Sacred

In America, scientists struggle to get their audience to grasp the threat of climate change. Activists have tried motivating people through facts, fear, and excitement, but nothing so far has spurred the change we need. When I think of climate change, I think of polar bears on melting ice caps and Vietnamese rice paddies drowning under rising tides. And then I think of my losing the woods around my childhood home and I lose my breath. My fear of loss and my desire to protect well up in my throat and choke me.

And then I think of all the places across our planet that are sacred to someone and worthy of our protection. For something to be sacred it can be beautiful, precious, powerful, intimate, immense, vital, or ancient. Anything can be sacred, but we treat so few things as if they were.

I want to talk about how we might use reverence to engage with the world around us. In my blog series Sacred, I travel across the Western United states and interact with the people and places I visit through traditional sacred practices.