Louise Conner, Editor

September 21, 2023 - NASA doesn't only look outward away from the earth, it looks inward toward the earth as well. Its telescopes and and other instruments point at city lights, melting ice caps, phytoplankton blooms, and wildfires, as wells as stars as they form and explode. . By Louise Conner

September 7, 2023 - Jackie Brookner (1945-2015) was an ecological artist whose work is often both aesthetic and practical, opening people's awareness to their connections with the rest of creation and also functioning to make those connections healthier and stronger. By Louise Conner

August 31, 2023 - Nicknamed “The Bead King," Gateja is a mixed-media artist and jewelry designer, known for his use of recycled and sustainable materials—in particular, his paper beads. His large-scale, intricate works are often colorful and tend to a hopeful view of the world. By Louise Conner

This poem by Marshall Island poet Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner brings home to readers that climate change doesn't just threaten "nations" in the abstract, but affects specific people, creatures, and land that are part of those nations. By Louise Conner

August 10, 2023 - As someone who believes in both an all-powerful God and in the capability of humans to affect the course of history, I find this Prayer for the Earth from Rabbi David Mevorach Seidenberg to be a helpful resource and share it in the hope that others will, also. By Louise Conner

August 3, 2023 - If you aren’t familiar with Xavier Rudd or the song, Follow the Sun, I hope you enjoy today’s introduction. By Louise Conner

July 27, 2023 - Young artist Eden Overland shares some of the art she has created from natural materials she has found growing or fallen onto the ground around her. By Louise Conner

July 20, 2023 - Part zoo, part theme park, part interactive museum, and part time travel machine, Pollinator Park is a free interactive virtual experience intended to create a fun, educational, and emotionally engaging entrance into the world of pollinators. By Louise Conner

July 13, 2023 - A place where children can play outside, may be, depending upon where you live, something you take for granted. For Chu Kim Duc, a Vietnamese architect, and her partner, journalist Nguyen Tieu Quoc Dat, it has been a goal to work toward for the last ten years. By Louise Conner

July 6, 2023 - The untitled prayer poem by E.E. Cummings, which begins with the line, "i thank You God for most this amazing day," is a celebratory chorus of joy, rejoicing in the earth and the God who is responsible for it. By Louise Conner

June 28, 2023 - Tanabe Chikuunsai IV's most well-known works catch one's attention, but his sculptures are not stand-alone tributes to one person's creativity and skill. They are rooted deeply in tradition, community, and the earth itself. By Louise Conner

June 22, 2023 - The night sky has guided humans and animals in their travels, created healthy rhythms of rest and work, and has invited humans (including artists)to reflect on their place in a vast universe. By Louise Conner

June 15, 2023 —Jennifer McCurdy draws on the forms and shapes of nature—translating spirals and fractals, seaweed and flowers into vessels that evoke their source in such a way that the viewer sees into the heart of something beautiful and living. By Louise Conner

June 8, 2023 - It might not seem that an essential step in constructing a church building would be to plant some trees. But when New Zealand dairy farmer Barry Cox decided he wanted to build a church building, that is exactly where he began. By Louise Conner

June 1, 2023 - As this poem by Jane Hirshfield alludes to, the "unseen, unread, unremembered," do transforming work that makes life possible—both for themselves and others. By Louise Conner

May 18, 2023 - Hearing and recognizing the unseen voices in my neighborhood expands my understanding of the scope of other creatures living on this land. By Louise Conner

May 11, 2023 - I share this liturgical prayer from the Environment Programme of the Church of England and invite you use it as a tool for contemplation and gratitude. By Louise Conner

May 4, 2023 - Through his work as a birch bark canoe maker, Wayne Valliere ties past, present, and future together, water and land, new generations and old traditions. By Louise Conner

April 27, 2023 - In today's post, I share the music of John Luther Adams, frequently identified as America's "eco-composer," and invite readers to let his music take you to a place of deep listening to this world you are a part of. By Louise Conner

April 20, 2023 - Pippa Dyrlaga is a Yorkshire, England-based artist who, with a piece of paper, a drawing instrument, and a precision knife as her only raw materials, creates an imaginative world of creatures and places that evokes awe toward the natural world. By Louise Conner

April 6, 2023 - In the nooks and crannies of the world, with no human present, songs of praise to the Creator still sound. By Louise Conner

March 30, 2023 - Set in the Tamil Nadu region of southern India, the recent winner of the Best Documentary Short Film Oscar, The Elephant Whisperers, is an impressive work of filmmaking. It is also a work of advocacy and education. By Louise Conner

March 23, 2023 - As roads have widened and lengthened, and traffic has proliferated and sped up, nonhuman creatures have struggled to survive and thrive with splintered habitats, dangerous migration paths, and collisions where they almost always come out on the losing end. By Louise Conner

March 16, 2023 - To help people see the spiritual ramifications of the ways they live within the wider creation, an ecological examen can be a meaningful and useful tool. By Louise Conner

March 9, 2023 - On the side of many concrete buildings throughout the world, massive weeds have been appearing, causing people to turn their heads and crane their necks in spite of the fact that most people see weeds as undesirable and worthy only of being eradicated. By Louise Conner

March 2, 2023 - Contemplation and activism come together in the work of Homero Aridjis, Mexican writer and environmental advocate, who uses language to see, love, and protect the world we live in. By Louise Conner

February 23, 2023 - A set of cycling paths in Limburg, Belgium invites cyclists and others into experiences that go beyond a nice view, creating immersive experiences that shift from the normal point of view. By Louise Conner

February 16, 2023 - In the big picture of the earth's ecosystem, how much good can one person do in their small corner of the world? Quite a bit, as it turns out. By Louise Conner

February 9, 2023 - The exploration of earth as a biosphere, the patterns found in that biosphere, and how humans interact and affect that biosphere, are key frameworks to the work of Dutch-Canadian artist Eveline Kolijn. By Louise Conner

February 2, 2023 - The Rosary Chapel, created by Henri Matisse, though very controversial at the time of its creation due to the artist's particular style and history, is, to me, a portrayal of how the Church and Creation collaboratively infuse beauty into each other. By Louise Conner

January 26, 2023 - Today I share a prayer from by José Hobday, a Seneca elder and a Sister of the Franciscan Order. Framing that prayer are some of her reflections about learning to "pray always" from the Native American spirituality of her mother and some reflections of my own. By Louise Conner

January 18, 2023 -The work of Catherine Chalmer challenges the easy lines we draw between ourselves and other creatures and between what is of value and what isn't. By Louise Conner

January 12, 2023 - What happens when our attention snags on something that takes us out of our isolated selves into a larger, richer place? The poem, To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian, by Ross Gay, gives us a taste of what can transpire when that happens. By Louise Conner

December 29, 2022 - With her feet and the snowshoes, artist Sonja Hinrichsen tracks out works of art that cross and curve, sometimes over massive expanses of snowy landscape. By Louise Conner

December 22, 2022 - The list goes on and on of who and what we would exclude from God's love, but God's love expands far, far beyond the borders we would make for it. By Louise Conner

December 15, 2022 - Like hope and peace, joy is not merely a personal emotion, but a reality we are intended to pass along to others through action—and noise. By Louise Conner

December 8, 2022 - I invite you to experience O Day of Peace by Josh Garrels in three steps: to read the lyrics, listen to the song as sung by Garrels, and meditate and pray using his instrumental version of the song. By Louise Conner

December 1, 2022 - I wonder if this Advent, those of us in more comfortable places who have much within our grasp: relative affluence, security and power, might think less about our own need for hope and more about being agents of hope to others. By Louise Conner

November 17, 2022 - As Susie Ibarra has said, “The cascading effects of climate change create their own sound; but no one has really bothered to listen.” By Louise Conner

November 10, 2022 - Today's prayer from Walter Rauschenbusch calls us to the wonder of this amazing world, and our relationship and responsibility to it. It can also be used as a prayer for corporate repentance and decision-making. By Louise Conner

November 3, 2022 - Originally a painter and photographer, British artist Hannah Bullen-Ryner has, since 2019, been creating Land Art, using materials found in nature to form intricate works of art that nestle upon the ground as if they live there. By Louise Conner

October 27, 2022 -In today's post, I share four well-loved paintings of autumn along with reflections of how these images can help us welcome the current season. By Louise Conner

October 19, 2022 - A hated borderland, separating the two halves of Germany, became the seedbed for a project of ecological diversity and connection. By Louise Conner

October 13, 2022 - That a well-known architect has found a way to convert commonly discarded items into usable construction materials is an amazing feat of creativity and frugality. By Louise Conner

October 6, 2022 - The poem, For the Children, by Gary Snyder, written in 1974, is amazingly fitting for 2022. It reminds me of what is essential if we are going to make this world a better and safer place for those yet to be born. By Louise Conner

September 29, 2022 - 27 artists from around the United States started with identical wooden boxes and made them their own so that they could give them away! On October 1st, the online bidding to benefit A Rocha USA begins! By Louise Conner

September 15, 2022 - In the prayer I share today, gratitude, grief, and the hope of transformation all find a place. The words lead into and through the daily mixture that are part of our lives, where hope butts up against chaos and mercy falls upon us in the midst of exhaustion. By Louise Conner

September 8, 2022 - Some art seems universal and could be made anywhere, but some art is rooted so specifically in a particular place that it does not seem that it could have come from anywhere else. By Louise Conner

September 1, 2022 - An Ecuadorian man has invested 40 years of his life in creating an amazing island of rainforest in a place where rainforests are falling one after another. By Louise Conner

August 26, 2022 - Creating art is an opportunity to listen well and be drawn into a bigger story than our own personal one. By Louise Conner

August 11, 2022 - The poem, Iowa City: Early April by Robert Hass, speaks of a creation full of life, visible and active all around us. Like the bat in the poem, it stops us in our tracks, and can, when it is "loose," fly straight at our face and make us topple to the floor. By Louise Conner

August 4, 2022 - In the effort to provide safe passages for all kinds of creatures, wildlife corridors in all shapes, sizes, and locations are built through areas which could otherwise be hazardous. A first of its kind city-wide example is the subject of today's post. By Louise Conner

July 28, 2022 - A couple of experiences on a recent vacation brought home to me the beauty and resilience of creation's own art—as well as the good or harmful effects our actions can have on this beauty. By Louise Conner

June 21, 2022 - Today's prayer comes from The North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology. The prayer begins with praise and thankfulness to God for God's creation and moves into confession for sins against this gift. By Louise Conner

July 14, 2022 - The art installation, Salmon School, places the plight of salmon and steelhead right before people's eyes through a "school" of blown glass fish hanging from the ceiling, absorbing the viewer imaginatively into their life and movements within a river. By Louise Conner

July 7, 2022 - In addition to the physical and mental challenge it provides, the Peace Maze in Northern Ireland is meant to commemorate the much longer and harder challenge of bringing peace out of decades of conflict. By Louise Conner

June 30, 2022 - A ten movement jazz piece created by Wynton Marsalis as an "animal ballet," explores the diversity, humor and quirkiness found in the animal kingdom through the medium of big band jazz and dance. By Louise Conner

June 27, 2022 - Last week, since learning from each other is foundational for The Ecological Disciple (and our parent organization, Circlewood), we invited readers to share earthkeeping practices and habits from their own lives. We are grateful for those who shared from their experience.

June 23, 2022 - The creatures described in Characteristics of Life are humble, tentative, and vulnerable, easily overlooked and easily harmed in a world that values primarily what is like ourselves. What do we have in common, after all, with a mollusk? By Louise Conner

June 15, 2022 - The techniques of the Dutch Old Masters and the accuracy of scientific observation come together skillfully in the work of Isabella Kirkland. By Louise Conner

June 9, 2022 - This psalm written by Ernesto Cardenal points us toward the wide creation and the truth that the yielding of the word hosanna is a fit task for all of creation. By Louise Conner

May 25, 2022 - On the Rangsit campus of Thammasat University, Thailand, an ingenious rooftop is an example of a multifaceted solution that addresses challenges of climate change while providing significant other benefits at the same time. By Louise Conner

May 19, 2022 - We can see the effects of climate change through melting ice and changing sea levels; we can watch the struggles of animals whose habitat becomes uninhabitable to them through climate change, but there are some voices that are harder to hear. By Louise Conner

May 12, 2022 - In the "Blessings & Prayers" sections of The Bell and the Blackbird, David Whyte explores being touched by what is around us and blessed by it. Two poems in this section, "Blessing for Sound," and "Blessing for Light," make particularly good companion pieces. By Louise Conner

May 5, 2022 - If all beings are related, there is a responsibility to consider the way we walk and live in this world. By Louise Conner

April 28, 2022 - Two weeks ago, at the end of my post looking at the work of Karl Blossfeldt, I invited readers to send in their own close-up pictures and drawings of what they saw when they came in for a closer look at something around them. Here are the results. By Louise Conner

April 22, 2022 - In the 60th anniversary year of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the 52nd anniversary of Earth Day, and the first anniversary of The Ecological Disciple, we look at a piece of writing that can help us take on even our current environmental crises. By Louise Conner

April 14, 2022 - Sometimes, there are things you can only see if you step in closer, focusing on a single small segment of the bigger whole. By focusing on the tiny, we may gain valuable insights of the large that we cannot gain otherwise. By Louise Conner

March 31, 2022 - In this prayer from the Chinook Psalter, observations of the seasonal renewal at work in nature lead into a prayer that a similar renewal might happen within each of us. By Louise Conner

March 24, 2022 - The art of collaborators Martin Hill and Philippa Jones has much to say about the way we live in this world and the changes we need to make to live more successfully within it. By Louise Conner

March 17, 2022 - Sometimes facts and statistics just aren't enough to change us. Music can help us imagine a different, more just way of living and move us from apathy to action. By Louise Conner

March 10, 2022 - To see the connections that exist in this world is essential if we are to live well within it. The poem, Invocation, by Everett Hoagland reminds us just how necessary it is to see those connections and to live accordingly. By Louise Conner

March 3, 2022 - One of the losses in recent days from the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a museum that held, among other work, a large number of paintings by Maria Prymachenko, probably the most well-know Ukrainian artist. By Louise Conner

February 24, 2022 - How was an overgrown dumping spot turned into a valuable environmental and community resource? The answer is actually quite simple. By Louise Conner

February 17, 2022 - We can be such noisy creatures. And for the most part, we seem oblivious to what we're squashing underneath the continuous soundtrack of our own noise-making. Chris Watson, British sound artist has valuable things to teach us. By Louise Conner

February 3, 2022 - The art of Michael Leunig may appear simple—even childlike—it gives us images of ecosystems and connection that deeply remind us of the beauty and joy within both the individual person and the wider community of creation. By Louise Conner

January 27, 2022 - The poem Lost by David Wagoner speaks about the movement from being lost to being found—from disconnection and disorientation to connection and placement. This movement from one to the other is accomplished, ironically, according to the poem, by standing still. By Louise Conner

January 20, 2022 - Using keen observation skills and an aptitude for creative solutions, people in northeastern India have, for at least 500 years, built bridges that require only a particular kind of tree, patience, time, and diligent effort and cooperation. By Louise Conner

January 13, 2022 - I invite you to pray this prayer, not reading it as words to be assented to, but confession to be made, praise to be voiced, action to be taken: consciously, deliberately, and sincerely. By Louise Conner

January 6, 2022 - This five-minute dance on the ice of Antarctica has its roots in this New Zealander's interest in Antarctica, concern about climate change, love of dance, and his interest in bringing the art form outside theaters and to a wider audience. By Louise Conner

December 30, 2021 - When you lie down a field of flowers, the sights, sounds, and smell surround you—you are immersed in the experience. How do you replicate that for people within a gallery space? By Louise Conner

December 23, 2021 -This poem reminds us of an essential truth—a way of seeing what is around us in a different way—much like turning the knob on a set of binoculars so that our view changes from a fuzzy mess to a clear picture of what we couldn't distinguish before. By Louise Conner

December 16 - Whenever you create art, there is element of letting go of it. You can’t control the viewer’s response or interpretation and after you make it, you have to release it. For Jason deCaires Taylor, this letting go is more extreme than is usual. By Louise Conner

December 9, 2021 - We hope you enjoy today's post, with contributions sent in by some of our readers. By Louise Conner

December 2, 2021 - It is not just with other animals of the earth that we share a commonality, but with the earth itself. By Louise Conner

November 25, 2021 - I hope that these sounds will soak into you today and will usher you into joy as you hear and enjoy the varied and expressive world that our God has made. By Louise Conner

November 18, 2021 - English stained glass artist Thomas Denny has completed about 60 commissions primarily, though not exclusively, in English churches; each one of those is rooted in the particular commission, community, and place of their inception. By Louise Conner

November 11, 2021 - Throughout the years, I have returned to Bruce Cockburn’s music again and again (like a favorite book) to voice aspects of my own faith, awe, delight, and anger. By Louise Conner

November 4, 2021 - With the United Nations Climate change conference happening in Glasgow, Scotland through November 12, Christians have an opportunity (and I believe, a responsibility) to pray for what is happening there. By Louise Conner

October 28, 2021 - In 1942, when Japanese Americans were removed from the West Coast to internment camps inland, the new environs were harsh and barren, intentionally isolated and surrounded by barbed wire. Growing green things was a way to grow hope in a desolate time and place. By Louise Conner

October 21, 2021 - When we approach life from a posture of praise, believing that praiseworthy things are all around us, we can see things to praise that we might have overlooked and, with practice, might even find ourselves able to praise things we did not ask for or want. By Louise Conner

October 14, 2021 - This piece of art both invites the viewer to marvel at the tiny creatures called bees and also invites those bees themselves to inhabit its walls, transforming itself into a living work of art. By Louise Conner

October 7, 2021 - Soaking in a Georgia O’Keeffe painting can be as refreshing as a spell of idleness can be for people with overly-busy schedules. By Louise Conner

September 24, 2021 - Is giving thanks the most fundamental part of your prayers? By Louise Conner

September 16, 2021 - Sometimes the only way anyone will see his works is through the pictures he takes of them before they change, melt, collapse, or are brought down by a passing wind. By Louise Conner

September 9, 2021 - In Barcelona, Spain, a park originally designed to be a housing complex for the well-to-do, is a showcase for some of the most innovative and creative skills of a renowned architect known for his love of God and his love of nature. By Louise Conner

September 2, 2021 - When a peach isn't "just" a peach, it can be pathway which leads from blossom to blossom, from joy to joy. By Louise Conner

August 26, 2021 - Is there something in this 200-year-old musical piece that has something to teach us about being part of our world? By Louise Conner

August 19, 2021 - What does it sound like when life is out of balance? This film gives us one perspective on this question. By Louise Conner

August 12, 2021 - Some prayers pour from our mouths unrehearsed and some prayers provide a structure to fit inside of and learn from. There are also prayers that through new language, provide a pathway to see ourselves, our world, and our God a little differently. By Louise Conner

August 5, 2021 In Glarus, Switzerland, inside a sliver of park land, between a railroad track and a street, is a sculpture that brings home a simple, but profound point about the role that humans can take in nurturing the natural world around them. By Louise Conner

July 29, 2021 - This artist's work lights up the texts, combining the tradition of illumination with meticulous accuracy, creating pages that are vibrant, intricate works of art. By Louise Conner

July 22, 2021 Hopelessness paralyzes; in order to step into changes, we need believe that change can affect the future. By Louse Conner

July 15, 2021 Can we live with other creatures in a such way that not only we thrive, buy they thrive as well? By Louise Conner

July 8, 2021 - This week, we share the fabulous photos sent in from readers. We hope you enjoy The Art of Creation: Through Our Readers' Eyes. By Louise Conner

July 1, 2021 - Borrowing the lens of this poet to look at the world can help someone see what is around them with new eyes. By Louise Conner

June 24, 2021 - Do you remember that feeling when you opened a new, unused box of crayons? That's the feeling that this recycle artist has when he finds ways to use what has been discarded as trash. By Louise Conner

June 17, 2021 - When you listen to creation, do you hear a chorus of praise? By Louise Conner

June 10, 2021 - Sometimes a work of artistic redemption must go beyond the borders of our original vision to reach a point of greater completion. By Louise Conner

June 3, 2021 - The love of this earth we are part of may be innate to humans, but that makes it even more grievous when other loves squeeze out space for that elemental love in our hearts. By Louise Conner

May 27, 2021 - True goodness and rightness isn't dull; it shimmers and sings with possibility and joy. By Louise Conner

May 20, 2021 - A prayer for our neighbors—ALL of them. By Louise Conner

May 13, 2021 - When you love something, you want to protect it. That is one reason why these artists want you to love the places they love. By Louise Conner

May 6, 2021 -Instead of the words, "Don't just sit there, do something!" perhaps we need to hear, "Don't just do something, sit there!" By Louise Conner.

April 29, 2021 - We are all old enough to know that we aren't the center of the universe....right? By Louise Conner

April 22, 2021 - On this path in San Francisco, you can walk from the ocean to the sky in just 163 steps. By Louise Conner

April 22, 2021 - Welcome to The Art of Creation, a Thursday post of The Ecological Disciple. By Louise Conner