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Ancient stone carving of a woman standing beside intricately decorated circular patterns and floral motifs, with ruins in the background.

Sacred places

idea

Why Indian Buddhism has gardens, not monasteries

Wishing trees, jewels, unfading flowers – what place do these sensual pleasures have in the ascetic life of Buddhist monks?

by Simran Agarwal

Tree with colourful rags and trinkets tied to branches, overlooking a scenic lake and green landscape in the background.

Sacred places

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Paganism is a potent force in Ireland’s conservation movement

Long-held beliefs in an ‘Otherworld’ inhabited by wrathful fairies are now driving a resurgence in Irish eco-activism

by Juju Lane

Mountain landscape with a winding dirt path, large rocks, green hills and a cloudy sky.

Sacred places

idea

Nan Shepherd delved into a queer erotic kinship with nature

In the Highlands, Nan Shepherd found an erotic kinship with nature: ‘The Living Mountain’ a core text for queer ecology

by Melissa Matthewson

A woman and child stand on a barren, fire-ravaged landscape with scorched trees and hills in the background under a cloudy sky.

Sacred places

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Our children will need to find the beauty in our burnt planet

How will our children find beauty in a world rapidly breaking into what observers call a spectacle of unremitting loss?

by Stephen J Pyne

Aerial view of a swimmer in a blue swimming pool with marked lanes, water ripples, and reflection. Only one swimmer is visible in the middle lane.

Sacred places

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I swim to think and to stay afloat in an ever-wetter world

‘The Beames my Bones, my flesh the plankes’: in pools, I glimpse the future of our terrestrial bodies in an ocean world

by Steve Mentz

Photo of a sunlit forest trail with a person walking on a rocky path surrounded by tall trees.

Memoir

idea

My three decades alone, basking in the company of a mountain

I live alone in a mountain cabin. Is my solitary life an indulgence, a form of madness or a route to spiritual fulfilment?

by Susanne Sener