time.

From the seeds of your ecotherapy work sprouts the hope for reconciliation of supposed opposites torn apart by a worldview in decline: human and nonhuman, spirit and flesh, feminine and masculine, self and Earth. Agents of decline might withhold their assistance and even denounce your work, but the rocks and rivers support it.

It has been my honor and privilege to watch you struggle, reflect, study, and labor your way forward. Words do no justice to the pride and satisfaction I feel as you complete this rite of passage.

Now for Gaia’s sake go celebrate and have fun!

Witnesses and celebrants, ‘I give you the world’s first Ecotherapy Certificate graduates!’”

— Craig Chalquist, PhD Sept. 10, 2011 at Sugarloaf Amphitheater, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Roszak’s passing a reminder to play

By Nicholas Boer nickboer@yahoo.com

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heodore Roszak, the father of ecopsychology, died on July 5, 2011 in his Berkeley home due to complications from liver cancer. He was 77. This deeply sad event was a double downer by the exclusion in most obituaries—including in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times— of the profound work and uplifting spirit found in Roszak’s immortal book The Voice of the Earth. Most media focused instead on Roszak’s other seminal work The Making of a Counter Culture. In The Voice of the Earth, however, Roszak actually builds on his household term “counter culture”— which refers to a subculture challenging established social norms. A brave and playful counter culture is the very backbone to Roszak’s prescription for our current morass eloquently described in The Voice of the Earth. His hope to reversing humanity’s environmentally destructive course is a rediscovery of our playful instincts (in the same way we can rekindle our fascination with the earth as an animate organism).

Roszak tells us we need not be frightened by how culture may judge us, but need instead to act upon the affirming instincts born within us, those of selfless joy and infectious confidence.

Roszak encourages us to hold the earth as we might relate to a dear friend or relative—a living creature that speaks to us most eloquently in a quiet Voice. Picking up a copy of The Voice of the Earth in my parents’ house, I found an inscription by Roszak on the inside cover: “For Joan—[my mother]— with best wishes.” A synchronicity to be sure, and a clear message that Roszak’s “Voice” lives on in the earth and in future generations. In the book, Roszak is clear that old tactics of hurtling shame and blame on polluters (The Voice of the Earth was published in

1992) is self-defeating. This guilt tunes prospective allies out. It’s a senseless strategy more likely to engender fear—paralyzation—than inspire hopeful action.

Having recently received a certificate in ecotherapy, I pawed through The Voice of the Earth as I might an archeological dig. Here was the rich soil upon which ecotherapy has now blossomed. Roszak asserts that resurrecting an animist worldview—our ancient ancestors natural orientation—is a crucial step in halting humanity’s voracious exploitations.

In “Voice,” Roszak identifies two suspects for the loss of our animist worldview: Christianity and Science. The church defined nature worship unholy because such an orientation challenged God’s authority and privilege. With this mindset established, the church, ironically, paved a way for science to dictate matter as inanimate— to believe even our animal kin have no inner lives, no emotion, no capacity to experience true pain or joy.

Our fellow creatures’ sentience is plain to any child. But this clarity has been repressed, beaten out of us—sometimes literally, often psychologically.

Tellingly, Roszak describes Freud’s playful Id to be a most trustworthy guide through our current environmental quagmire. Nourishing a counter culture, perhaps, is our best opportunity to break free of a manic lifestyle and modernity’s manacles.

This view flows directly from Roszak’s insight into “counter culture”—a gift he bestowed upon a society baffled by Vietnam. We need that same passion today; that same sense of life-affirming common purpose.

Let us express our joy of earth in both words and actions —just as Roszak expressed his insight into all of life.

Perhaps we can reawaken humanity by example. To be models for the numinosity we feel. Roszak, never one to invoke “God,” would encourage us to pray, and play.

Integrating our ancestors Young Professionals in the Field: an interview with Daniel Foor

By Rain Sussman rain@greenhealingconsultants.com

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t seems that you’ve been a very deeply spiritual person for your entire life, and that this is what drives you.

I started reading about shamanism in high school, and have been studying with different spiritual teachers, doing ritual and ceremony, for close to 20 years. On a vision quest when I was 26, I was told clearly that my life would be about helping people repair their relationships with other beings. One aspect of this work involves healing our relationships with the ancestors, with the unseen half of the human world. But it’s also about repairing relationships with animals, plants, places, and elements. So that’s what I’m here to do—that’s what I feel passionate about.

In your work, you’ve managed to integrate your passion for the earth, your deep spiritual calling, and your training in psychology. Was it challenging to weave these strands together?

Spirit and nature feel so integrated to me now that I don’t remember if they ever felt split. I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, but had woods and a creek behind my house, and developed a strong connection to nature as a kid. I wanted to harmonize my concerns with the earth with my interest in spirituality, so in college I studied world religion and got involved in environmental activism. I studied pagan culture, Buddhism, and Sufism. I was drawn to psychology when I realized that human confusion is causing the earth’s destruction. The focus of my doctoral work was shamanic methods in clinical mental health settings. I wanted to demonstrate that it’s possible—and desirable—to integrate traditional healing into psychotherapy in

This is the second in a series of interviews with emerging ecotherapists whose work—in Howard Clinbell’s description—facilitates “healing and growth nurtured by healthy interaction with the earth.” Today we meet Daniel Foor.

“ the field of psychotherapy desperately needs to help humans heal their relationships with the earth, with each other, and with the ancestors.”

— daniel foor

culturally sensitive, ethical ways. The field of psychotherapy desperately needs to help humans heal their relationships with the earth, with each other, and with the ancestors.

Is this the focus of work you do now?

Yes. My work is very much about healing the perceived split between humans and the rest of nature. I offer trainings and ceremonies that engage the ancestors, the elements, and the natural world. Most of the events are rituals on the land; there’s no substitute for actually being out in nature.

Different places have their own unique medicine. If you go to a vibrant place, you may bring offerings and a prayer that you have for your life; you invite support and honor the natural power there as you would a human elder.

The etiquette is different at a disturbed area, where rituals to heal the spirit of the land are more appropriate. There, we clean up after ourselves physically, energetically and spiritually—we make apologies. I offer three or four public rituals, trainings, or circles each month, and work with individuals as spiritual guide and mentor. I’m not currently working as a therapist, but I offer trainings for clinicians. I want to encourage therapists to reclaim the field from reductionist, rationalist worldviews. Therapists are healers of the psyche; we need to incorporate ancestor work and earth-honoring spirituality into our practice. But we also need to know those things really well on their own terms before integrating them.

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Did you confront disturbing aspects of your ancestry, such as racism or colonialism, in your own ancestor work?

My recent ancestors are Pennsylvania farmers, coal miners, mothers, and working-class, rural people. Some of my more distant ancestors may have been slave owners in Maryland, while others were known to have died fighting for the Union in the Civil War. So it’s complicated. Some of my ancestors were almost certainly brutalized

by Roman colonial forces in northern Europe, and had their traditional indigenous ways butchered out of them; and some almost certainly carried out that oppression against other tribal European peoples. We of European ancestry are still not yet recovered from our own experience of cultural oppression. We all have tribal roots, but returning to them to heal them takes commitment.

What advice do you have for someone who wants to learn more about shamanic healing or ancestor work?

One of the most important things is to seek out living human teachers. Don’t idealize them, but learn as much as you can by spending time with them.

We’re in desperate, desperate crisis on the planet. We’re hemorrhaging.

The house is already on fire. So the appropriate response, if you’re not an elder or a leader yourself, is to approach those people and say, “What is needed? How can I help?”

What’s the Buzz Editor Pick Web Sites

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For Goethe and Steiner both, the most precise scientific instrument is the human being who has cultivated his or her faculties. The highest goals of science should be, not the disenchantment of nature to the end of controlling it, but rather the expanding of one’s personal capacities...to enter into nature’s wisdom. The ultimate goal of science should be the transformation of the scientist.”

—Frederick Amrine Nicholas Boer

Tree Hugging Works http://wakeup-world.com/2011/06/24/treehugging-now-scientifically-proven-to-improvehealth-issues/

Linda Buzzell Interviewed http://www.futureprimitive.org/2011/08/lindabuzellrenewing-connections/

Great New York Times Article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31ecopsych-t.html?ref=magazine

Equine Therapy http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/2159 1463/detail.html

Green Thumbs Up! http://www.mind.org.uk/news/1795_go_gree n_to_beat_the_blues

‘Community’ Gardens http://www.miller-mccune.com/news/immersion-in-nature-makes-us-nicer-1430.print

Daniel Foor MFT, Ph.D practices earth-honoring spirituality and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a doctorate in Psychology; M.A. in Counseling; and a B.S.S. in Religious Studies, and is the founder and executive director of the Earth Medicine Alliance.

Permaculture Principles www.holmgren.com.au

“Ecopsychology in Counseling” http://www.lclark.edu/graduate/departments/counseling_psychology/ecopsychology/

Waking up to Nature http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.108 9/eco.2008.0004?journalCode=eco

Rain Sussman, LCSW, is a certified ecotherapist, medical social worker, and wilderness instructor in the San Francisco Bay Area, and founder of Green Healing Consultants.

Eco-ponderings

Friends Meet Psychologists http://www.foe.org/sites/default/files/Role_of _Psychology_in_Environmental_Campaigning_Activism.pdf

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For therapy to ignore the ways in which a patient’s problems are inseparable from the environmental and ecological problems we face is...not only irresponsible, it is also dangerous and maybe even delusional.”

—Robert Romanyshyn

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Being wholly present to crisis can transform ways of seeing. Yet how difficult it is to remain embodied and present to the chaos, confusion and suffering as old ways and structures break down. Birthing of the new is exciting yet painful. Living through a paradigm shift can feel like walking between two worlds with two very different narratives about our human place in the web of life. A case of double vision? Behind our hard-won achievements, the old story is one of domination, oppression or idealization, seeing nature as object and ‘other’.

What is the new story? Therapeutic wisdom suggests that the new is born out of the old. When we bring the disrespected ‘other’ back into view, reclaiming those parts of ourselves and the world that have been pushed into the margins, seeing the gestalt of the crisis is possible. Sitting with such apparent paradox becomes the Zen koan of the moment. Seen from this perspective, sustainability is not only about practical change, but a challenge to make a psychic leap in seeing. Can double vision become integrated sight?”

—Mary-Jayne Rust (www.mjrust.net)

By Kristi Kenney kristiwk@gmail.com

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want to help people recognize, work with, and move through their emotional reactions rather than get stuck in them. These two threads need each other to be truly effective.

It has been exciting to see a museum work with the difficult question of addressing overwhelm and the emotional components of environmental awareness.

This shows a growing awareness of our environmental challenges and the emotions associated with this awareness.

Partnering with venues such as museums, zoos, aquariums, and public gardens provide ecotherapists an opportunity to branch out and work with large and diverse communities. Bridging ideas from the fields of Conservation Psychology and ecopsychology works especially well in this context. These are places of education where we can apply ideas from Conservation Psychology but they are also places where emotions will arise and we may find visitors feeling overwhelmed.

Carefully and intentionally working with what comes up for people is imperative in this time of mounting ecological crisis.

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Working with the emotional aspects of environmental crisis in a very public environment

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s environmental news and forecasts worsen and multiply at what often seems an exhausting pace, so too do people’s emotional reactions. These are not just private reactions; they are something we experience together and often in public places. Representatives of zoos, aquariums and botanical gardens who participated at a recent gathering of the first Conservation Psychology Institute at Antioch University in New England are recognizing how exhibits addressing a range of environmental issues can affect visitors on an emotional level.

As part of my ecotherapy internship work, I recently consulted with staff at the Oakland Museum’s Natural Sciences Gallery on how to deal with this very issue. As the Natural Sciences staff has been redesigning its gallery for renovation, they have become increasingly aware of the emotional impacts of the information they are presenting.

The museum staff found themselves asking: how do we help patrons deal with the potential overwhelm experienced when faced with all the ecological problems described in the gallery?

How do we work with the emotional aspects of environmental crisis in a very public environment?

This kind of forward thinking is leading to an awareness that simply giving people lots of information about environmental issues could just lead to overwhelm if the psychological impacts are ignored. Theodore Roszak, who’s credited with coining the term “ecopsychology” anticipated this in his 1992 book The Voice of the Earth, saying “the environmental movement must take the time to draw up a psy-

chological-impact statement.”

Conservation Psychology, which emerged in the early 2000s, makes explicit through its research and applications that information-heavy education can backfire. Conservation Psychology draws from behavioral and social psychology to outline ways to effectively work with people to promote conservation behaviors. They recognize there is a delicate balance in how we talk

about ecological issues, i.e. arousing emotions is a good idea but it needs to be paired with constructive and specific ways to take action. Information and facts alone won’t do the trick, but values-based messaging appropriate for the audience can be effective.

Ideas from Conservation Psychology and my ecotherapy-informed work are wrestling with two sides of the same coin. How we draw people into environmental awareness is tricky and needs to be done with care. Additionally, we must recognize and acknowledge that emotions and feelings of overwhelm will likely be present. Addressing both sides is imperative if we

Kristi Kenney is a certified ecotherapist with an MA in Integral Psychology focused on the intersection between psychology and activism. Please contact her to collaborate on this work.

Get Involved

J. Phoenix Smith

MIDDLE HARBOR SHORELINE PARK in Oakland Calif., will be the site of an earth-honoring healing ceremony. Photo taken during a Bay Area Nature Stroll for People of Color.

Tackling the Toxic Triangle “i’m humbled and hon-

J. Phoenix Smith ECOSOUL

ored to engage in an earth-honoring ritual with deep connections between the place where i grew up and the place where i now live.”

grew up in a town surrounded by five military bases, strip malls, truck stops, and bad air. The kind of air that made my eyes burn. Air so thick with heat, humidity and exhaust that connecting with nature in my community was an unhealthy and dangerous act.

There weren’t any Girl Scout troops or Outward Bound recruiters in my neighborhood. The working class residents were mainly people of color with dreams deferred. Today, I live in Oakland, Calif. near beautiful Lake Merritt—declared the country’s first wildlife sanctuary in 1869 by the City’s mayor. Today it’s also an area with an incredibly rich diversity of people, birds and native plants.

But Lake Merritt is located in the flatlands section of Oakland, part of an area deemed the Toxic Triangle by

local environmental justice advocates. The Triangle encompasses many low-income Bay Area communities of color including Richmond.

These neighborhoods consist of freeways, heavy truck traffic, oil refineries, abandoned industrial plants, World War II era defense facilities and seaports that create a dense soup of environmental pollution.

As a practitioner of an earth-based spiritual tradition, I have been called to engage with the Toxic Triangle by facilitating ceremonies with the spirits of nature, hoping to help heal the land and its people.

On October 23, as part of the second annual conference of the Earth Medicine Alliance, I will lead a traditional eco-spiritual healing ceremony in West Oakland.

Last November I co-facilitated with

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The Earth Medicine Alliance is holding its second annual conference Oct. 22-23 in San Francisco. Registration is $75. Information at www.earthmedicine.org. EcoSoul is a co-sponsor, and J. Phoenix Smith will be on a panel called Ancestors as Spirits of Place. If you’re unable to attend the conference but still want to be involved with the Oakland healing ceremony on October 23, contact J. Phoenix Smith at ecosoulwisdom@gmail.com

my mentor Michael Mason a traditional Afro-Cuban spiritual ceremony based in the Lucumi tradition for healing of the land, animals, and people at San Francisco’s Heron’s Head Park located in the redevelopment district of Bayview-Hunter’s Point. I was invited to facilitate this ceremony as a part of the first Earth Medicine Alliance Conference. The Earth Medicine Alliance is a Bay Area inter-faith non-profit dedicated to serving the natural world through bringing together practitioners of diverse earth-honoring paths for interfaith dialogue and co-creative, heart-centered ritual.

As a practitioner of an African earthbased spiritual tradition, I have been called to engage with the Toxic Triangle by facilitating earth-honoring ceremonies to raise the awareness of the intersection between environmental justice issues and ecotherapy healing practices. My hope and prayer is that by facilitating eco-spiritual rituals in such places as the Toxic Triangle— where the land and the people have suffered from oppression and neglect—that an opening can occur for healing, collaboration, and justice for the people and the planet.

J. Phoenix Smith, MSW is a certified ecotherapist, public health advocate and founder of EcoSoul. EcoSoul utilizes West-African based ecospiritual practices, mindfulness based practices and nature to cultivate peace and wellbeing. www.ecosoulwisdom.org

And if the rabbit wanted to eat you? A question for ecotherapy Original articles or letters to the editor, particularly those representing an opposing point of view to articles found in in this newsletter are welcome.

Please send articles (750 word maximum) or letters (200 word maximum) to lbuzzell@aol.com.

Art by Judie Bomberger; photo by Nicholas Boer

Magical thinking is a luxury animals can’t afford

By Karen Diane Knowles

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karendiane@mac.com

cotherapy owes its existence to the paradigm shift from domination of nature to partnership with nature, from anthropocentrism to the ecocentric ideal. When humans relinquish claim to center-stage superiority, all beings have as much right to their lives as we have to ours. This ideal is reflected in the growing movement of sustainable and eco-friendly urban agriculture. Or, is it? This movement—urban farming, homesteading, locavore food production—conjures lush leafy greens, plump juicy fruit … and bloodied butcher blocks?

Although farming of any animal represents unnecessary enslavement and slaughter, those of us sharing life with rabbits look with extraordinary horror at bunny butchering just as American mores denounce eating dogs and cats. Rabbits live as family members in millions of American households, with their popularity as companion animals increasing; yet, their popularity as the sustainable meat of choice in urban farms is also increasing.

As this trend grows, so does bunny suffering. This is tragically evidenced by a recent raid of a backyard rabbit meat operation in Oakland, California where 21

rabbits were languishing from severe neglect—starvation, thirst, and unconscionably unsanitary conditions. The recovering bunnies are now awaiting adoption into loving families. What about the scores of other rabbits slated for slaughter in backyard farms?

While urban farms offer city greening, community building, ecological education, and much-needed connection to nature, more locavores are reengineering fresh fruit and vegetable gardens into flesh, fruit, and vegetable operations. The harvesting of lives darkens the enterprise. Eco-friendly becomes eco-unfriendly when sentient faces of nature are objectified as property, as commodities to further human appetite or economic gain. Backyard animal agriculture perpetuates the same objectifying practices as industrial agriculture, only under a green name.

As the urban farming movement spreads, debate over regulation mounts—especially controversial when animal slaughter is involved.

This concerns the ecotherapy community, as the well-being of our planetmates—our animal-assisted therapy partners—is at stake. In keeping with the aim of ecotherapy, nature is to be the healer and the healed—not the victim.

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Flesh Farming But flesh eating is natural.

True. Animals eat other animals. They do not, however, farm other animals.

They do not bring other animals into the world to be enslaved and confined or subject their prey to a lifetime of captivity. Predation is not prolonged: Stalk. Chase. Pounce.

Kill.

Animals need their flesh more than we do. We don’t have to be predators when we can harvest healthy food that doesn’t involve confinement or killing. As omnivores, our bodies give us this option. As proponents of ecocentric principles, our evolved sensibility can guide us toward ethical choices about what and who we eat.

Humane Slaughter Without benefit of a complete thought experiment, it’s safe to assume humane slaughter would seem less “humane” if we were the ones being humanely slaughtered. Sacred rites are sometimes performed to give thanks to the individual for his or her involuntary

it’s safe to assume humane slaughter would seem less “humane” if we were the ones being humanely slaughtered. sacrifice, but would such ceremonial thanksgivings be meaningful if the victims were unconsenting, unenfranchised members of the human population, say, children, the mentally ill, or the elderly?

Undergirding this recasting of systematic slaughter as humane is the Machiavellian precept of the end justifying the means. Giving the green nod of approval to the human slaughter myth perpetuates conscience-approved killing. Whereas animal welfare conditions in some urban farming operations may be superior to atrocious factory farms, as the Roman philosopher Seneca maintained, “It is not

goodness to be better than the very worst.”

The Sentient Faces of Nature Embodying earth-centered consciousness recognizes animals as kin, partners, and ontological equals; we purposefully take on their point of view, considering life and living conditions from where they stand, hop,

accountable for anthropogenic damage to the earth—light bulbs, recycling, public transit are accepted shoulds—habits of behavior that exploit animals are christened personal lifestyle choices. Earthly beings psychobiologically similar to ourselves get curiously short shrift. Even as Earth ceases to be a resource to be exploited, a She to be honored, Her sentient beings continue to be objectified as resources of human utility. It’s counterintuitive, really. Because nonhuman animals are so close to us and are of the natural world, one would expect their ontological doubledipping to afford them double consideration and protection.

Partnership over Property Better for our own health than eating animals is enjoying their companionship and partnership.

Ecotherapy recognizes the physical and psychological benefits of human-nonhuman interaction: stress reduction, illness prevention and recovery, combating Karen Diane Knowles loneliness in elderly people, and swim, slither, or fly. fostering empathy in children. AnimalOur science and sensibility tell us non- assisted activities are most effective human beings have their own physiwhen there is reciprocity, when human cal, mental, and emotional experience and animal both benefit from the interof the world. We now know we aren’t action/relathe only species to think, feel, use lan- tionship. guage and rationality, express intenAs animal agriculture tionality, dream, empathize, use tools, is inherently one-sided, perform funeral rituals, engage in culit is inconsistent with comtural transmission, demonstrate selfpanionship; as animals reflection, or exhibit post-traumatic are presumed property, it stress disorder. is inconsistent with partThe implications of trans-species psynership. Rather, celebratchology consciousness, of recognizing ing ecocentrism through shared psychology across species, ecotherapy, respecting are profound: With false barriers rethe intrinsic value of all moved, we see ourselves in animals life, we engage with naand them in us. This compels us to ture in a harmonious see them not for what they can do for way—we heal and are us but for who they are—as integral, healed. As we nurture, so intelligent, and beautifully complex are we nurtured: a virtuous faces of nature. cycle.

Given ecocentrism, one wouldn’t expect this to be a hard sell. Yet, when it comes to social and environmental Karen Diane Knowles, M.A. is an interjustice, animals often fall through the preter at UC Berkeley and a faculty ontological cranny between human member in JFK University’s ecotherand earth. They are like us but are not apy program; she is the author of us; they are earthlings but are not “Tuning In to Terra through Our Animal land, soil, air, water, or trees.

Kin” in Rebearths: Conversations with a World Ensouled (2010).

While eco prescriptive norms hold us