Empowering Spiritual Human-Nature Relationship through Mindfulness Pedagogical Paths

Abstract

This study emphasises the need to empower spirituality within the framework of environmental education, and demonstrate its value as a vital component in the human-nature relationship. This is proposed through utilizing the meaning, content and practice of mindfulness. The examination of mindfulness, as a pedagogical philosophy as well as methodology, contributes to the relief of our disconnectedness as humans from nonhuman nature, and to the creation of a harmonious relationship with the nonhuman world. Thus emerge three pedagogical paths: slowing down from the frenetic rhythms of our everyday lives in contemporary high-tech societies and promoting mindful connection with nature; mindful eating, and cultivation of empathy for the Earth as well as all living creatures. Mindfulness has the potential to play an essential role in the empowerment of ecological consciousness, based on the principles of coexistence and solidarity between human and nonhuman beings. This empowers the development of a sensorial and spiritual human/nature bond, and an embodied empathy for all living creatures, developing feelings of compassion for all of Earth’s inhabitants, as well as humility and gratitude towards the more-thanhuman world.