Here are some of my favorite ecospirituality practices. Perhaps some will resonate for you—or maybe they will remind you of your own special ways to connect with the Great All through being in (or invoking) the out-of-doors.
1. Spend some portion of time outside in nature every day in a contemplative way.
2. Hang out beside a stream for hours, and become one with it.
3. Imagine a stream pouring through you, head to toe, washing out all impurities and troubled feelings.
4. Sing songs and mantras at full volume alongside a roaring stream, so that your singing and the sound of the stream blend together as one.
5. Go to the mountains, find an overlook place, and get an overview on life.
6. Go caving, to connect to the depths of the earth and to ancient human history.
7. Listen for the sound of owls at dusk, then echo their question to yourself: “Who? Who am I?”
8. Write what’s troubling you in the sand with a stick, then watch the incoming waves wash it away.
9. Identify your primary root place for connecting with the earth, and return to it throughout life.
10. Identify a secondary root place near where you live, and go there over and over to connect.
11. Hold a replica of the earth and talk to it and ask it what it needs from you.
12. Sit under yellow- and crimson-dressed trees and gaze at the leaves against a vivid blue fall sky.
13. Have friends “bury” you in autumn leaves, as a poultice-like purification ritual.
14. Look uninterruptedly at the patterns formed by water currents in the sunset-dripped light of dusk.
15. Gaze at a night sky ablaze with stars, and contemplate the vastness of the universe.
