COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION

AN ECO-SPIRITUAL APPROACH TO SOLVING CLIMATE CHANGE: AN APPLIED,

ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF COMMUNICATION AND SPIRITUALITY IN AN

ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATION

by

AUDRA BARBER

B.A., Colorado State University, 2014

A thesis submitted to the

Faculty of the Graduate School of the

University of Colorado in partial fulfillment

of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts

Department of Communication

2020

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION

This thesis entitled:

An Eco-Spiritual Approach to Solving Climate Change: An Applied, Ethnographic Study of

Communication and Spirituality in an Environmental Organization.

written by Audra Barber

has been approved for the Department of Communication

______

Dr. Lawrence R. Frey (Committee Chair)

______

Dr. Matthew Koschmann

______

Dr. Kathleen M. Ryan

Date ______

The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we

find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards

of scholarly work in the above-mentioned discipline.

IRB Protocol # 19-0485

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION iii

ABSTRACT

Barber, Audra (M.A., Communication)

Eco-spiritual solutions to climate change: An applied, ethnographic study of spirituality in an environmental organization’s communicative practices

Thesis directed by Professor Lawrence R. Frey

The grave threat posed by climate change has led to a growing eco-spiritual movement that views this problem as a spiritual crisis that will be solved when humans understand their interdependent relationship with the ecosystem and act accordingly. This study employed ethnographic methods (participant observation, interviews, and textual analysis) to investigate how Earthfire Institute, an eco-spiritual organization, promotes that paradigm shift in people’s views of the environment, primarily, via online communication activities and, secondarily, by offering visitors opportunities to interact intimate intimately with animals living at the organization’s wildlife sanctuary in Teton Valley, Idaho. These two practices, respectively, expand humans’ consciousness about and reawaken their visceral sense of knowing their interdependent relationship with Earth and its life forms. The study revealed and offered communication recommendations for addressing two problems that, potentially, limit or undermine Earthfire Institute’s mission: (a) the organization’s communication about its physical site, which privileges pristine nature, needs to be reframed to highlight how visceral experiences can be achieved in people’s everyday environments; and (b) Earthfire should offer information about engaging in specific pro-environmental behavior rather than assume such behavior results automatically from people’s expanded consciousness and visceral experiences.

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe this project to the sustained support that I received from various people in my life, including friends, family, and mentors who kept me motivated throughout this project and my graduate career. I would not have accomplished this achievement without the robust graduate community, of which I am proud to be a member. In particular, I want to thank my tireless advisor, Dr. Larry Frey, for working rigorously on this study and providing endless emotional support and guidance. I appreciate the time and energy you have invested into me and this project.

I also acknowledge the judicious advice offered by Dr. Matthew Koschmann at the beginning of this project, shaping it into the study that it is today. I also owe Dr. Kathleen M.

Ryan enormous thanks for stepping into this project when she did and for introducing me to invaluable research that influenced this study.

Finally, thank you to staff members at Earthfire Institute for allowing me into staff meetings, participating in semiformal and ethnographic interviews, and welcoming me to the organization’s physical site in Idaho. Chelsea Carson deserves special thanks for being an incredibly reliant gatekeeper and new friend. Beyond the information that I gathered for this study, I learned a great deal about compassion and hope from members of this organization.

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CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………… 1 Overview of Thesis ………………………………………………………………... 5

II. LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………………………………….. 8 Environmental Organizations and their Communication ………………………….. 8 Religious and Spiritual Environmentalism ………………………………………... 18 Radical Environmentalism ………………………………………………………… 23 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 25

III. METHODS ………………………………………………………………………… 26 Research Site ………………………………………………………………………. 26 Procedures ………………………………………………………………………….. 27 Data Analysis ………………………………………………………………………. 31

IV. RESULTS …………………………………………………………………………. 34 Earthfire Institute’s Physical Site …………………………………………………. 34 Online Communicative Activities ………………………………………………… 53 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 70

V. DISCUSSION ……………………………………………………………………… 72 A Necessary Ecological Paradigm Shift …………………………………………… 73 Earthfire Institute’s Promotion of the Paradigm Shift ……………………………... 76 Problematic Features of and Recommendations for Earthfire Institute …………… 86 Limitations of the Study……………………………………………………………. 93 Suggestions for Future Research …………………………………………………... 95 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 96

REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………….. 98

APPENDICES …………………………………………………………………… 114 Appendix A Proposed Interview Guide ………………………………………… 114 Appendix B IRB Approval Letter ………………………………………………. 115 Appendix C Consent Form Interviews …………………………………………. 117 Appendix D Consent Form Participant Observation ……………………………. 119 Appendix E Recruitment Script for Gatekeeper ……………………………….. 121

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION vi

FIGURES

Figure 1 A photograph of an animal garden at Earthfire Institute Figure 2 A photograph of a fox in its indoor enclosure at Earthfire Institute Figure 3 A photograph of Earthfire Institute’s White Buffalo Figure 4 A photograph of Earthfire Institute’s yurt Figure 5 A photograph of the view of the Teton Mountain range from Earthfire Institute’s yurt

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The ecological climate, unequivocally, is changing. In 2017 alone, California experienced the largest wildfire in the state’s history, devastating 440 square miles; a massive flood in southern China affected more than 14 million people; Mexico suffered two severely destructive earthquakes that took 468 lives; and a typhoon in central Vietnam caused a billion dollars in damage (Jeffery & Steinberg, 2017). These were not isolated incidents, for, as Dixon et al.

(2009) noted, climate scientists have warned that increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere fuel more disastrous incidents of floods, droughts, and storms. The changing climate, thus, poses a threat for all living species.

Although climate change has been widely acknowledged as a threat to humanity, grave ecological destruction, as a repercussion of humans’ anthropocentric view that they are the most significant entity of the universe, separate from and superior to the natural world and other life forms (see, e.g., Eisenstein, 2018; Loy, 2018), has not been studied adequately as the cause to climate change. Solving the ecological crisis, thus, demands reconceptualization of humans’ relationship with the natural environment and other life forms.

Humans have not always viewed themselves as being separate from nature and other life forms (Egri, 1997); that sharp divide, arguably, began in the Western world during the scientific revolution. Today, that anthropocentric perspective is exacerbated in the United States by its market-driven economy and culture (Loy, 2018), with “extreme consumerism, burgeoning human population, and spiritual impoverishment hav[ing] led to a radical disconnection of humans from Nature” (Smith & Pulver, 2009, p. 653), which Hirsh and Dolerman (2007) argued constituted “the root of environmental problems” (p. 1586). COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 2

Spirituality, defined as “of or relating to, affecting or concerning, the spirit or higher moral qualities, especially as regarded in a religious aspect” (Oxford English Dictionary, n.d.),1 offers an important alternative to the anthropocentric view regarding humans’ relationship with the ecosystem, viewing humans as being connected to something larger than just the human race.

From a spiritual and associated religious perspective, humans are viewed as being interdependent with the natural environment and with all other forms of life. From that perspective, the ecological crisis is not just an environmental, economic, political, and/or technologic crisis but also as a spiritual crisis about how humans understand their relationship with Earth and all of its forms of life (see, e.g., Gottlieb, 2006; Loy, 2018).

That spiritual crisis has resulted in a religious environmentalism movement that brings together people of various faiths, who often have feuded (see, e.g., Berry, 2013; Ellingson et al.,

2012; Gottlieb, 2006), to protect the environment. There now are many religious environmental organizations (REMOs), “nonprofit organizations employing faith-based approaches to environmental issues” (Ellingson et al., 2012, p. 266; see also Biscotti & Biggart, 2014; Smith &

Pulver, 2009). Although REMOs are a relatively new form of collective environmental action

(Ellingson et al., 2012), they reflect a historical relationship between religion and environmentalism. For example, Shamanic traditions, rooted in environmental knowing, have guided Indigenous peoples for tens of thousands of years (B. Taylor, 2001a). Stories about religious leaders/founders often involve or revolve around the physical environment, such as

Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha, spending his life in the forest, attaining enlightenment, and dying under a Bodhi tree; Jesus, after being baptized, wandering the desert and fasting for 40 days; and, Muhammad, in the safety of a cave, being visited by Archangel Gabriel (Loy, 2018).

Spiritual awakenings experienced by leaders of those Axial Age religions, and their pagan roots,

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 3 thus, have been woven tightly with the physical environment. Many religious texts also have expressed reverence for nature, such as, in the Vinaya monastic code, Buddha prohibiting sangha members (of the Buddhist monastic order) from damaging trees, including cutting off limbs or picking flowers or green leaves (Loy, 2018); and Psalms (24:1; 50:10–12) of the Old Testament declaring that because all living beings should be treated with respect because they were created by and are part of God (Sherkat & Ellison, 2007). Today’s proponents of religious environmentalism, therefore, have reclaimed what, historically, has been an important theme of many religions: the interdependence of people and the natural world.

In addition to religious-based environmentalism, individuals, groups, and organizations, have engaged in spiritually based environmentalism (see, e.g., Adler, 2006; Baker, & Morrison,

2008; Bloch, 1998; Farrell, 2011; Tanyi, 2002; B. Taylor, 2001a, 2001b, 2010). As Loy (2018) contended:

Climate change will not be solved, either separately or combined, by technological,

economic, political, and/or scientific solutions; robust spiritual solutions also are needed,

because the protection of the environment revolves around questions about the innate

value of nature and humans’ role in the ecosystem. (p. 17)

Eco-spirituality, “the direct consciousness and experience of the Sacred in the ecology which may serve as a sustained source for communities’ and individuals’ practical search to live sustainably from the earth’s resources” (van Schalkwyk, 2011, p. 77), combines spiritual philosophy and the science of ecology with regard to environmental practices, to offer spiritual solutions to climate change that are grounded in the view that humans and the ecosystem are interdependent. From an eco-spiritual perspective, communication plays the critical role of, first, deconstructing the hegemonic anthropocentric view of humans as being separate from and

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 4 superior to nature and other life forms (Milstein, 2011; Rogers, 1998), and, then, reconstructing humans’ understanding of their interdependent relationship with the ecosystem (Eisenstein,

2018).

Although eco-spiritual groups and organizations should be of significant interest to communication scholars, rarely have they been studied. Moreover, communication scholarship about environmental movement organizations (EMOs), more generally, has focused largely on their communication campaigns to, for instance, persuade people to engage in pro-environmental behavior (see, e.g., Brummans et al., 2016; Cox, 2010; Dai et al., 2017; Endres et al., 2008; Katz-

Kimchi & Manosevitch, 2015; Pezzullo, 2003; Thomas, 2018; Uusi-Rauva & Heikkurinen,

2013; Zoller, 2012); little research has been conducted about EMO/REMOs’ communicative practices to produce large-scale shifts in how humans view their relationship with the natural world and other life forms.

This research study fills that gap by studying communicative practices employed by

Earthfire Institute, an eco-spiritual organization whose mission is, through “healing, reflection, and connecting with nature” (Earthfire, 2019b, para. 2), to promote humans’ recognition of their interdependence with the ecosystem, Earthfire promotes that shift, primarily, via its online communication, adopting “the tools of online community building and digital engagement in order to widen the circle of conversation about ecology and spirit to include the voices and perspectives of all living beings” (Earthfire, 2016–2018, para. 2). Specifically, Earthfire facilitates monthly online conversations about environmental conservation; airs monthly podcasts that feature interviews conducted with a broad spectrum of guests, including environmental activists, scientists, and authors of books about spirituality; and, twice a year, hosts a Council of All Beings, a communal ritual created by Buddhist environmentalist activists

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 5

John Seeds and Joanna Macy, in which participants speak on behalf of another life form (Seed et al., 1988). One important focus of this study, therefore, is Earthfire’s online communication activities, with that knowledge adding to the scholarly literature that has been conducted about

EMOs’ online communication (e.g., Eimhjellen, 2014; Greenberg & MacAulay, 2009; Jun,

2011; Kim et al., 2014; Reber & Kim, 2009; Sehmel, 2002; Stein, 2011; M. Taylor et al.;

Uzunoğlu & Kip, 2014; Yang & Taylor, 2010).

In addition to employing online communicative activities to promote a shift in humans’ consciousness regarding the environment, Earthfire stresses the importance of people visiting the organization’s physical site (located in Idaho) and communicating intimately with the multiple species of animals residing in that wildlife sanctuary and experiencing, as Earthfire (2020c) claimed, the beauty of the land:

And so here we are, forty acres located on the South Leigh Creek corridor, a tiny finger

of a corridor which extends down to the Teton River. This connection of land all the way

to the Yukon lends a vibrancy and peace to the land that is felt by all who visit. (para. 5)

Overview of Research Study and Thesis

Given the significance that Earthfire Institute places on its online communication activities and physical site visits, this study focused on how those two aspects reflect spiritual and/or religious philosophies, principles, and practices that promote the organization’s goal of humans’ understanding of their connectedness to nature. To accomplish that goal, the study employed ethnographic research methods that included participant observation of Earthfire’s communication online and at its physical site, interviews conducted with Earthfire’s staff members, and analysis of texts produced by Earthfire. Moreover, in line with the purposes of

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 6 applied communication research (see, e.g., Cissna, 1982; Frey & SunWolf, 2008), this study was conducted with the intent of offering practical suggestions to help Earthfire promote its mission.

The thesis is organized into five chapters. Chapter 1 articulated a rationale for studying eco-spiritual organizations from a communication perspective, introduced the site investigated in this study, and outlined the general purpose of this research study. Chapter 2 overviews the three bodies of scholarly literature that informed this study: religious and spiritual environmentalism, radical environmentalism, and environmental organizations’ online communication. Chapter 3 explicates the ethnographic methods that were employed to conduct the study. Chapter 4 presents the results of the study, focusing on Earthfire’s online communication and physical site visits to promote the shift in humans’ consciousness regarding their relationship with the ecosystem.

Chapter 5 concludes with a discussion of the conceptual and practical significance of the study’s findings, identifies limitations that characterized this study, and suggests directions for further research on eco-spiritual organizations’ communication of their ideologies and solutions to the ecological crisis.

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Chapter 1 Notes

1Spirituality is both a component of and distinct from religion. Religious leaders and scholars often have referenced spirituality and spiritual practices (e.g., Francis, 2015; Gottlieb, 2006; Loy, 2018), but the spiritual search for meaning that connects all living beings together and/or to a higher purpose (Adler, 2006; Tanyi, 2002) also can be marked by an absence of religious dogma (Adler, 2006).

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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

This research study about Earthfire Institute’s communicative practices was informed by three bodies of scholarly literature: environmental organizations and their communication

(including, most recently, online), religious and spiritual environmentalism, and radical environmentalism. This chapter reviews these bodies of scholarship and ties them to the study conducted.

Environmental Organizations and their Communication

The roots of the environmental movement in the United States began at the end of the

19th century and continued into the early 20th century. Early U.S. environmentalism is traced to two movements that competed to shape environmental discourse: The conservationist movement argued that use of natural resource should be guided by rational scientific management principles, whereas the preservationist movement, drawing from romantic philosophy, wanted to preserve an unspoiled natural world. During the 1930s, conservationism emerged as the dominant environmental discourse, which influenced the communication of emerging environmental nonprofits and, today, still is embedded in the rhetoric of most environmental organizations (Johnson & Frickel, 2011).

Environmental movement organizations (EMOs), as understood today, first were formed in the 1960s, as part of a “second wave” of environmentalism that “emphasized the negative impacts of pollution on ecosystems and human health and encouraged radical direct action and a quality of life approach to environmental politics” (Johnson & Frickel, 2011, p. 307). According to Johnson and Frickel (2011), beginning in the 1960s, there was a 25-year period of rapid expansion of both established and EMOs, with their legitimacy based on being mission-driven,

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 9 as opposed to financially driven, organizations that worked to benefit society, and that sought to differentiate their organizational foci/missions from those of other EMOs. A primary activity in which those EMOs engaged was conducting communication campaigns to influence environmental policies and practices, both at the societal level and with regard to individuals’ behavior.

One of the largest and most prominent EMOs, Greenpeace, was established in 1971, during that era of rapid EMO growth, and has received significant scholarly attention (e.g.,

Brunner & DeLuca, 2016; DeLuca, 2009; Haneef, 2015; Murphy & Dee, 1992; Nasir & Ahmad,

2013; Nayan, 2013; Özdemir, 2012; Pewitt-Jones, 2013; Stoddart et al., 2017). Although

Greenpeace’s mission has shifted from its initial focus on preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons to confronting climate change, the organization’s campaigns always have stressed demonstrations, strikes, and other forms of public protest that constitute “direct action” (Sievers,

2009). Pagé (2004) also found that Greenpeace engaged in political lobbying to influence public policies, as well as in public education that involved door-to-door and direct dialogue programs to distribute fact sheets, consumer guides, and Greenpeace’s magazine.

EMO campaigns that have been studied include identity campaigns, based on the idea that effective environmental messages are created through the application of science by professional communications experts (Brulle, 2010); will campaigns that seek to mobilize the public (Cox, 2010); and campaigns to overcome obstacles that prevent people from changing their problematic environmental behavior (Uusi-Rauva & Heikkurinen, 2013). Because the present study did not focus on an EMO’s campaign(s), that literature is not reviewed, although, as explained below, a related and more germane body of scholarship has examined EMOs’ message framing, which is followed by a section about EMOs’ use of online communication.

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Environmental Organizations’ Message Framing

Organizations, in general, employ framing to emphasize “specific aspects of an issue in order to establish a context for a message” (Hine et al., 2016, p. 2). According to Nisbet and

Mooney (2007), frames use language to “organize central ideas, defining a controversy to resonate with core values and assumptions” (p. 56). Studying EMOs’ use of frames, consequently, can reveal those organizations’ underlying assumptions and epistemological foundations about environmental protection.

Garrison (1988) claimed that every political issue, such as environmental protection, utilizes a set of ideas and symbols that create meaning within a frame. To understand how frames reflect cultural meanings in public discourse and the media, Garrison proposed interpretative packages, which are the amalgamation of linguistic devices (e.g., metaphors and catchphrases) that make sense of an issue. Interpretative packages account for the organizational structure and nuance of frames (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989), and explain how frames “make suggested meanings available for the attentive public through linguistic devices such as metaphors, catchphrases, historical examples, and visual images” (Lester & Hutchins, 2013, p. 187). In line with that theorizing, the present study sought to understand how an EMO employs environmental frames and interpretative packages to resonate with particular spiritual core values, and, thereby, contribute, to that literature.

The vast majority of research about environmental messaging has employed experimental methods, but findings from those studies apply to choices that EMOs make. One framing strategy, from social marketing, that has been studied extensively is audience segmentation, which categorizes people into homogeneous subgroups based on shared characteristics.

Audience segmentation is important to EMOs because societal members have overlapping,

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 11 competing, and opposing viewpoints about environmental protection (Hine et al., 2016; Moser &

Dilling, 2004; Nisbet & Scheufele, 2009). As Hine et al. (2016) explained, “Climate change researchers and communication specialists are becoming increasingly interested in audience segmentation as a strategy for identifying distinctive climate change interpretive communities and using this information to communicate more effectively” (p. 442). For instance, Hine et al.’s online survey of 1,031 Australian residents’ beliefs and values regarding climate change identified three segmented audiences: alarmed (constituting 34.4% of the sample), uncommitted

(45.2%), and dismissive (20.3%). Members of those audiences then were exposed to

sixty climate change adaptation messages that were coded in terms of the

presence/absence of six attributes: explicit reference to climate change, providing specific

adaptation advice, strong negative emotive content, emphasis on collective responsibility,

highlighting local impacts, and underscoring financial impacts. (Hine et al., p. 1)

Hine et al.’s results showed that with regard to participants’ adaption intentions (the extent to which they “motivated to seek out more information” and to “take action”), messages “that included strong negative emotive content or provided specific adaptation advice increased adaptation intentions in all three audience segments” (pp. 5, 1), Audience segmentation studies, therefore, provide potentially valuable information that EMOs can use to frame their environmental messages.

Informative message framing also is employed frequently in environmental protection efforts. Historically, climate change messaging has stressed the scientific facticity of the changing eco-system (Moser & Drilling, 2004), but, often, people are not motivated solely by scientific or logical information (see, e.g., Brulle et al., 2012; Fisher 1984; Hoewe & Ahern,

2017; Lakoff, 2010). Although studies have shown that efficacy information (i.e., about how

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 12 people can act) is beneficial when it is paired with other messaging strategies, such as fear (Reser

& Bradley, 2017; Ruiter et al., 2014), science-based informational messages have demonstrated only minimal effects on increasing the public’s concern about environmental issues and, in particular, climate change (Brulle et al., 2012). EMOs should frame scientific facts about the environment in relation to larger, ethical stories, which, as Dahlstrom (2014) asserted about using narratives to communicate scientific messages to lay audiences, will result in their

“increased comprehension, interest, and engagement” (p. 13614). As will be shown in this study,

Earthfire’s staff members and participants in its online communication activity frame climate change in relation to broader ethical stories and values to promote the ecological paradigm shift that the organization promotes.

Environmental Organizations’ Online Communication

EMOs’ communication campaigns and messaging strategies have been affected significantly in the past couple of decades by the introduction of the Internet, which “provides the nonprofit sector with unprecedented opportunities for advocating issues, streamlining the giving process, and nurturing donor relationships” (Pollach et al., 2005, p. 1). Today, EMOs’ communication has to be savvy technologically, using the Internet to create, for instance, websites, social media platforms, blogs, and podcasts that communicate their messages about the environment (e.g., policies and practices) and that attract organizational members and donors

(see, e.g., Eimhjellen, 2014; Pollach et al., 2005; Stein, 2011). Accordingly, scholars have focused on EMOs’ use of communication technology, and, in particular, social media (e.g., Dai et al., 2017; Eimhjellen, 2014; Greenberg & MacAulay, 2009; Jun, 2011; Merry, 2011; Nasir &

Ahmad, 2013; Stein, 2011; M. Taylor et al., 2001), especially with regard to how online

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 13 platforms may be improved to build high-quality, trusting relationships between organizations and stakeholders and donors (e.g., Hackler & Saxton, 2007; Jun, 2011; Pollach et al., 2005).

One creative environmental campaign that took advantage of online communication was conducted by the Buddhist foundation Tzu Chi, located in Singapore, which, in 2011, implemented its “VERO campaign” (a catchy portmanteau of “veggie” and “hero”) to promote the carbon-reduction benefits of compassionate and mindful food consumption (Brummans et al.,

2016). Brummans et al. (2016) examined VERO’s Facebook page and website created to promote events and provide links to VERO’s YouTube videos. One strategy that the campaign employed took advantage of the popular U.S. television show The Amazing Race, with a

YouTube clip, titled “Amazing VERO Race 1.0 and 2.0,” showing participants tasting unfamiliar food at vegetarian restaurants and escorting seedlings to a local botanical garden (Brummans et al.). Additionally, a link posted on VERO’s website and Facebook page led to a presentation by

Tzi Chi’s dharma master, Cheng Yen, which implored people to take the “2/8 challenge” and

“eat enough to feel 80% full and donate the money they would have spent on the remaining 20% to Tzu Chi charitable causes” (Brummans et al., p. 4814). Brummans et al. noted that the campaign led to almost 400 youths pledging to partake in mindful eating of vegetarian meals.

EMOs’ online communication campaigns also have been studied, with scholars finding that although many organizations are aware of the wide-ranging capabilities of online platforms, primarily, they use websites and social media to disseminate information (e.g., Eimhjellen, 2014;

Kim et al., 2014; Nasir & Ahmad, 2013; Stein, 2011). For example, Nasir and Ahmad (2013) found that organizational leaders from six Malaysian environmental nongovernment organizations reported being concerned most with disseminating information via media and least concerned with using media to engage their audiences in two-way communication. Stein’s

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(2011) interviews of 28 EMOs’ webmasters (who manage websites) revealed that “they viewed the Web as a means to disseminate detailed information on environmental campaigns, issues and causes, and as a repository for documents, newsletters and other educational materials” (p. 371).

Webmasters also claimed that the Web was imperative for developing their organizations’ identity, which helps to attract potential funders and supporters. When asked about improving their organizations’ online presence, webmasters wanted to make websites more involved, interactive, and multimedia rich, as well as implement features that included blogs, publication forums, and links to social networking profiles.

Scholars also have recognized the untapped potential of EMOs’ online interactivity. In a study about using blogs for environmental advocacy, Merry (2010) examined two dimensions of blog interactivity: two-way communication (in this case, the extent to which readers could respond to blog posts) and user control, as exhibited by blogs’ personalized content

(conversational style and use of first-person anecdotes) and hyperlinks, which allow readers to compare blog posts on similar subjects and that are linked to social network sites, to encourage readers’ active participation in providing content material. Merry found that “most groups do not take full advantage of some of the unique attributes of blogs—particularly the potential to interact with readers and to personalize content–that could serve to strengthen supporters’ commitment to the organizations” (p. 641). Moreover, Merry noted that, in 2009, only 19% of the 210 national environmental organizations had blogs, and that they needed to provide interactive experiences to deepen supporters’ organizational commitment. As will be shown in this study, Earthfire Institute has tapped into the potential of online interactivity, both through blog posts and communication activities the organization hosts online.

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EMOs also use social media to communicate to and with their audiences, with, in particular, scholars examining communication on Facebook and Twitter accounts (e.g., Bortree

& Seltzer, 2009; Eimhjellen, 2014; Hasdemir & Çetin 2019; Hodges & Stocking, 2015; Kim et al., 2014; Merry, 2014). As Bortree and Seltzer (2009) explained, “Social networking sites provide organizations with a space to interact with key publics and to allow users to engage with one another on topics of mutual interest; this should provide the ideal conditions necessary for stimulating dialogic communication” (p. 317). Bortree and Seltzer sampled 50 Facebook profiles created by environmental advocacy groups, assessing the extent to which they employed dialogic strategies (M. Taylor et al., 2001), such as ease of interface, conversation of visitors, and dialogic loop (a feature that allows publics to query organizations and receive organizations’ responses), as well as ease of donating, ability to share content, and whether there was a search engine box, discussion boards, bookmark functions, and/or news forums. Findings showed that most advocacy organizations believed that the mere creation of social networking platforms was enough to facilitate dialogue with their audiences, with many variables studied either lacking or absent, leading those organizations to miss opportunities to engage in conversation and build relationships with stakeholders. Bortee and Seltzer concluded that EMOs need to employ the full gambit of social networking and dialogic strategies.

Eimhjellen (2014) studied social media accounts of three distinctly positioned EMOs (in terms of size, mission, organizational hierarchy, and activities): Green Warriors (GW), Landas

Transition Initiative (LTI), and City Air List (CAL). Findings showed that GW used Facebook,

Twitter, and a private YouTube channel for one-way communication about GW’s accomplishments in its local community and to share links to its environmental projects, whereas

LTI and CAL, primarily, used social media to send information about their organizations’

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 16 political stances and events. Eimhjellen noted LIT’s and CAL’s greater use of two-way communication, in comparison to GW, with LTI responding to some Facebook comments and

CAL engaging in political environmental debate on its Twitter account. CAL and LTI also used online social media accounts for internal organizational communication, with both having

Facebook accounts for organizational members, which CAL “used for internal discussions of organizational activities, and where occasionally formal organizational decisions have been taken” (Eimhjellen, p. 129). Social media platforms, thus, potentially, serve as a source of two- way communication between EMOs and their external audiences, as well as for organizational members’ internal communication.

Developing two-way communication capacities online builds trust between organizations and their stakeholders and donors (see, e.g., Bortree & Seltzer, 2009; Eimhjellen, 2014; Jun,

2011; Kim et al., 2014; Merry, 2010; Stein, 2011). Jun (2011) claimed that effective communication in online public relations revolves around relationship building, as opposed to sharing information. Similarly, Hackler and Saxton (2007) stated that “interactive blogs, discussion lists, bulletin boards, real-time consultations, online training, virtual conferences, personalizable intranets and extranets, and social networking software can play a valuable role in strengthening bonds, building trust, and communicating strategically with core constituents” (p.

27). Jun, however, found that climate change organizations, compared to other nonprofit organizations, underutilized trust-building website components, such as having a specific space for stakeholders to communicate or to donate online. Moreover, Jun found that only one third of the 60 climate change organizations studied linked readers to their social media pages, which are important online platforms for building trusting relationships with stakeholders.

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Building trust is essential for EMOs’ fundraising and donations. Pollach et al. (2005), studying online fundraising by and individual donations to EMOs, found that people’s trust in both the organization and the Internet influenced whether they were likely to make an online donation. Additionally, as Pollach et al. explained, nonprofit organizations must create high levels of trust with their audiences, because organizational services because donors do not see, exactly, how their donations are being used. Pollach et al. offered five suggestions for increasing people’s trust of EMOs. First, to prevent unsolicited communication and potential negative experiences that can be engendered, EMOs should contact only those who have opted to be contacted. Pollach et al. claimed that contacting people before they have decided to be contacted can create a poor organizational image. Second, EMOs should support users both when they are on websites and afterwards, by, for instance, offering online support, emailing people after they have donated, and making it as easy as possible to cancel transactions. Third, because organizational transparency is key to building trust, EMOs should disclose how much money they have raised and explain how it is used. Fourth, EMOs should provide a space online for donors to offer feedback. Fifth, EMOs should state explicitly how online donations are processed and what they do with information collected about donors.

Despite recognition of online interactivity attracting and keeping audience members, building trust, and influencing donations, time and resources affect whether organizations implement dialogic functions on their websites and/or social media. Not surprisingly, EMOs with large budgets and staff implement interactivity most successfully (e.g., Hackler & Saxton, 2007;

Merry, 2010; Pollach et al., 2005; Stein, 2011). Hackler and Saxton (2007) found that organizations with low budgets and few staff members had to rely on volunteers for critical work, such as implementing information technology (IT) solutions. Additionally, low-budget

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 18 nonprofit organizations were less likely than well-resourced ones to measure their IT performance, have full-time support staff, and/or have a long-term IT plan. For small-scale

EMOs to compete with better financially endowed organizations, Hackler and Saxton suggested that new forms of donor assistance should be implemented that focus on IT development.

According to Hackler and Saxton’s review of survey data on nonprofits IT usage, collected from

Gift In Kind International’s 2001 Tracking Study, “Nonprofits most desire donations that provide computer software training (45 percent), computer maintenance and support (38 percent), website enhancements and updates (32 percent), and donation of assistance to develop a five-year technology plan (29 percent)” (p. 21). If low-budget nonprofits request such assistance from donors, they could enact scholars’ suggestions about promoting online interactivity.

This research study of Earthfire Institute focuses on the organization’s communication and framing of its spiritual messages, especially the online communication activities that it sponsors (i.e., website, blogs, and novel interactive communicative activities facilitated through its website). To understand the organization’s communication deeply requires an understanding of how it situates itself within religious and spiritual environmentalism, and, in particular, radical environmentalism, both of which are explained below.

Religious and Spiritual Environmentalism

Nature-centered religious and spiritual practices date back thousands of years, with nature deities revered in the spiritual traditions of paganism, shamanism, pantheism, and Hinduism

(Egri, 1997). Nature-centered spiritual traditions, as well as Buddhism, regard the relationship between humans and the ecosystem as being interdependent, with both deserving equal respect

(Egri, 1997). Although anthropocentrism’s privileging of humans emerged during the Judeo-

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Christian period (e.g., Egri, 1997; Merchant, 1980), Nash (1989) claimed that humans’ belief in their dominion over nature resulted from narrow interpretations of scriptural writings (Nash,

1989). As mentioned in Chapter 1, Christian and other axial religions’ sacred texts promoted people living respectfully with nature, a view that has been reclaimed by and animates the contemporary religious environmental movement (see, e.g., Ellingson et al., 2012; Gottlieb,

2006).

Religious environmentalism is a “worldwide movement of political, social, ecological, and cultural action. As expressions of a particular religion, in ecumenical alliances with other traditions, through loose networks of spiritually committed activists, and in coalitions with secular environmental organizations” (Gottlieb, 2006, p. 3). One of the largest coalitions in the religious environmental movement is the World Council of Churches (WCC), comprised of 400 million members of various faiths (Gottlieb, 2006). In 1979, 300 WCC delegates from 56 countries “proposed that an ecological theology be developed to heal the destructive relationship between humanity and nature” (Egri, 1997, p. 420), and, in 1992, the WCC stated explicitly that climate change is a moral and theological crisis, and not just an environmental and/or scientific issue (Gottlieb, 2006). Similarly, Loy (2018) pointed to the contemporary Buddhist belief that climate change will not be solved by (either separately or combined) technological, economic, political, and/or scientific solutions; robust spiritual solutions also are needed, because protection of the environment revolves around questions about the innate value of nature and humans’ role in the ecosystem. Such questions are of spiritual origin, with spiritual doctrines, practices, and beliefs helping people to understand their relationship with the world.

The Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka provided an example of how religion and spirituality—in this case, Buddhism—inform the environmental movement. In the

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 20 late 1950s and early 1960s, Dr. Ahangamage Tudor Ariyaratne, a former science teacher, led an economic, political, and moral revolution in Sri Lanka that was rooted in Mahayana Buddhist values (Gottlieb, 2006), and that resulted in creating the largest nongovernment organization in that country. That organization’s projects, which included educating people about agriculture, creating preschools, and aiding numerous development projects (Gottlieb, 2006), were grounded in “ancient virtues of interdependent sharing, caring, joint suffering, and compassion interaction”

(Kantowsky, 1980, p. 166). Ariyaratne believed that environmentalism was a natural consequence of a spiritual awakening that arises from social, economic, and political interaction

(Gottlieb, 2006). That organization, and the social movement, generally, thus, wove together spirituality/religion, environmentalism, and societal progress.

Today, religious environmental movement organizations (REMOs) are a significant component of the larger environmental movement, with, between 1997 and 2012, more than 70

REMOs founded (Ellingson et al., 2012). REMOs differ from religious organizations because, although they may work with religious denominations, judicatories, and/or congregations, the majority of REMOs operate as nonprofit organizations (Ellingson et al., 2012). However,

Ellingson et al. (2012) found that REMOs limit their more public joint action (e.g., marches, rallies, lobbying, and conferences) to organizations that share the same faith, as those affiliated with a specific religion prefer to maintain their distinctiveness and to send the message that environmentalism is part of that religion’s creed. For example, the Christian National Council of

Churches USA’s Eco-Justice Project articulated principles for Christians to be stewards and live in harmony with the land (Egri, 1997), the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life created a code of eco-kosher-eating practices (Egri, 1997), and the London-based Islamic Foundation for

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 21

Ecology and Environmental Science used the Qur’an to renounce dynamite fishing and reduce the number of people in the London area who fished that way (Gottlieb, 2006).

Although the majority of REMOs’ ecological inspiration is grounded in a specific religious creed, some organizations are not tied to a single religious faith. For example, Sisters of

Earth is a coalition of Catholic nuns who “believe in the Trinity, but now see Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit as permeating all of life, including human beings who have different names—or no names at all—for God” (Gottlieb, 2006, p. 13). That ideology informs the coalition’s work to repair humans’ deeply damaged relationship to Earth, by organizing panels and presentations about sustainability; addressing ecological social justice through song, ritual, and celebration; and promoting literacy about Earth (Gottlieb, 2006).

In addition to environmental efforts engaged in by REMOs, both those tied to and those that span specific religions, other environmental groups and organizations identify as being spiritual (Adler, 1986; Bloch, 1998; Farrell, 2011; Tanyi, 2002), which refers to “people’s multiform search for meaning interconnecting them with all living beings and to God or Ultimate

Reality” (European Spirituality in Economics and Society Institute, n.d., para. 1). As Tanyi

(2002) elaborated:

Spirituality is a personal search for meaning and purpose in life, which may or may not

be related to religion. It entails connection to self-chosen and or religious beliefs, values

and practices that give meaning to life, thereby inspiring and motivating individuals to

achieve their optimal being. This connection brings faith, hope, peace, and

empowerment. The results are joy, forgiveness of oneself and others, awareness and

acceptance of hardship and mortality, a heightened sense of physical and emotional

well-being, and the ability to transcend beyond the infirmities of existence. (p. 506)

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For some people (and groups and organizations), spirituality provides a foundation for their environmental beliefs, values, attitudes, and/or behaviors. Bloch (1998), for instance, studied environmental attitudes held by those recruited through an informal network of individuals who claimed to be bound together by their transcendence of traditional religious boundaries. Bloch explained that although one member might practice Zen meditation, study the

Jewish Kabbalistic tradition, and practice Hindu-based yoga, whereas another member resonated with other spiritual traditions, they considered “themselves to be part of the same overriding spiritual ‘community’ that is alleged to transcend any one group doctrine or affiliation” (p. 56), with every member interviewed viewing Earth as being sacred and believing that collective environmental consciousness was needed.

Farrell (2011) explored whether and how the belief that spirituality implies nature, inherently, being sacred related to people’s pro-environmental behavior. Farrell, first, identified people who represented three categories with respect to their belief in the sacredness of nature:

“unenchanted, who do not believe nature is sacred; intrinsic, who believe that nature is sacred in itself; and creational, who believe nature is sacred because it is a divine creation” (p. 399).

Utilizing data from the 2000 General Social Survey, conducted annually by the National Opinion

Research Center, which includes measuring a range of people’s environmental beliefs and behaviors, Farrell’s findings showed that intrinsic people were more likely than members of the other categories to participate in an EMO and to sign an environmental petition, and that both intrinsic and creational people, compared to the unenchanted group, were more likely to donate to an environmental cause. The study, thus, showed that people’s spiritual belief about the sacredness of nature influenced their (intended) environmental actions.

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The present study focuses on an environmental organization (Earthfire Institute) whose mission and communicative practices are inspired by many spiritual traditions. This study, thus, will contribute to scholarly literature that has examined how spiritual philosophies and environmental practice are entwined. Earthfire Institute also is an eco-spiritual organization that draws from spiritual philosophy and that aligns with radical environmentalism (as explained below), as opposed to being a religious or spiritual organization that has been scholars’ focus.

Most important, the study explores communicative practices engaged in by this eco-spiritual organization.

Radical Environmentalism

Radical environmentalism and one of its philosophies, deep ecology, also have bolstered connections between spirituality and the environment. Radical environmentalism emerged in the

1970s in response to the critique of the mainstream environmental movement “dealing with surface symptoms rather than the root causes” (Ellis, 1996, p. 263). Radical environmentalists contend that U.S. values and lifestyle, largely, have contributed to the environmental crisis (Ellis,

1996; Merchant, 2005). Bookchin (1980) argued that mainstream environmentalism “does not bring into question the underlying notions of the present society, most notably that man must dominate nature. On the contrary, it seeks to facilitate that domination by developing techniques for diminishing the hazards caused by domination” (p. 77). Radical environmentalism, consequently, focuses on the root cause of the environmental crisis—humans’ domination of nature—and articulates climate change solutions that do not rely on technological innovations; most notably, for this study of a radical environmental organization, spirituality.

B. Taylor (2001a) explained that “in America, radical environmentalism and deep ecology are intersecting movements. They contend that there are many spiritual and

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 24 philosophical paths to a proper spiritual perception of the earth as sacred, and towards actions congruent with this belief” (p. 179). The deep ecology philosophy was founded in 1972, by

Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, who criticized shallow anthropocentric environmentalism that promoted an instrumental view of nature serving humans (B. Taylor, 2001a). According to

McMahan (2008), Naess and other leaders of the deep ecology movement asserted that “the symbiotic relationship between the individual and environment in which each co-constitutes the other reciprocally” (p. 155) can be discovered through religious traditions or profound experiences in nature (B. Taylor, 2001a). Egri (1997) claimed that the deep ecology and radical environmentalism movements, largely, were interchangeable, because both promote biospherical egalitarianism (the intrinsic value of all life forms), although there have been documented fissures between the movements (see Ellis, 1996).

Egri (1997) contended that deep ecology provided a rationale for direct action campaigns engaged in by radical EMOs, such as Earth First!, Sea Shepard Society, Friends of Earth, and

Greenpeace. As Earth First! (n.d.) explained:

Guided by a philosophy of deep ecology, Earth First! does not accept a human-centered

worldview of nature for people’s sake. Instead, we believe that life exists for its own

sake. . . . We believe in using all of the tools in the toolbox, from grassroots and legal

organizing to civil disobedience and monkeywrenching. When the law won’t fix the

problem, we put our bodies on the line to stop the destruction. Earth First!’s direct-action

approach draws attention to the crises facing the natural world, and it saves lives. (paras.

5, 4)

Although Earth First! referenced deep ecology to justify engaging in radical (e.g., violent) environmental actions, Egri asserted that not all radical environmentalists who subscribe to deep

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 25 ecology beliefs condone violent actions to promote environmental change, because deep ecology draws from traditions that practice nonviolence, such as Buddhism and the Religious Society of

Friends (i.e., Quakers).

More generally, deep ecology and nature-centered spiritual communities seek to shift humans’ collective consciousness regarding how to treat the environment (Halifax, 1990; B.

Taylor, 2001a; 2001b). As Egri (1997) explained, “To the degree that spiritual belief systems influence individual and collective values and beliefs, they create the ideational motivation to change the ecological status-quo” (p. 418). Thus, regardless of whether stemming from a specific religious creed, draws from multiple religions, or references an ambiguous sense of the interconnectedness of humans and the environment, spirituality points to the importance of environmental ethics. This study provides an empirical investigation of the way in which spirituality guides environmental ethics within an environmental organization.

Conclusion

As the literature reviewed above demonstrated, scholars have studied environmental organizations and their communicative practices, religious and spiritual environmentalism, and radical environmentalism, but no scholarship has tied those together those foci. This research study seeks to fill that gap by examining ethnographically an eco-spiritual organization’s communication of spirituality (both internally among staff and externally online) to accomplish organization’s larger goal of promoting a paradigm shift in people’s understanding of humans’ interdependence with the ecosystem. Chapter 3 explains the methods that were used to conduct the study.

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CHAPTER 3

METHODS

This research used ethnographic methods to study an environmental organization’s communication to accomplish its mission of promoting a paradigm shift in people’s understanding of their interdependent relationship with the ecosystem. This chapters explains those methods, including the research site, methodological procedures, analysis of data, and institutional review board approval of the study.

Research Site

Founded in 2000 by Dr. Susan Eirich, a licensed psychologist, biologist, educator, and writer, and located in Teton Valley, Idaho, Earthfire Institute (2016–2018) is a nonprofit organization that seeks to “change the way that people see, and therefore treat, wildlife and nature, inspiring a shift in consciousness and values that will lead to wise and practical action on behalf of the Earth and its inhabitants” (Mission & Vision, p. 2). Earthfire is unique compared to other environmental organizations because of its commitment to both science and spirituality. As a wildlife sanctuary, Earthfire is devoted to the care of multispecies, with some organizational members having earned graduate and undergraduate degrees in biology and zoology. The study of ecology also is of utmost importance to Earthfire, not only because ecology seeks to understand connections between species and their environments, which is a scientific endeavor, but also because ecology highlights the interdependence of all beings in the natural world, which the organization believes is a crucial spiritual philosophy. Although Earthfire’s mission and vision statement does not mention “spirituality” explicitly, spirituality (e.g., Buddhism,

Indigenous knowledges, and paganism) is embraced in the organization’s environmental protection philosophies and practices, and in its internal and external communication.

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Earthfire is comprised of a relatively diverse (and small) staff, with members ranging in age from 24 to 74 years old. Staff members also range in level of education obtained, with the founder, Dr. Eirich, holding a PhD in psychology; Chelsea Carson, the Director of Outreach, has a master’s in Biology; three other members have various undergraduate degrees; and the remaining two members have completed high school. There are five women and two men on

Earthfire’s staff, with six members identifying as White and one identifying as African

American. I am not able to report demographics of people who visit that Earthfire’s physical site or who participate in the organization’s online communicative activities (both of which are described below), because Earthfire does not retain this information. For the online communication activities in which I conducted participant observation, I noticed that participants, predominantly, were White, middle-aged women, with a few participants in their

20s or 30s.

Earthfire has a robust online presence, including monthly blogs and conservation conversations, which, as mentioned in Chapter 1 (and explicated in more detail in the procedures section below and in Chapter 4), are 1-hour online discussions (facilitated, primarily, by

Earthfire’s Director of Outreach, Chelsea, and by the founder, Dr. Eirich) of environment-related topics (e.g., spiritual ecology, interspecies communication, environmental activism, and animal healing). Additionally, four times a year, a Council of All Beings is held on Earthfire’s website, an activity that Buddhist environmental activists Joanna Macy and John Seeds created to expand people’s awareness and appreciation of nonhuman life forms (Seed et al., 1988). The Council consists of two parts (each lasting 1 hour and held a week apart):

The first part . . . [is] an introduction and practice for how to find and represent another

life form as respectfully as possible. The Council itself will take place the next week.

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 28

Having chosen our life form, and constructed a mask through which to speak, we will

come together and represent them in Council. (Earthfire Institute, 2019a, para. 1)

Both of these online communicative activities are free and open to the public (as long as people have access to computers (or equivalent devices) and the Internet.

In addition to online communication activities, Earthfire sponsors retreats (e.g., about sound healing, shamanic healing, and meditation) at its physical site, which hosts a multispecies wildlife sanctuary that offers retreat attendees and daily visitors’ opportunities to interact with the animals. Earthfire retreats are led by spiritual leaders of specific traditions (not Earthfire staff members), such as Mia Schiff, a Pipe Carrier for the Lakota Sioux tradition, who leads the shamanic healing retreats; Rose De Dan, who has studied animal communication and leads meditation retreats about communicating with animals; and Mac McGoldrick, a Zen Buddhist who leads a yearly Buddhist meditation retreat. As Earthfire Institute (2020a) explained:

In working to build a community of people who would like to work with us to preserve

the wild animals and wild places of our planet, we believe the first step is to give people

the opportunity to gain a deep and heart-based understanding of who these beings are,

through the opportunity to meet animal ambassadors personally. (para. 3)

Although retreats and daily visits to Earthfire’s physical site are not free to the public (and vary by time of year, number of hours spent at the site, size of group visiting, and specific retreat topics), predominantly Earthfire is funded through large donations and grants from a select few foundations that have been connected for more than a decade with Earthfire for more than a decade. Earthfire Institute, thus, offered the opportunity to study this eco-spiritual organization’s use of spiritual philosophies, principles, and practices in communication online and at its physical site.

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Procedures

This study employed ethnography to describe and interpret “observable relationships between social practices and systems of meaning” (Lindlof & Taylor, 2018, p. 174); in this case,

Earthfire Institute’s use of spiritually informed communicative practices to influence people’s system of meaning regarding the environment; specifically, humans’ interdependent relationship with and role in protecting the environment. As explained below, this study employed participant observation, interviews, and artifact analysis.

Participant Observation

Because Earthfire is located in Idaho, which is some distance from where I live, and because the organization has a strong online presence, the majority of my participant observational research took place online. Specifically, I observed four monthly online conservation conversations and one Council of All Beings practice. Conservation conservations exploring a new topic take place every third Wednesday of the month, and they are open to the public; previous topics have included “Animal Healing and Earth Repair,” “Buddhism and

Activism,” and “Supporting the Courage to Act.” The Council of All Beings, also open to the public, takes place online four times a year (once per season), and I observed four conversations during a 5-month period of time: in (a) September 2019 (titled “Reorienting ourselves to New

Realities: Seeking Solutions to Living with our Earth”), October 2019 (“Reversing Extinction”),

November 2019 (“Embracing Economic Activism”), and January 2020 (“Positive Forces in the

Face of Climate Crisis”).

I also observed Earthfire’s two types of staff meetings: short (30-minute) weekly meetings that involved each staff member offering an update on their assigned projects (which, usually, involve writing blogs for the organization’s website) and monthly content meetings that

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 30 discuss and make decisions about material to include in the upcoming monthly newsletter, which also is posted on various sections of the website. Earthfire’s gatekeeper (Chelsea) allowed me to attend virtually six weekly staff meetings and two monthly content meetings.

In addition to observing Earthfire’s online communication activities and attending staff meetings virtually, in October 2019, I spent 2 days visiting Earthfire’s physical site. During that site visit, I attended a content staff meeting, held with Prosper Strategies, a marketing firm that had been hired to help Earthfire develop a new mission statement (explained in Chapter 4). I also conducted interviews with staff members during that site visit (see below).

Fieldnotes were written immediately after observing the online conservation conversations and the Council of All Beings, and immediately following the staff meeting that I attended during my visit to Earthfire’s physical site, with scratch notes (Lindlof & Taylor, 2018) written during all of those observations. I spent 1–3 hours (depending on the length of my participant observation) writing detailed fieldnotes after each communicative activity. Later, fieldnotes were organized by specific activity (i.e., weekly meeting, content meeting, conservation conversation, and Council of All Beings).

Fieldnotes attempted to capture communication activities observed in as much thick description as possible, which was aided by Earthfire video recording all conservation conversations and the Council of All Beings, and sharing recordings with participants (and with me), which meant that staff members’ and participants’ verbatim statements were obtained for all activities that I observed. Fieldnotes written about online activities observed did not include any information that identified individual participants (and all participants’ names mentioned in

Chapters 4 and 5 are pseudonym). Staff members, however, gave permission to use their names,

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 31 with fieldnotes written about staff meetings observed noting relevant information about them as organizational members (e.g., their occupational position at Earthfire).

Interviews

During my visit to Earthfire Institute’s physical site, I conducted formal interviews with four of the organization’s five staff members (health issues prevented one member from being interviewed): (a) Dr. Susan Eirich (Founder and Executive Director); (b) Chelsea Carson

(Director of Outreach, and the gatekeeper who granted me permission to conduct this study); (c)

Dawn Harrison (Office and Ranch Manager); and (d) Aidan Sullivan (Marketing and Outreach

Intern). Semistructured interviews (lasting, approximately, 30–45 minutes) that employed a flexible interview guide (see Appendix A) were conducted with those organizational members.

With members’ permission, interviews were recorded on my phone. In addition to obtaining background information (e.g., their title and duties at Earthfire, and how long they had worked for this organization), questions asked about staff members’ personal beliefs regarding spirituality, especially in relationship to the natural world, and their perceptions of whether and how Earthfire employed spirituality in its internal and external communication. During my 2-day site visit, I also had many opportunities to speak with staff members about Earthfire and conduct ethnographic interviews, which, according to Lindlof and Taylor (2018), occur “in a cultural scene, while the investigator is busy hanging out with the people being studied” (p. 225). During my visit, there were ample opportunities for me to “hang out” with staff members and ask them unscripted questions. To document those conversations, I carried a small notebook in which I wrote scratch notes and, later that evening, I devoted about 2.5 hours per day to filling in those scratch notes from those ethnographic interviews.

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 32

Formal interviews were transcribed through a combination of manual transcription and the transcription software otter.ai (a web application that converts live speaking into a written transcription). After uploading interview recordings into the software program, which produced

64 pages of transcriptions, I listened to each one slowly, correcting any inconsistencies produced by the application.

Artifact Analysis

In addition to participant observation and interviews, materials posted on Earthfire’s website, such as its mission statement and monthly blogs, were analyzed. Artifacts offer insights about how social realities are shaped (Leeds-Hurwitz, 1993), for, as Lindlof and Taylor (2018) explained, “documents, objects, and places do in fact have a lot to ‘say’ when they are read alongside the living voices of informants and other social actors” (p. 277). I wrote notes about each artifact obtained from Earthfire that included information about, for instance, where it was posted on the organization’s website, its function, and, if indicated, its date. Earthfire’s website documents, thus, provided information that complemented and, potentially, fleshed out data obtained via participant observation and interviews.

Data Analysis

The methods employed (participant observation, interviews, and artifact analysis) resulted in acquiring a significant amount of data. I began by coding separately the data acquired from each specific communication activity associated with each method (i.e., conservation conversations, Council of All Beings, website material, staff meetings, formal interviews, ethnographic interviews, and fieldnotes from my visit to the physical site). After reading the collected data numerous times to gain an initial sense of their content, I engaged in open coding of all data obtained, to create categories (Lindlof & Taylor, 2018). This process began through

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 33 data reduction, prioritizing data that related to spirituality (e.g., philosophies, principles, and practices; and, when possible, specific spiritual/religious traditions, such as Buddhism and/or

Christianity), especially if they related to environmental beliefs or conservation. Initially, that process resulted in the creation of low-inference categories (Lindolf & Taylor) that related directly to an explicit spiritual practice or philosophy.

After reducing the data into low-inference categories, I engaged in conceptual development to “mak[e] sense of the ways that human beings make sense of their communication practices and performances” (Lindolf & Taylor, 2018, p. 311). Specifically, I scanned the data for instances in which those observed made sense of spirituality, without invoking spirituality explicitly, through when people used phrases such as “tuning in” or mentioned the nature–human binary in relation to the natural world. This process led to high- inference categories that sought to “discern an organizing principle, or commonality, that isn’t explicitly stated, but rather captures the meanings that underline expressions of belief, knowledge, and emotion” (Lindlof & Taylor, 2018, p. 316). Two high-inference categories emerged from that process about Earthfire Institute’s use of eco-spiritual communicative practices: (a) the organization offered online communication activities to expand people’s consciousness regarding humans’ relationship with the environment (labelled “expanded consciousness”) and (b) the organization promoted people’s visceral sense of knowing that relationship by having visitors interact with animals living at Earthfire’s physical site (labelled

“visceral experience”).

Once those two organizing themes were created, axial coding was employed to bring

“previously separate categories (or concepts) together under a new thematic category” (Lindolf

& Taylor, 2018, p. 324). Categories that resulted for the theme of expanded consciousness

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 34 included interdependence, being tuned in, listening, spiritual and environmental language choices, and the nature–human binary; categories that resulted for the theme of visceral experience were compassion, knowing, and awakening.

After creating categories for the two themes, I went through the data acquired from each method and looked for instances in which all three (or, at least, two) methodological procedures applied to those categories. The analysis, thus, noted which categories were most prevalent across the data acquired by participant observation (staff meetings, conservation conversations, and Council of all Beings), interviews (both formal and ethnographic interviews), and artifact analysis (blogs and relevant website content). Additionally, in line with applied communication research, categories that were most prevalent and significant to the two organizing themes

(expanded consciousness and visceral experience) were used to identify potential problems that characterized Earthfire’s communication and to recommend solutions. The next chapter presents the findings from the analysis of the data.

Institutional Review Board Approval

On August 28, 2019, I received approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of Colorado Boulder for this research study (Protocol# 19-0485; see Appendix B).

Documents approved by the IRB included: (a) the interview guide employed with Earthfire staff members (see Appendix A), (b) participant consent forms for conducting interviews with staff members (see Appendix C) and observations of staff meetings (see Appendix D), and (c) a recruitment script that my gatekeeper at Earthfire sent out to people who participated in the organization’s online activities, to recruit for possible interviews (see Appendix E).

Unfortunately, I never heard back from any online participants and, hence, they were not interviewed for this study. The IRB decided that people participating in Earthfire’s online

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 35 communication activities did not need to sign a consent form to be observed because those activities are open to the public. The IRB also concluded that the study posed a minimal risk level.

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CHAPTER 4

RESULTS

Earthfire Institute’s Physical Site

As Chelsea, my contact person and gatekeeper at Earthfire Institute, and I drove down a long dirt road leading to the institute’s physical site, situated in the western shadow of the Teton mountain range, I was impressed by the Tetons’ cascading jagged peaks and the breadth of open space that led to Earthfire’s front gate. Distracted by the magnitude of the land, I jumped when three animals came barreling down the long driveway to meet us. Knowing that Earthfire is a wildlife sanctuary, but not knowing, exactly, what animals lives there, I was not sure if the animals greeting us were wolves or, as they turned out to be, domesticated dogs, although

Chelsea said that one of them was half wolf.

The dogs led us from where we parked the car, down a dirt road, where, a few minutes later, I saw a plot of land with a large fence attached to an animal enclosure, although I could not see inside that enclosure. On the other side of the road was a small wooden cabin with a rocking chair on the front porch and wind chimes hanging from the porch’s ceiling. As we got closer to that cabin, a bobcat that Chelsea informed me was quite old, walked to the end of her outdoor enclosure (through a metal fence), stopped, and stared at me. Next to the bobcat’s home was another fenced-in enclosure that contained many chickens running around, clacking, and eating grain poured on a hay-filled floor.

Behind the bobcat’s enclosure and the chickens’ enclosures were one for bears and another for wolves, both of which consisted of a smaller inside enclosure (mostly, made of cement) that opened up, respectively, to a “bear garden” and to a “wolf garden.” Each “garden” served as a large outdoor play area, with a small pool in the middle (see Figure 1), which the

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 37 bears, especially, enjoy. Chelsea explained that each animal species has a garden (outside enclosure) to which the Institute’s animal holder takes them, either individually or in small groups (if the animals interact well). I was surprised that the animals spent most of their time in the inside enclosures, but I also did not know anything about taking care of multiple species (or any animals beside myself and my dog). When asked, Chelsea said that Earthfire hoped to allocate more money to improve the animal enclosures, including allowing animals to enter their gardens at any time.

Figure 1

An Animal Garden at Earthfire Institute

Just past the small cabin were a few more animal enclosures that had tin roofs, cement floors, and a metal fence that allowed foxes, for instance, to stick their noses through and smell this newcomer (see Figure 2). Behind the foxes was a porcupine in rehabilitation, a cougar, and a few coyotes. Similar to the bears and wolves, these animals lived inside predominantly and had to be taken to their gardens. Many of the smaller animals (e.g., foxes and coyotes) shared a

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 38 garden, but, for safety reasons, they were not allowed to be in it at the same time, and the cougar had a separate garden.

I struggled to keep up with Chelsea’s pace of walking as I looked at all of the new and unfamiliar sites at Earthfire. We went through another large gate and came to a huge pasture, where, in the distance, I saw some horses and two buffalo, one of which was white. I learned later that buffalo was a gift from a local Lakota (Native American) community, which viewed the buffalo’s white fur as being sacred and symbolizing “manifestation,” the power to create positivity (see Figure 3).

Figure 2

A Fox in its Indoor Enclose at Earthfire Institute

To the left of the large pasture was a yurt (originally, a circular tent of felt or skins on a collapsible framework that nomads used in Mongolia, Siberia, and Turkey; see Figure 4) and another log cabin that was smaller than the first one I had seen. As we walked toward the yurt,

Chelsea explained that it was built for retreats that Earthfire hosts (e.g., on sound healing, animal communication, various types of meditation, and shamanic healing). We walked up the steps to the yurt’s entrance, but before Chelsea opened the door, she told me to turn around and take in

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 39 the spectacular view of the Teton mountain range (see Figure 5), with its peaks standing just barely above the clouds, and she said:

This is the best view of the property. During retreats, we sit outside here on the ledge and

drink tea in silence. It’s important to have that element of connection with natural

environment here, so Susan [Eirich, Earthfire’s founder] decided to put the yurt here, so

visitors could enjoy this view.

In that moment, I could understand the appeal of coming to an Earthfire retreat for an intimate experience with the natural world.

Figure 3

Earthfire Institute’s White Buffalo that was a Gift from Local Lakota

The yurt had a slightly more modern interior than I expected, with a kitchenette and a large television mounted on a wall. In addition to those modern amenities, there were a large selection of pillows and a few chairs placed around the room, with ample space for 10–20 people to congregate. According to Chelsea, Earthfire facilitates one or two retreats a year, with, on

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 40 average, 10 attendees. Attendees sit in the yurt and meditate or receive healing (e.g., sound and shamanic), with the yurt’s round structure meant to invite community and ritual.

Figure 4

Earthfire Institute’s Yurt

We left the yurt and approached the small log cabin that I just had seen, which turned out to be Chelsea’s office. The cabin formed a small L-shape, with a built-in desk on the long end of the cabin and a smaller built-in desk that had on top of it a mini-camping stove, a space heater, and a tea set. The cabin mostly was bare, expect for a beautiful rug that had stitched into it an intricate mandala (a circle contained within a square, divided into sections organized around a single, central point), which, as Chelsea explained, was a gift that an Earthfire donor gave to Dr.

Eirich. I sat down in a chair, Chelsea turned on the space heater, put some water in the kettle to make tea, and said, “Sure, it gets cold in here, but it’s better than a cubicle.” I laughed in agreement as she handed me a cup of steaming tea, and, almost simultaneously, Dawn, the office

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 41 and ranch manager, entered the cabin and welcomed me to the site. After introductions, we sat in silence for a few minutes sipping tea.

Figure 5

View of the Tetons from the Front Door of Earthfire Institute’s Yurt

Aidan, the marketing and outreach intern, rushed into the cabin, practically out of breath, and professed a spiritual experience that she had driving to work that morning. Before I had the chance to introduce myself to Aidan, she was reciting rapidly her experience, which she had written down in her journal. After she spoke, I asked if I could copy what she had written and shared with us, and she gave permission to share the following passage:

My morning drive took me past an unusual aspen grove in a mountain canyon dominated

by ancient pines. The strength and wisdom of these old pines is remarkable. They tower

through canyons, scaling cliffs, withstanding hundreds of inches of annual snowfall, and

providing shelter for countless creatures who call these woods their home. Just like all

life in this wild place, these pines are thriving, and their [the pines] thrive looks so

different than that of every other plant with which they share the forest floor. I noticed

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that a patch of lucky aspen saplings took seed underneath the boughs of an immense pine.

Here, they were sheltered from the harsh elements and showered with ages of wisdom.

The pines gave these saplings time to fortify themselves and become secure in their

growth. When the top of the saplings reached the low boughs of the pine, they knew that

if they were to thrive, it was time to graduate from their path, change direction, and grow

toward the light. If these young aspens were riddled with a socially imposed fear of

change, if they were acting on fear of inability to survive, they would have stuck to their

course, growing into the dark depths of the old pine, stunting themselves, albeit

surviving. These aspens, however, as a deeply intuitive organism, knew that they would

not thrive in the dark, so they grew wildly in strange and unexpected directions, toward

the light, and reached their own spiraling heights.

Aidan’s observation juxtaposed the natural intelligence of aspen trees to that of humans, who, she argued, had forgotten their role in the ecosystem: “If only humans could awaken to their natural intelligence, but this damn society just wants us to think of nature as separate from us, and that thought process gets us further from the truth, further from our truth.” Chelsea added:

Our culture doesn’t even know where to find solutions for climate change, because all its

solutions are just further separating us from the reality that we need each other. We need

new solutions, and we [Earthfire] want to start or, maybe, extend that conversation.

I agreed with their position and thought that organizational members engaging in such conversations to start the day must be fairly common; when I asked that question, Chelsea,

Aidan, and Dawn laughed, and Chelsea said, “Wait until you meet Susan [Eirich]!”

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About a half-hour later, we went to the first log cabin that I had seen entering the property, to meet Dr. Eirich and Lindsay, an agent from Prosper Strategies, a marketing and communications consulting company for nonprofit organizations that had been hired to design a strategic marketing plan for a capital campaign that Earthfire hoped to launch during Summer

2020. Lindsay advised Earthfire that those not associated with the organization found Earthfire’s mission to be extremely vague, and, thus, her main goal was to revise the mission statement, such that, first, current and potential donors would understand clearly the mission, and, later, the statement would be posted on the organization’s website. Earthfire’s official mission statement, prior to Lindsay’s employment, was “to change the way that people see and therefore treat wildlife and nature,” but that statement been removed from Earthfire’s website before I began my research. Thus, at the time of my visit, there was no official mission statement posted on the website, although there was a current draft of the mission statement (obtained from Prosper

Strategies) that read:

Earthfire Institute is at the forefront of the movement toward a thriving Earth for all. We

bring together diverse voices, awakening individuals to the rich connection between all

humans, nature, and animals. When all voices are heard, perceptions and actions change,

leading to vibrancy for all life.

Earthfire Staff Meetings

Chelsea, Dawn, Aidan, Lindsay, and I sat together closely in a circle surrounding Dr.

Eirich’s desk. Chelsea went back to her office to get two more chairs for Lindsay and me, making the already snug space even more compact. As we sat there waiting for Dr. Eirich to gather her laptop and handwritten notebook, containing the meeting’s agenda and a draft of the organization’s upcoming monthly newsletter, coyotes began to howl right outside the cabin’s

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 44 north-facing window. None of Earthfire’s staff members even flinched at the sound but Lindsay and I locked eyes and giggled, and Chelsea said, “Yep, that’s Earthfire for you.” The meeting then started.

The first order of business on the agenda (shared in a Google document with all Earthfire staff members and with me) was discussion of the new mission statement that, with Lindsay’s aid, Earthfire was creating. This was the second meeting at which Lindsay had brought up the mission statement; at the first meeting, which Lindsay (and I) attended virtually, she had gathered information from members to revise the organization’s mission statement. This second meeting began with Lindsay continuing to collect data about how staff members envisioned the organization’s purposes. When Lindsay asked members, what was important to include in a new mission statement, Dr. Eirich claimed that, primarily, the organization was interested in promoting an ideology of humans being in a sacred relationship with all life. Lindsay said that although she was curious about Dr. Eirich’s use of the word “sacred,” that statement was too similar to the original mission statement.

After a moment of silence, and based on prior conversations with Chelsea about her belief in the spiritual mission of the organization, I asked about using the word” spiritual,” to which Chelsea replied:

Although the word “spirituality” isn’t really brought up in it [Earthfire’s mission

statement], in my mind, it’s kind of a big part of the message we try to get across and the

message we’re trying to take out to the world, which is that connecting with nature is

then connecting with spirit, because it’s all interdependent.

Dr. Eirich jumped in, saying adamantly, “No, not explicitly ‘spiritual’ but if you are in tune and know that we are all interconnected and all life is sacred, you are in tune and your actions

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 45 demonstrate that.” Dr. Eirich, thus, viewed “being interdependent” and “in tune,” as reflecting better than “spirituality” the organization’s fundamental view that all forms of life intrinsically are worthy and connected. Chelsea, agreed with Dr. Eirich, saying:

We all just need to come back to ourselves. We call it “going sane,” because we’ve gone

insane; it’s like we already know and we already feel that a lot of us have tuned back into

it [humans’ interdependence with the natural world], but at the same time, there are a lot

of us who are still very tuned out.

“Tuning in” and “going sane” represented linguistically and symbolically what would be achieved if Earthfire shifted successfully the dominant societal paradigm that had led people to not see themselves as being connected interdependently with other life forms and with the physical environment. Although organizational members drew on spiritual philosophical traditions (e.g., Buddhism and Indigenous knowledge) and principles (including interdependence), they believed that using “spiritual” in the mission statement would lead potential donors who did not consider themselves to be oriented spiritually or who did not see a role for spirituality in environmental protection to disengage or be disenfranchised from

Earthfire. Additionally, members argued that spirituality was only one framework for understanding people’s place in the world. Therefore, even though staff members saw Earthfire as being an eco-spiritual organization, they believed that encouraging a paradigm shift that focused on all living beings’ intrinsic worth and interdependence was more encompassing and inclusive for those who did not resonate with spirituality. A comment that Dr. Eirich said in an interview that I had conducted with her that morning summarized organizational members’ beliefs: “At the end of the day, it is about changing our culture, because our culture doesn’t value other life forms. That’s a spiritual problem to me, but not everyone sees it that way.” Dr. Eirich

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 46 and Earthfire’s other staff members, therefore, were aware of possible negative connotations associated with the term “spirituality” and were attempting to ensure that the organization’s mission statement did not exclude anyone who was interested in changing the dominant cultural view that people were not interdependent with all living beings and with the physical environment.

Throughout the discussion of Earthfire’s new mission statement, Lindsay pushed staff members to identify clearly the organization’s overall goals. Dr. Eirich claimed that the organization was positioned at the forefront of a movement that imagined a world in which humans live in interdependent harmony with the natural world, which people would come to know and feel by visiting Earthfire’s property and by participating in the organization’s online conversations (both are discussed later in this chapter). Dr. Eirich claimed that Earthfire’s mission (but not necessarily the mission statement) was “one node of light, node of consciousness that spreads because we are all interconnected, and if we can start this conversation in our community, it could spread to other communities and a broadened consciousness will grow.” Organizational members, thus, believed in the power of communication to create a critical mass of communities that would accomplish the paradigm shift that Earthfire promoted.

Lindsay reinforced organizational members’ perception of Earthfire being a leader of the spiritual environmental movement, making it especially important for the organization’s mission statement to employ, and pushing members to identify, the best descriptive words that explain

Earthfire’s mission. Members expressed their difficulty articulating authentically the organization’s mission and not relying on what they viewed as “overused” words that had lost their rhetorical force (e.g., “karma,” “mindfulness,” and “spiritual”). Staff members said that

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 47

“spiritual,” for example, was a hackneyed expression, and that because “mindfulness” was a current buzzword in the United States, they feared that “spiritual” might sound just as trite. As

Dawn explained:

That’s been an ongoing issue to try and describe what is it that we [Earthfire’s staff

members] all feel in our own way. What word can we use for it that hasn’t been used or

abused? I don’t really have one. “Sacred” is the closest. It doesn’t have as many

overtones as, I guess, “spirituality” but how do you express this mysterious sense of

connection, wonder, or respect?

Chelsea followed up by asking, “How do we find a word that can be part of everyone’s understanding that will change their perceptions [of humans’ interdependent with all life and the natural environment?”

I complimented organizational members’ thoughtful process of selecting words for the new mission statement, and asked if their meetings always devoted substantial time to discussing specific words used in other documents posted on the organization’s website, with members nodding their heads in agreement. Dr. Eirich pointed out the significance of people’s word choices in conversations about the environment, expressing disdain for the common use of the term “resource” to describe the natural world:

If you see a tree as a “resource,” a horrible word for “life,” then you just chop it down.

You don’t understand a little breathing thing deeply connected with all the other trees

around it, with unbelievable amounts of life living in it. It’s a whole home, and you just

chop it down for nothing. What does that do to your soul? If you understand it [that a tree

is more than a resource], if you don’t understand it, what happened to your soul? That’s

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not a criticism of the person, necessarily; it’s a criticism more of how we raise people and

the words that we use, which creates our perceptions.

Hence, members understood the symbolic and practical importance of words used to describe the organization’s mission and work in documents that the organization wrote and published (e.g., on its website).

At that point in the meeting, Dr. Eirich said that discussion of the mission statement had gone on for too long and that it was time to cover the remaining item on the meeting’s agenda: final editing of Earthfire’s next monthly newsletter (with its content posted in various places in the organization’s website). Members read though what members had written for one or two of the sections for which they were responsible (e.g., the blog; the seed swap blog, highlighting general environmental achievements not associated with Earthfire per se; podcast title and photograph, and conservation conversation photograph; see the section below), using consensus decision making to finalize that material. For example, during the previous month’s newsletter final editing session, staff members scanned a transcript of a podcast that Earthfire had broadcasted, wrote down one or two memorable quotes from the transcript that could be displayed under the podcast’s name when the podcast was posted on Earthfire’s website, explained why they chose those quotes, and, after discussion concluded, voted until they reached consensus on quotes to employ.

Group consensus decision making also was employed in Earthfire’s weekly staff meetings, which were much shorter in length (20–30 minutes) than the monthly newsletter/website meetings (1–2 hours), and involved members offering updates of their work and deciding collectively the name of that week’s blog. For example, with regard to December’s

(2019) blog, titled “Better’s Feeling Better,” staff members discussed whether to repeat the word

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“better,” which was the name of Earthfire’s bobcat, or to change the last word to “stronger” or

“healthier,” deciding by consensus to repeating the term.

Staff members’ careful attention to Earthfire’s newsletters and posting material from them on the organization’s website reflected their adoration for the organization. Members spent considerable time discussing and deciding consensually specific language to use in the organization’s outreach materials, because they wanted Earthfire’s mission and positions to be as clear as possible, even though they knew that the organization’s goals, philosophies, and principles could not be captured fully in those materials by whatever words, phrases, and/or statements they employed. Therefore, as explained below, staff members placed significant emphasis on people learning what the organization valued by visiting and having visceral experiences at Earthfire’s physical site.

Visitors’ Visceral Experiences at Earthfire’s Physical Site

Staff members wanted Earthfire Institute’s physical site to play a key role in the environmental paradigm shift that the organization promotes: giving visitors a visceral experience to awaken their innate/instinctive understanding (what organizational members called

“visceral sense of knowing” or “visceral knowledge”) of their interdependence with the earth and its inhabitants. That visceral knowledge, according to Dawn, the office and ranch manager, is

“knowing deep inside who you are and how you interact with the things around you, and understanding your place in the big picture and the big picture’s place in your life.”

Earthfire’s staff members viewed the physical property as being a medium for making visitors aware of their visceral knowledge of people’s independence with the earth. As Dr. Eirich explained in the interview that I conducted with her:

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It’s innate in us to connect to nature and the earth, because we come from the earth. On

some level, we understand the connection, and then it’s cut [by our culture]. Earthfire is a

place to reawaken to that powerful sense of interconnection and, ultimately, come back to

ourselves.

Staff members, thus, viewed Earthfire’s property as giving people the opportunity to “come back to themselves”; specifically, by spending time appreciating the natural beauty of the land and, most important, by interacting with animals living on the property. Dawn explained how an interaction with a resident animal fostered her visceral knowledge:

The first horse that I worked with was, like, I would go and hang out with him, and things

would just kind of come to me, like when you’re sitting in the quiet with an animal and

they just make a connection. It was just this feeling of connection and deep

understanding. I think it’s always something to do with nature. It’s when you stop

thinking about being yourself, and you go out and just kind of take in all the things

around you, and you realize, “Wow, this is spirituality.”

Eirich (2019a), in a blog post, explained the visceral knowledge that is reawakened in visitors from interacting with Earthfire’s animals:

It’s like the animals serve as a portal. For some people, its plants or trees, but for most

people, animals are easier. It’s a beginning to expand our awareness of what’s around us

and the magic that’s around us. If you fall in love with one bear or one wolf, just like if

you fall in love with one dog or one cat, you can’t feel the same about cats or dogs after

that, or bears and or wolves. It starts expanding that awareness, and then you begin to

realize, “Wait a minute, some of the healing stories are the same thing; wait a minute,

that energy-healing we tried worked on a wolf; wait a minute, the same thing worked on

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a cougar; wait a minute, that same thing worked on a buffalo.” We get drawn into a

visceral awareness of how connected we are, rather than just the words. You feel it, you

see it, and there can’t be a richer life than that. I just want to share it. (para. 17)

Earthfire’s staff members, thus, viewed offering opportunities to interact with the animals living on the properly as being especially important for awakening visitors’ visceral knowledge of their connection to all living things. For instance, during Earthfire’s 3–5-day retreats, time was set aside for attendees to go into the animal gardens (with the animal handler) and pet and/or feed members of seven or eight species, with day visitors interacting with members of one or two species. In the interview conducted with Dr. Eirich, she explicated the novel experience that

Earthfire seeks to create for those who visit the property:

The one thing that Earthfire has is the opportunity [for visitors] to look at more than one

species and look at one species in depth, because it’s not a zoo, where you can look at

them as objects, and [it’s] not like in the wild, where you might have an incredible

experience, but it’s brief and you can’t really be with them. Here, they [the animals] are

comfortable with and like people; many of them [Earthfire’s staff members] spend our

lifetimes together. We get to see this in-depth understanding of who they are. I don’t

know of any other place that does that.

Chelsea added during her interview that coming to Earthfire’s physical site helps visitors to “see who these animals are: sentient, intelligent, creative beings who want to live as much as we do and have intense pleasure in life.”

Dr. Eirich believed that visitors’ interactions with animals in Earthfire’s beautiful physical setting not only reawakened their visceral knowledge of being connected with other life forms and with the physical environment but also resulted in them knowing how to act to protect

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 52 the ecosystem; consequently, Earthfire did not need to provide visitors with information or advice about engaging in pro-environmental actions. During my visit at Earthfire’s physical site, the following conversation between Dr. Eirich and Lindsay, Prosper Strategies’ account manager, made clear Earthfire’s position about not needing to offer visitors didactic information about engaging in pro-environmental action:

Lindsay: So, people come and experience [Earthfire’s property], and then what happens

to them, or what do you hope happen?

Dr. Eirich: Well, what Michael [a recent visitor] said earlier.

Lindsay: That their lives are changed?

Dr. Eirich: Yes, I get that all the time. Understandings are deeper and richer, and because

of that, they feel moved. You heard Michael [say], “I’ll do anything I can to help.” We

get that. People often don’t know what they can do to help but they’re motivated to do

whatever they can to help, but we can’t see many people. How does Earthfire do it? It’s

with the profundity, the depth of the interactions that they open. Then the question is how

to get that out into the world, because you can’t have so many people here. One of the

things is, ideally, to begin to inspire people around the world to do something similar,

wherever they are, and also with the video [that Michael was producing about Earthfire],

and writing and talks.

Lindsay: What do you want him to do? Is there an action or is it just that now he has this

deeper connection?

Dr. Eirich: How can I say what action he should take? He lives in Finland. As an

example, maybe he’s intensely shy and can’t talk in front of people. Should I tell him he

should talk in front of people? Maybe he knows how to fundraise. It’s not for me to say

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that. Among other things, if I’m saying that I’m directing people, instead of energizing

our common humanity and the fact that every single person has a brilliance in them, I can

find a way within them that speaks to them about what to do. I think that’s the only way

that’s ultimately going to change anything; not me telling them what to do and not giving

a checklist of 10 things you can do, which really annoys the hell out of me.

Staff members reinforced Dr. Eirich’s ideology that people already knew (deep down) what actions to take to protect the environment. In a staff meeting that I attended virtually, when

I asked why Earthfire avoided advising people about pro-environmental actions to take, Chelsea responded that the organization did not want to “pigeonhole visitors in one type of action.

Everyone has their own unique abilities. What kind of world would it be or how could we change it, if we spent time developing those capacities?” Earthfire, thus, privileged changing humans’ perceptions of and actions toward the natural world by offering site visitors’ embodied experiences that awakened their conceptual and behavioral visceral knowledge about their relationship with, and actions to preserving, planet Earth. As Dr. Eirich (2019b) explained in a blog post:

My hope for the land and the animals is that they will set an example of how to reenchant

the world for all of us: a way of living in modern times that also includes ancient human

wisdom and the wisdom of nature. By beginning from the understanding that it can be

one harmonious whole—from the land and the wild animals and plants, to the Earthfire

animal habitats, to humans—it will become a living model for how each of us can be in

our particular place. We hope that this idea will be taken up and adapted in a million

other places around the world, each small, intimately in touch with their own place, but

interacting with others in a supportive, interconnected web. (para. 4)

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However, despite Earthfire staff members’ explicit view of the important role that the physical site plays in creating the environmental paradigm shift that the organization seeks, they also recognized that role, currently, was limited by the number of staff members, number of site visitors at any given time, and improvements that were needed to facilitate animals’ interactions with site visitors. Specifically, because Earthfire employed only three trained staff members to handle the animals (who all had other job responsibilities), the property was open to visitors only on weekdays and could accommodate no more than 20 visitors per day, meaning that even if

Earthfire operated at full capacity all of the time, approximately, only 5,200 people per year could visit the property—a relatively small number, given the organization’s lofty goal of producing a worldwide environmental paradigm shift. Moreover, for visitors to interact fully with Earthfire’s animals, staff members, as mentioned previously, said that substantial work was needed on the animals’ indoor enclosures to enable them access (without handlers’ aid) to their outdoor gardens.

Because of Earthfire’s staff and property limitations, 2 years ago, Dr. Eirich decided that the organization should establish and prioritize an online presence, to help people understand conceptually the organization’s desired environmental paradigm shift. Dawn reflected on the organization’s online communication to promote people’s conceptual understanding of that paradigm shift, in comparison to visitors’ embodied, visceral experiences on the property:

I kind of feel like there’s two different parts to Earthfire: There is the message that we put

out, and that message is very spiritual; it’s very thought-provoking and it’s very ethereal.

Then there’s the part of Earthfire that’s here: the deep experience with the animals. But

it’s not like we can just have everyone come here; I mean, the property needs work, for

sure, but also it just doesn’t have the capacity to do what we are talking about.

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Chelsea also claimed, “I hope soon that the physical site can become fully in line with the philosophy we have here. It [the site] needs more work for the animals, so more people can get this eye-opening experience.”

The physical site’s limitations, thus, have posed challenges for accomplishing Earthfire’s mission. Earthfire wants people to visit and have embodied experiences at the physical site that open them to the organization’s larger vision, but the site does not have the capacity to bring about the large-scale environmental paradigm shift that the organization seeks, and aspects of the site (e.g., animal enclosures) do not live up to staff members’ desired standards. Therefore, as explained below, staff members have concentrated significantly on online communication activities to accomplish the organization’s mission.

Online Communicative Activities

Earthfire Institute’s website is the primary means by which the organization communicates its vision of an environmental paradigm shift to external audiences, including stakeholders, donors, and potential donors. As explained below, three important reoccurring features of the organization’s website are the weekly blogs and the monthly “conservation conversations” and “Council of all Beings” practice.

Earthfire Institute’s Blogs

Every week, Earthfire posts two blogs to its website: (a) a blog written by an Earthfire employee about a specific topic that relates to categories of art and nature, compassionate conservation, Earthfire news, interspecies connection, nature’s intelligence, spiritual ecology and action, and/or urban living and nature; and (b) a “seed swap” blog (as organizational staff members called it) that encourages viewers to share uplifting environmental news or stories.

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The weekly seed swap blog, which started in April 2019, is an interactive blog that promotes Earthfire’s mission of inspiring an environmental paradigm shift. During my interview with Dr. Eirich, she referred to Earthfire as a “seed center for ideas,” explaining that “the concept is how powerful a small seed can be. If we plant a seed of thought, then it has the ability to grow and spread and Earthfire wants to do that work.” In line with that comment, each seed swap blog

(2019–2020) began with the same opening statement:

Seeds are tiny, magical packets of latent energy and potential, ready to burst forth when

conditions are right. They contain the very essence of Life itself: ancient wisdoms and

future hopes, exquisitely designed to adapt and evolve as needs arise. Part of Earthfire’s

mission is to be a seed center. Here we gather selections of what we would like to see to

germinate, take root, and unfurl into the light; stories that educate, inspire, inform and

embrace hope and action. We invite you to partake, swap and share them. May they all

bear fruit. (para. 1)

The seed center blog is one of the few times that Earthfire focuses on people’s pro- environmental actions (e.g., how societies and individuals are addressing changing ecosystems, climate change, and humans’ relationship with nature), with Earthfire staff members and blog readers sharing positive stories about such actions. Some stories are shared solely to uplift people; others provide links to news articles and/or other organizations’ websites. Seed swap blogs, thus, encourage members of the Earthfire community to plant their seeds on the website

(in the form of comments at the end of the blog), although my read of the blogs is that the organization plants the majority of “seeds.”

The seed swap blog is symbolic of the hope that Earthfire staff members have of inspiring a larger movement that promotes humans’ interdependence with ecology. For example,

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 57 as Seed Swap #21 reported, “An innovative new agave production program is empowering farmers to ‘reforest, revegetate, rehydrate and recarbonize depleted soils—and sequester massive amounts of carbon, while raising food for their communities’” (Earthfire, 2020b, para. 6). That blog then provided a link for readers to find more information about this inspiring news story. At the end of that blog, readers were asked to respond to that story and/or to share pro- environmental stories from their lives or from other sources that they knew.

Although not many readers have left comments on the seed swap blogs, a comment on

Seed Swap #11 stated:

Love the “medicinal herbs” piece! THANK YOU!

I am a Master Gardener myself and grow non-GMO, heirloom, medicinal herbs and

flowers to encourage our precious pollinators who are tragically dying at a rapid pace and

in order to create awareness about this critical subject. In doing so over the years, I have

had the privilege of being part of this incredible process of nature, and find it to be a total

body, mind and soul connection with plants, for our overall healing and nurturing and

well being long term. I feel that all we need to help us maintain/restore our health and

overcome illness is in the plants themselves, that have been here for us from the day we

were born, respected and recognized by all native people whom we can truly learn from.

(Earthfire, 2019c, para. 9)

Even though Earthfire’s community members do not comment often on the seed swap blogs, both Dr. Eirich, during the interview conducted with her, and other organizational members, during staff meetings, speak highly of the blog and its potential to inspire people. The seed swap blogs started just a little more than a year ago, and staff members hope that more readers will plant “seeds” in future blogs. Dr. Eirich even encouraged participants in the October

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 58 conservation conversation (explicated in detail below) to comment on the seed swap blogs, to help the ideas conveyed in the seed swaps to “grow.” Organizational members spoke often about the importance of creating change through being positive and inspirational, with the seed swap blogs highlighting pro-environmental stories and achievements.

Conservation Conversations

Arguably, Earthfire’s most prominent online feature is its monthly “conservation conversations,” which (as explained in Chapter 3) examine distinct themes, although they all seek to energize a paradigm shift in how humans think about their relationships with the natural world. Chelsea, Earthfire’s Director of Outreach, facilitates the 1-hour monthly conservation conversations that, typically, are comprised of 7–10 participants (including Dr. Eirich). Dr.

Eirich begins each conversation with a little background knowledge about or her motivations regarding conversations’ topics that she has chosen. Staff members view these conversations as being important for creating a community that will promote the organization’s ecological paradigm shift and that supports participants’ ideas about how to achieve that shift.

Conservation conversations begin in the same manner, with relaxing flute music being played and a short montage of photographs presented that feature Earthfire’s resident animals.

When the montage ends, Dr. Eirich welcomes everyone to the conversation by saying:

These conversations are designed to contemplate our collective journey together and how

best we can find and maintain our individual paths. The ultimate goal is action arising

from a perception shift that all life is sacred, in creating a community of practice that

grows and supports each other through our actions, we are delighted you are here.

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“Community,” and the need for individual insights within social bonds, are highlighted as important aspects of conservation conversations, with, in the September 2019 conversation, Dr.

Eirich following up her opening statement by saying:

Welcome everyone, it is kind of a truism, but in these difficult times, answers and

comfort tend to be found in community, [as] the answers are much larger than any of us

can manage or find. We need the support of community.

The creation of community supports Earthfire’s goal of contributing to an environmental paradigm shift by attracting and maintaining a loyal audience. When asked about the purpose of these conversations, Chelsea explained:

As Susan [Dr. Eirich] always says in them, this work [creating a paradigm shift] can’t be

done through just us [Earthfire staff], which is so true, and I think others who also want

to change the way we connect to all living beings agree; you see that in some vegan

communities and such. Also, we [Earthfire] want to connect with our followers and make

the organization just as much a community as an organization. People are more drawn to

us and to keep participating because we have created this outlet to interact with them and

form relationships. Some of the women who show up to all or almost all the

conversations, we know now on some level, and, yeah, there is definitely a relationship

there.

Earthfire’s monthly conservation conversations, thus, develop a community to support the organization’s desired paradigm shift, by asking participants to reflect on humans’ role in the environment and the natural world, more broadly, as well as to learn from each other’s insights about the topics discussed. For example, participants are posed questions by Dr. Eirich, such as the January 2020 conversation entitled “Positive Forces in the Face of Climate Crisis,” in which

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Dr. Eirich began the conversation by asking participants what agreements they were willing to make to show compassion to the natural world; some participants answered that they could commit to refraining from killing insects or picking wildflowers on a trail. The continued interest in these conversations by Earthfire community members, in part, is due to their interactive nature, in line with scholars’ suggestion for environmental organizations to create interactive opportunities online, such as specific questions posed during Earthfire’s conservation conversations that promote dialogue about the organization’s mission (Bortree & Seltzer, 2009;

Eimhjellen, 2014; Hackler & Saxton, 2007, Kim et al., 2014; Nasir & Ahmad, 2013). For instance, Bortree and Seltzer (2009) found that environmental organizations were missing significant opportunities to engage in conversation and build relationships with individuals interested in those organizations’ missions, because most organizational leaders believed that the mere creation of social networking platforms was enough to create meaningful interactions with audiences. Earthfire, however, has gone beyond creating social networking platforms to dialogue and connect with those interested in the organization via these monthly conservation conversations. Additionally, these conversations serve as virtual conferences, which Hackler and

Saxton (2007) recommended for environmental organizations to build trust with donors and stakeholders.

During her interview, Dr. Eirich stressed the importance of building community relationships through these conservation conversations (and, as discussed below, the Council of all Beings), when she descried the primary purpose of the organization’s online communication activities:

First, it’s about community, because we all know we can’t get at this alone. A shift in

thinking, or paradigm shift, as we frequently say, must come from more than the

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individual. Sure, it can start with the individual through their spiritual practices or

whatnot, but it must be spread; it must be shared. So, when we get together, we discuss

how to spread it [a paradigm shift] and how to support each other as we foster this

beautiful message of compassion and radical interdependence. It can’t just be me or even

Earthfire, for that matter, but I guess that’s where we have to start. Our online community

helps to spread the message; our participants are from all across the county [United

States] and even some Canadians participate.

Thus, Earthfire views creating an online community that discusses the desired environmental paradigm shift is central to promoting that organizational mission.

The careful consideration of language choices that was evidenced in staff members’ revision of the organization’s mission statement and editing of the organization’s newsletter (discussed previously in this chapter) also was reflected in conservation conversations about the desired environmental paradigm shift. For example, in the September 2019 conservation conversation, titled “Reorienting Ourselves to New Realities,” Sandy, who lived in Canada, explained that she avoided using the term “climate change,” saying, instead, “the collapse of all life systems.” Her alternative terminology highlighted the “reality” that Earth’s climate is linked to all life, with the word “systems” referencing people’s interdependence within the chain of life. Sandy said that

“climate change” had been overused and was too “distant,” with people not understanding how they are implicated, specifically, in the changes occurring in the climate. Jean, a participant from

California, agreed with Sandy, and said that she could understand how humans would imagine more easily implications of the “collapse of all life systems” as opposed to “climate change,” because the former underscored the threat to human life.

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Changing terminology that, commonly, has been associated with the environment, such as “climate change,” was a continued topic of discussion during the November 2019 conservation conversation, titled “Embracing Economic Activism.” Chelsea discussed the importance of shifting the language associated with businesses being “socially responsible” to being “socially restorative.” Chelsea claimed that because businesses have been responsible for much of the damage that the environment has suffered, business leaders had to change their framing of engaging in responsible environmental practices to practices that actually would restore the environment. The discussion about the difference between responsible and restorative practices led Jean, a participant, to express the need to shift conversations about both businesses’ and individuals’ pro-environmental actions from “sustainable” to “regenerative,” and she offered an example of the difference between those terms with regard to affecting individuals’ actions:

If we say “sustainable,” then people are, maybe, more likely to grow a garden in their

yard, which, don’t get me wrong, is great, but “regenerative” is better, because, then, you

learn that it’s not just about growing your own food sources but also what kind of plants

can you grow next to the ones you have planted as a food source that helps that food

source thrive. This is the kind of knowledge that is talked about in permaculture [a type

of gardening that uses design principles that mirror natural ecosystems] practices. Those

choices [what to plant together] help to regenerate, or, yeah, as you said, Chelsea,

“restore,” the soil, and if we could do that on mass scale, the ecosystem would thrive.

Sustainable agriculture is not enough to solve this crisis; we have to regenerate and honor

the land.

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Jean’s point about how changing that one word could change people’s environmental actions, thus, reflected the importance that Earthfire placed on conscientious symbol usage for creating the organization’s desired ecological paradigm shift.

Another example of Earthfire’s members recognizing environmental implications of symbol use occurred during the September 2019 conservation conversation, when participants discussed their disdain for the English language reifying a binary between nature and humans, in contrast to Native American languages deconstructing that binary. A participant, Joan, claimed that “the Lakota language, does not have a word for domination and when they talk about Earth, it’s with not on.” Jane, another participant, added, “Native American languages use more verbs and we use nouns, and theirs [language] is more visual and ours is audible.”

Jane’s perceptive observation speaks to a grammatical and semantic feature of language that relates to people’s perceptions of the sentient (alive) nature of a referent, which is a central characteristic of Native American languages. For instance, Kimmerer (2013), a professor of environmental and forest biology, and a member of the Potawatomi Nation (Native American), noted that whereas the Potawatomi language is comprised of 70% verbs, the English language has only 30% verbs. One important implication of a noun-intensive language is that English speakers do not grant life-hood status to most living species, because when English speakers refer to something as an “it,” they view the referent as being inanimate. As Kimmerer explained:

English doesn’t give us many tools for incorporating respect for animacy. In English, you

are either a human or a thing. Our grammar boxes us in by the choice of reducing a

nonhuman being to an it, or it must be gendered, inappropriately, as a he or a she. Where

are our words for the simple existence of another being? (p. 56)

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From that perspective, for example, calling a tree “it” leads people to see that living plant as being lifeless, which makes it easy for people to separate themselves as living creatures from trees. Earthfire staff members, thus, pay careful attention to symbols that they employ to talk about life, and they encourage discussions in the monthly conversation conversations about such language choices and their environmental implications.

Kimmerer (2013) further demonstrated the value of granting life forms, and landscapes, verb status:

A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When a bay is a noun, it is defined by humans,

trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb wiikwegamma—to be

a bay—releases the water from bondage and lets it live. (p. 55)

Again, a seemingly small shift in people’s word choice regarding, in this case, water can produce consequential changes in people’s perceptions of water. Earthfire’s staff and community members, thus, believe employing language that highlights the animacy of all life is important for deconstructing the nature–human binary and promoting the organization’s mission of reawakening humans’ interdependence with all life and land.

In addition to discussions about word choices associated with the environment, conservation conversations that I observed stressed Earthfire staff’s notion (discussed previously) of people “tuning into” their interdependence with the natural world. Participants in the October 2019 conversation, titled “Heeding Nature’s Call for Change,” for instance, discussed two primary ways, not mutually exclusive, that individuals could tune into their ecological interdependence: through an awakening and by listening to the natural world.

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First, participants in that conversation discussed how many religious traditions—most notably, Buddhism—contend that humans must be awakened from a trance to understand their true nature. At the beginning of that conservation conversation, Dr. Eirich said:

Buddha tried to awaken us 2,500 years ago, and some people have awoken since, but we

need this awakening on a massive or uh collective scale. Until our consciousness is

awakened or attuned to our interdependence, we will live in a trance that will ultimately

destroy our species.

This spiritual philosophy guided much of this conversation, with participants spending the next

25 minutes of that conversation hypothesizing how individuals can experience an awakening of their interdependence with nature.

Nancy, a participant in that conversation, who lived in Utah, responded to Dr. Eirich’s statement about the need for a collective awakening by sharing how the natural world that surrounds her house is a “wake-up” reminder every day. A few days prior to this conversation,

Nancy had taken an afternoon walk and found nearly 30 bird feathers on the ground, saying, “It was like the universe was slapping me on the face; being, like, ‘Wake up! Pay attention! I have something to tell you.’” Nancy’s experience highlighted how people can be awakened in places that they take for granted, such as their daily landscapes. Moreover, Nancy alluded to the notion that Earth speaks to humans if they listen.

Joan, a participant from California, followed up Nancy’s sharing by emphasizing the importance of people listening to the natural environment, sharing the following Native

American folklore that she learned about Mount Shasta, a sacred mountain that is located in

California:

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There is a Native folklore about this sacred mountain, Mount Shasta. Has anyone heard

of it before? Okay, let me think about how to tell it. There is a spirit on the mountain and

she’s called “Mis Mista.” She sings and her song maintains the seasons and the

atmosphere. It sustains life, and she sings about our interconnection. The folklore says

that listening to her is what keeps us all going. Her song must be listened to carefully, and

if we stop listening, then our home and Earth will be out of balance, because it’s the

combination of her song and our listening that sustains the Earth’s harmony. Worse, if

her song fades, we are vulnerable for extinction. That’s so accurate, don’t you think?

Joan’s retelling of that Native folklore sparked a conversation about the importance of listening as a communicative practice for seeing the sacredness of the natural world.

In line with Joan’s retelling of the Native American folklore, Berditschevsky (2016–

2019) from the Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center stated:

Listening to the Mountain has become a symbol for experiencing the sacredness of life on

all levels, a shift in how we perceive, what we think is important, how we listen to one

another, and how we see ourselves—no longer as separate but as an interdependent part

of the great circle of life in which we participate. (para. 46)

Therefore, in addition to participating in Earthfire’s conversations about the environment, organizational members believe that listening to the natural world, similar to visitors’ embodied experiences at Earthfire’s physical site, reawakens people’s visceral knowledge regarding humans’ relationship to all life and to the world.

Council of All Beings

Another important online communication activity that Earthfire sponsors is the “Council of all Beings.” As mentioned in Chapter 3, this activity, open to the public and attended,

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 67 typically, by 9–15 participants, occurs four times per year. The Council of all Beings includes two sessions (both of which are an hour long and are held a week apart): the first meeting introduces the practice and Earthfire’s interest in continuing the practice online; the second session holds the “Council,” with members attending having created and wearing a homemade mask of their chosen life form during the entire session (explained below in more depth).

I observed Earthfire’s Winter 2019 Council of all Beings, which was attended by eight people (including Chelsea and Dr. Eirich). The first session began with Chelsea, the facilitator, telling participants about both sessions. Chelsea explained that in the first session, she and Dr.

Eirich would spend time talking about the origin of the Council of all Beings, its significance to

Earthfire, and the sessions’ “flow.” Dr. Eirich then described the original Council of all Beings practice (created, as explained in Chapter 3, by Buddhist activists’ Joanna Macy and John Seeds) as the beautiful idea of living beings, other than humans, coming together in council to contribute their lived experience and insights about what it means to be alive. According to Dr.

Eirich, Macy and Seeds wanted to create a space in which other life forms’ voices were honored, and because one of Earthfire’s main purposes is to broaden humans’ perceptions of other life forms, Dr. Eirich decided to continue the practice.

Dr. Eirich claimed that although the original version of the Council had people attend physically, the practice was powerful enough to be conducted online. Dr. Eirich explained that

Earthfire had conducted three previous online Council of all Beings, and that she was happy with them:

This is transformative practice, and I finally realized that we could share it with more

people if we offered it online. I’ve been very pleased with the last three [Councils], and I

look forward to beginning this one with all of you and the beings that chose you.

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Dr. Eirich said that because she believed that including only human voices in making decisions about the ecosystem was humans’ most fundamentally ignorant practice, one of

Earthfire’s main functions was to help humans tune into multiple nonhuman voices and perspectives. As Dr. Eirich told participants:

Just listening to human voices is too narrow. By just listening to human voices, we start

to make really foolish decisions [about the ecosystem] because we don’t take into

account the rest of life, even though the rest of life is the basis for our life. So, on a pure

biological, practical, environmental level, it makes sense to listen to the voices of other

beings, and, of course, on a spiritual, moral, ethical level, it’s important, too. This

[Council] is more on a spiritual level, if you will, because we are trying to literally tune in

and hear what another being has to say—ideally, that being wants to communicate

through you.

Once again, Dr. Eirich described spirituality as tuning in, and, in this case, understanding (or hearing) what another life form thought, emphasizing spirituality as a perspective-taking practice.

To tune in, Dr. Eirich instructed participants to engage in deep listening, “whether that be in nature, an alter you made, or just in the quiet of your home.” Moreover, she advised listening throughout the next week of the Council with intent, saying:

The way to discover this being is to listen with the intent [of] does anything want to

speak through you? Next week, you will actually be that being. You will be making a

mask; it can be anything of nature [not just an animal] that wants to speak through you.

We will show up as that being, behind that mask, and will be speaking behind that mask

throughout the Council.

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Dr. Eirich stressed that because participants would represent their “being” throughout the entirety of the second session, the first session was important for participants to “listen” and

“tune into” whatever life form might be trying to communicate with them. The last 35 minutes of the first session was devoted to this deep listening practice, with participants engaging in a partially guided and partially silent group meditation.

Chelsea led the group meditation, telling participants that it would begin the process of letting another being “present itself” to them. As Chelsea said, “Allow the week to really think about it [what life form to represent], and be open to what the Earth is trying to say to you.”

Chelsea instructed everyone to get comfortable and prepare for the group meditation. The meditation began with a body scan (bringing attention to each body part, beginning with the feet and ending with the head), after which Chelsea said, “This is a practice in listening. Be still and let the questions go away, then go with what feels; it might be very slight, but embrace the silence and see what comes your way.” Silence, subsequently, filled the space until the session ended, with Chelsea saying that she and Dr. Eirich looked forward to meeting participants’ beings next week.

The second session began with Chelsea, wearing leopard mask explaining the “ground rules” for the Council, which consisted of a series of questions that would be posed and answered by everyone present, with, after each response, everyone respond aloud, “We hear you

[name of being].” As masked participants nodded their agreement to the rules, I saw a hawk, caterpillar, deer, dog, turtle, fox, and a representation of the Earth.

The first round began with the leopard guiding others to state who they were as beings; for example, the leopard said, “I am leopard. I am pensive. I am strong. I have family. I know my home. I feel the flow of the Earth within me, and I will be the facilitator for this Council. Thank

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 70 you all for being here.” All participants then said together, “We hear you, leopard.” Each being then introduced themselves and the other beings gave the required response.

In the second round, the leopard announced, “We will now tell each other what our lives are like, how we spend our time, and whatever deeper message you want to get across about your existence.” For example, the caterpillar shared:

I am caterpillar. My life is short. Many of us give ourselves up for the nourishment of the

birds. Many of us grow into butterflies and many of us decay and become part of the

earth. We represent a beautifully visual life cycle.

The caterpillar demonstrated a unique perspective of being part of the Earth’s life cycle, and, thus, not independent from other species.

The third round began with the leopard saying, “We will share our wisdom, knowledge, and unique gifts that we have as these beings, and what we might teach people if they are willing to listen.” This was the first question directed toward, humans and because I perceived it to be the most expansive question asked during the session, I offer a few responses that it generated.

First, the dog said, “I am dog. We are the teachers of deep love. We want to teach humans about unconditional love. We live in the present moment, we know what is going on now is real.”

Everyone sat in silence and seemed to soak in what the dog said, after which the hawk shared:

I am hawk. I come to teach the humans how their misdirection for answers come when

they look outside themselves. Seeking outside is a futile orientation, an orientation that

can never bring truth to the whole and the oneness. When our perspective comes from

inside, then we realize and acknowledge the lack of separation of species, [and] then all

beings are considered naturally and effortlessly. The direction of going within is the first

step to empower all beings and all life on this beautiful earth that we share. It is the

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hawk’s hope that when humans see us soaring in the sky, through awe, it will trigger

something within their hearts; that it is they, themselves, who they see in the sky—the

aspect of higher thought and the essence of our true nature. This is our hope for all of

humanity.

The hawk’s statement reflected Earthfire’s view of the interdependence of all living beings, and, importantly, that all beings’ “true nature” is realized internally (or, perhaps, viscerally).

In the final round, the leopard said, “The last round is optional; it is an offering for our human friends for how you would like them to change their ways for how they treat your species.” The turtle offered the following pointed feedback to human w:

I am turtle. Most humans spend no time in the sea. Most humans actually have no

concept of the damage they have caused to the sea. My message is that noise pollution

from humans in the ocean is lethal. Sound travels faster in water than air. The fracking

and search for oil is deafening, that is why we beach. Please, please stop putting lethal

sound into the ocean.

Although the turtle expressed a very specific environmental concern, some species present replied in broader, more spiritual terms. For example, the caterpillar said, “I am caterpillar. Please remember that all life is valuable, sacred, and full of energy,” reminding attendees that the perception shift being promoted in the Council embodied both environmental and spiritual values.

The Council closed with the leopard offering a final thought about participants transitioning back to their human form:

Take these wisdoms and feelings, and bring them back into our human forms. As the

being you are now, close your eyes, absorb tonight’s gifts, and let them run out of you

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and into the human form that you have allowed to share your space. Feel the transition,

and when both beings decide, remove your masks and take a moment with your mask in

front of you, with your eyes closed or open, and just be. Make a promise to listen, to truly

listen to what that being has shared tonight, and offer gratitude. Only when you are ready,

come back to Council as a human form. Thank you all. This is a very powerful practice,

and I don’t want to put too many words into it. We have the space to share as humans,

but there is no pressure to share if you would rather sit in silence.

The transition happened slowly, with, after 7 minutes, everyone having taken off their mask and sitting in silence. The fox offered the final comment: “I felt myself shift tonight in a big way. It is hard to put words to, so I just want to thank everyone for taking this exercise seriously and allowing an opening [expansive perspective] to take form.” That comment solidified the intention behind the Council of All Beings: creating space for new (nonhuman) perspectives about what it means to be a living being within the ecosystem at this particular point in time.

Although the Council of all Beings did not leave much time for the beings present to engage in dialogue, each statement seemed to be crafted intentionally and was well received. The first session’s emphasis on listening was apparent in the second session, as, most of the time, beings sat quietly listening to the perspective being shared by other beings. The Council of All Beings, thus, promotes humans’ expanded consciousness of other life forms, which Earthfire believes is necessary for achieving its desired environmental paradigm shift.

Conclusion

The results of this study demonstrated that Earthfire Institute seeks to create a paradigm shift through offering visitors intimate experiences at the physical site and through online communication activities that the organization provides. With regard to communication both at

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Earthfire’s physical site and online, organizational members appropriate spiritual philosophies, such as interdependence, compassion, and deep listening, to offer a framework for the expanded human consciousness that the organization believes will spark an ecological paradigm shift.

Organizational members careful consideration of language to describe Earthfire’s mission (and the natural world, more generally) revealed the significance of communication to Earthfire’s proposed paradigm shift. The next chapter discusses the conceptual and pragmatic implications of these results for Earthfire and for spiritual and radical environmental organizations/movements.

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CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION

This research study investigated communicative practices engaged in by Earthfire

Institute, an eco-spiritual organization that promotes a worldwide paradigm shift in how people view their relationship with and treat the environment. Specifically, Earthfire Institute’s mission is to shift humans’ current conceptualization of their relationship with the natural world and other life forms from being independent to being interdependent, which, organizational members believe, will lead people to not rely, as they do currently, on technologic or scientific solutions to the ecological crisis but to engage in conscious ecological actions to regenerate the ecosystem.

Earthfire seeks to accomplish that paradigm shift, primarily, via its online communication activities and, secondarily, by encouraging people to visit the organization’s physical site and interact with the many animal species living in that wildlife sanctuary. Those two practices, respectively, expand humans’ consciousness about and reawakens their visceral sense of knowing their interdependent relationship with Earth and its life forms.

This chapter discusses conceptual and practical aspects of this study’s results. The chapter starts by reviewing the need for a large-scale paradigm shift in the conceptualization, framing, and communication of/about climate change, followed by a discussion of how Earthfire promotes that shift via its online communication to expand humans’ consciousness and physical site visits to reawaken people’s visceral sense of knowing. The discussion reveals two problems that may limit or undermine Earthfire from accomplishing its mission, leading to, in line with applied communication, research, practical recommendations offered for Earthfire’s consideration. The chapter concludes by identifying limitations that characterized the study and suggesting directions for future research about eco-spiritual environmental organizations.

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A Necessary Ecological Paradigm Shift

As alluded to in Chapter 1, the environmental movement needs a radical reframing of climate change that rejects science as the sole solution to embracing spiritual solutions that confront the dominant Western binary that humans are separate from nature. That binary view has rationalized the abuse and misuse of the natural world; in large measure, because it prevents humans from understanding that their well-being is tied to well-being of the land and other species. Environmental problems associated with that binary are compounded in the United

States (and in other capitalist-driven countries) by cultural members’ obsession with consumption and a “preserve” understanding of progress that is driven by economics (Loy, 2018; van Schalkwyk, 2011). According to Loy (2018):

Like the personal sense of self, human civilization is a construct that involves a collective

sense of alienation from the natural world, which creates anxiety and confusion about

what it means to be human. Our main response to that anxiety—the collective attempt to

secure ourselves with economic growth and technological development (“progress”)—is

actually making things worse, because it reinforces our disconnection from the earth. (p.

8) van Schalkwyk (2011) also noted that the Western world’s understanding of progress converts intrinsically valuable life forms into “resources,” which perpetuates humans’ abuse of nature.

Eisenstein (2018) identified some troubling themes of this Western “standard narrative” of the natural world: “A conception of nature as ‘environment’ and thus separate from ourselves.

A mechanistic view of nature as an incredibly complicated machine. Valuing other beings based on instrumental utilitarianism—their use-value to ourselves” (p. 57). These views have led to offering climate change solutions—specifically, reliance on scientific and/or technological

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 76 advances—that are based on the same assumptions that have driven civilization toward ecological ruin. As Loy (2018) noted, “Many people assume that if we just convert to renewable sources of energy, our economy and society can continue to function in much of the same way”

(p. 21). Unfortunately, even if U.S. society embraced renewable energy, the core problem would remain of privileging humans at the expense of the ecosystem, which will continue to suffer under business-as-usual capitalist practices (Eisenstein).

Science and technology, thus, cannot be relied on (solely or primarily) to solve the climate change problem; there needs to be an ontological shift in humans’ consciousness and action regarding humans’ relationship with the environment (see, e.g., Eisenstein, 2018; Loy,

2018). Loy (2018), consequently, claimed that climate change is a spiritual crisis that “goes to the very heart of how we understand the word, including our place and role in the world” (p. 41).

Eisenstein (2018) called for a similar mythological reframing of the ecological crisis:

By a mythology, I mean narratives from which we weave our understanding of who we

are, what is real, what is possible, why we are here, how change happens, what is

important, how to live life, how the world came to be what it is, and what ought to come

next. Ecological degradation is an inevitable consequence of the mythology—I call it the

Story of Separation. (p. 8)

Both spirituality and mythology perceive climate change as being symptomatic of an ideology that sees humans as being separate from the ecosystem, a view that needs to be reframed to stress humans’ relationship with Earth and all life forms.

Because the root of environmental destruction is humans’ disconnection from nature (see, e.g., Eisenstein, 2018; Harris, 1995; Hirsh & Dolerman, 2007; Loy, 2018), the most consequential reframing involves recognizing and respecting humans’ interdependence with the

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 77 natural world. That reframing is aided by Mahayana Buddhism’s view of “interdependence”

(known better as “interdependent co-arising”), which is grounded in the concept of “emptiness”

(Thich Nhat Hanh, 1998, pp. 236, 135). According to McMahan (2009), Nagarjuna’s

Fundamentals of the Middle Way, one of the most sacred texts in the Mahayana tradition, explained that all things are empty of an inherent self-existence that is independent, fixed, and permanent, which, paradoxically, represents things’ oneness or interdependent nature. Put another way, emptiness means that everything is constituted by everything else; as McMahan explained, “the doctrine of emptiness declares all things lack inherent self-existence (svabhava); therefore, all beings are constituted by their interactions with other beings and have no independent, enduring nature in and of themselves” (p. 132). Emptiness, therefore, references a unified whole that is comprised of interdependent parts working together. Understanding emptiness (or oneness) engenders nirvana (awakening), with McMahan claiming that “if we

‘see’ all of the elements of existence (dharmas) that constitute dependent origination correctly, we see them as empty and therefore of the nature of awakening itself” (p. 140). For people to awaken, they must obtain consciousness that all living beings are interdependent.

In the contemporary world, interdependence, according to McMahan (2009), has “taken on meanings, implications, and associations, unique to the present era” (p. 135), with Loy (2018) pointing out the ethical implication of interdependence for repairing the ecological crisis: “As we begin to wake up and realize that we are not separate from each other, not from this wondrous earth, we realize that the ways we live together and relate to the earth need to be reconstructed too” (p. 5). Loy’s view of interdependence in the modern era means that people must change how they view and relate to other life forms, including other people.

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Thich Nhat Hanh (2001) attempted to aid that change by bringing interdependence to the forefront of human consciousness via the term “interbeing,” to help people understand the statement, “I am, therefore you are. You are, therefore I am” (p. 150). Eisenstein (2018) used the concept to explain how the ecological crisis reflects a larger cultural or political crisis:

Interbeing doesn’t go as far to say, “we’re all one,” but it does release the rigid

boundaries of the discrete, separate self to say that existence is relational. Who I am

depends on who you are. The world is part of me, just as I am part of it. What happens to

the world is in some way happening to me. The state of the cultural climate or political

climate affects the condition of the geo-climate. (p. 9)

Interbeing (or interdependence), thus, represents humans’ connection to not just the natural world but as a consequence of the cultural climate, such that the solution to the ecological crisis rests on a shift in culture. The next section explains how Earthfire Institute promotes that paradigm shift.

Earthfire Institute’s Promotion of the Paradigm Shift

Earthfire Institutes promotes that paradigm shift by expanding people’s consciousness and offering visceral experiences of humans’ interdependence with the ecosystem. As explained in the sections below, Earthfire seeks to accomplish those goals, respectively, by offering online communication activities and by encouraging people to visit its physical site.

Expanding People’s Consciousness

Earthfire seeks to expand consciousness regarding humans’ interdependence with the ecosystem by engaging people in online discussions about the paradigm shift that is needed to solve climate change. As the findings from this study showed, Earthfire cultivates people’s expanded consciousness by awakening them to their interdependence with the ecosystem,

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 79 engaging them in deep listening to the natural world, and having them pay attention to how they talk/communication about nature, spirituality, and the desired paradigm shift.

As explained in Chapter 4, according to Earthfire’s staff members, people are awakened to their interdependence when they have “gone sane” and are “in tune” with the world, such that they recognize humans as one species among many, living in an interdependent web. According to a conversation between Dr. Sallie McFague, a distinguished scholar of theology, and the Dalai

Lama, McFague said that “the nature of reality, and the world, is rooted in interdependence and interrelationship, so we need to change our understanding of who we are in order for us to act differently” (Dunne & Goleman, 2018, p. 143). Earthfire’s work to expand consciousness regarding humans’ interdependence with the world, thus, reflects what Buddhist scholars and practitioners consider to be the nature of reality.

Earthfire’s staff members mentioned potentially useful insights from Buddhism during many online conservation conversations. As described in Chapter 4, Dr. Eirich spoke about the significance of the reawakening that Buddha tried to create (approximately 2,500 year ago). The notion of a “collective awakening” is well documented in Buddhist philosophy, particularly in the Mahayana tradition (see, e.g., Loy, 2018; McMahan, 2008, Thich Nhat Hanh, 1998). In contrast to prior Buddhist teachings that emphasized individual transcendence beyond the physical world, the Mahayana Buddhist tradition promotes the “bodhisattva” path, which is grounded in the collective material world (McMahan, 2009). Bodhisattva translates as

“awakening the mind,” which, generally, is used as a noun to reference those who follow Buddha

(Loy, 2018, p. 165). Bodhisattvas are encouraged to practice compassion toward all sentient beings by engaging in metta, loving kindness meditations (McMahan, 2009). Additionally, prominent contemporary Buddhists (e.g., Loy, 2018; Thich Nhat Hanh, 1998) have argued that

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 80 bodhisattvas must remain in “samsara” (a cycle of rebirth) until all beings are saved. According to Loy (2018), “Realizing that I am not ‘inside’ separate from the rest of the world ‘outside’— such nonduality implies that my ‘salvation’ is not disconnected from yours” (p. 58). Thus, the awakening to which Mahayana Buddhism referred, and that Earthfire promotes, rests on a collective shift in consciousness that recognizes and honors humans’ interdependence with all life forms.

People’s awakening and expanded consciousness, according to Earthfire, also demands

“deep listening” to what natural surroundings communicate. Listening is a critical communicative practice that has been tied to people’s interaction with the natural world, with, for instance, Carbaugh (1999) showing how Blackfeet (Native American) people’s listening to the natural landscape connected them intimately to the landscape’s history and spirit. As

Carbaugh noted, “One ‘listens’ to that immediately real, historically transmitted, spiritually infused, deeply inter-connected world, to that complex arrangement in order better to understand that of which one is inevitably a small part” (p. 260). Blackfeet people believe that a person does not listen to the natural environment because they are “somewhat deaf to these messages, doesn’t quite hear them, and was caught not ‘listening’” (Carbaugh, 1999, p. 260).

Although there is a rich tradition of Indigenous peoples listening to the land, scholars have been slow to view land as an agent with the ability to communicate (Lee & Newfont, 2017).

Lee and Newfont (2017) argued that “the land actually does speak, that it transmits discernible messages, and that through long practice and careful attention humans can learn to listen” (p. 8).

Lee and Newfont pointed to people who have a longstanding relationship with landscapes to which they listen, either because they were born or spent their careers there, as revealing how

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 81 humans have the capacity to listen if they develop deep relationships with land. According to Lee and Newfont, listening to the land is

articulated in a variety of ways, among them paying attention, becoming aware,

observing closely, and understanding. Beneath all these terms is a sense of relationship, a

sense of engagement with an active other and a recognition of agency in that other. (p.

21)

The importance of listening to the natural landscape was reflected by the participant in

Earthfire’s online discussion about Mount Shasta (reported in Chapter 4), who shared a Native

American folklore that instructed people to listen to Mount Shasta’s song because it sustained life on Earth. The folklore warned people that if they forget to listen deeply to the mountain’s song, the Earth’s natural equilibrium would be impaired and life on Earth would be threatened.

Earthfire’s Council of All Beings online activity also encourages participants to listen to natural surroundings by hearing a life form wanting to speak through them and listening to other life forms speak during the Council. Listening to and learning from natural surroundings, thus, is an important component of expanding people’s consciousness; as Dr. Eirich noted in a Council of

All Beings, “Just listening to human voices is too narrow; by just listening to human voices, we start to make really foolish decisions [about the ecosystem].” As Lee and Newfont (2017) pointed out, “To grant communication capacity—and by extension thinking and volition—to other life forms radically upsets the snug and longstanding intellectual hierarchy that places humans above all other forms of life” (p. 7), which is important for accomplishing Earthfire’s mission of expanding human’s ecological consciousness.

This study also revealed how Earthfire expands people’s consciousness regarding language that they use to talk about nature, spirituality, and the paradigm shift that the

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 82 organization seeks to spark. Earthfire’s staff members and participants in the organization’s online communication activities spoke often about the role of language in, and how specific word choice facilitated, people’s perceptions of nature. For example, as explained in Chapter 4,

Sandy, a participant in the “Reorienting Ourselves to New Realities” conservation conversation, spoke about altering her word choice from “climate change” to “the collapse of all life systems,” to change people’s perceptions of the significance of the ecological crisis. Dr. Eirich also expressed disdain for describing the natural world as a “resource” because it promoted a human- centered perception of the world. Dr. Eirich, thus, equated people’s choice of words with their perceptions of the physical environment, in line with Burke’s (1966) notion of language being a

“terministic screen” that reflects, selects, and/or deflects reality. As Burke claimed, “Whatever terms we use, they necessarily constitute a corresponding kind of screen; and any such screen necessarily directs the attention to one field rather than other” (p. 50). Although Dr. Eirich did not use Burke’s term, she viewed “resource,” implicitly, as a terministic screen that selected and reflected the “reality” that humans have authority over trees and, therefore, can cut them down as much as they desire, and that the word deflected from an equally appropriate view of “reality” that trees are living beings with inherent value and, thus, humans should not cut them down excessively or view them solely as a resource for supporting human life.

Terministic screens, therefore, demonstrate the power of framing through word choices employed. As mentioned in Chapter 2, word choices reflect linguistic devices (e.g., metaphors, catchphrases, historical examples, and visual images; Lester & Hutchins, 2013) that produce interpretive frames. According to Lester and Hutchins (2013), environmental messages (e.g., from media) use linguistic devices to frame messages and to construct specific meanings associated with that frame.

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For instance, the frame of “Anthropocene” (known as the “current epoch”) has a specific meaning attached to it: human action has caused climate disruption. Haraway (2015) discussed how that single word created an entire story of Earth’s atmosphere having been altered unequivocally because of humans’ actions—a problematic frame about the geological epoch because it encompassed only a sliver of reality. Haraway argued that other stories about the state of the climate and humans’ relationship to it needed to be told, because the complexity of the current epoch could and should not be condensed into a single story. Haraway suggested

“Chtulucene” to account for multispecies’ assemblages, their collaborative play, and their impacts on the ecosystem, an alternative story or reality, as Burke (1966) would contend, that recognizes humans’ kinship with other species. Attention to realities created by frames, and linguistic devices used to create frames, therefore, is important to the paradigm shift that

Earthfire promotes, leading organizational members to influence words that people use to describe the natural world.

Scholars studying the spiritual environmental movement also have explored how linguistic devices frame people’s understanding of the natural world. For instance, scholars of the eco-spiritual movement have discussed the significant role that metaphors play in people’s perceptions of reality, with Eisenstein (2018) and Loy (2018) contending that the current metaphor of “Earth as a machine” hinders people from altering (or expanding) their consciousness regarding the interdependence of Earth’s living beings. As Loy noted:

Different metaphors have very different implications. Machines can be dissembled into

their components, cleaned, and after reassembly they work better than ever—but don’t try

that with an animal! That is because the various parts of a mechanism are lifeless in

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themselves but an organism is alive. And the components of an organism are better

understood as organs. (p. 40)

Loy argued that changing the metaphor used to describe Earth from a machine to an organism that has tissues, cells, and organs that enable it to live would lead to pro-environmental changes in humans’ actions toward Earth.

Frames creating conceptual lens for viewing the physical world, thus, has been of interest to communication scholars, environmental scholars, and eco-spiritual leaders. Concern about the relationship between people’s environmental language use and actions (e.g., Loy, 2018) reflects implicitly a constitutive view of communication. According to Craig (1999) “Communication, from a communicational perspective, is not a secondary phenomenon that can be explained by antecedent psychological, sociological, cultural, or economic factors; rather, communication itself is the primary, constitutive social process that explains all these other factors” (p. 126). In line with that perspective, metaphors (and other word choices) about Earth do not just reflect psychological, sociological, cultural, and economic environmental realities; they create those realities. Earthfire’s staff members’ use of words, such as “tuning in” and “sacred,” and words employed by participants in the organization’s online discussions, such as “collapse of all life systems,” therefore, expand upon, and, in some cases, create new environmental realities regarding the intrinsic value of, and humans’ interdependent relationship with, the natural world.

Earthfire, thus, contends that people’s consciousness is expanded by being awakened to their interdependence with the natural world, listening carefully to the environment, and paying close attention to language used to describe and frame the natural world. Although Earthfire promotes that paradigm shift, primarily, through online communication activities, as explained

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 85 below, that shift is facilitated by the visceral sense of knowing that people experience when they visit the organization’s remote physical site in the Teton Valley (Idaho).

Experiencing a Visceral Sense of Knowing

Along with expanding humans’ consciousness about their interdependence with Earth and its inhabitants, Earthfire seeks to reawaken people’s visceral (innate or instinctive) sense of knowing that interdependence. As explicated in Chapter 4, organizational staff members believe that visceral sense of knowing is reawakened when visitors interact with animals living at

Earthfire’s wildlife sanctuary.

Earthfire staff members’ optimism about the power of visceral experiential knowledge is in line with environmental education scholars’ study of experience as a primary cause of people’s pro-environmental behavior and, importantly, their sense of interdependence. The notion that intimate experiences with nature (such as those at Earthfire’s physical site) can stimulate people’s pro-environmental values and behaviors has been well researched; predominantly, in the environmental education field (e.g., Chawla, 1998, 1999, 2006; Cheng &

Monroe, 2012, Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002; Robertson et al., 2015; Tanner, 1980). Tanner’s

(1980) work, in particular, influenced a line of studies about effects of people’s direct experiences with nature on their environmental conservation beliefs (e.g., J. Palmer, 1993;

Peterson, 1982; Votaw, 1983). Tanner’s study of people who worked at major environmental conservation agencies (e.g., National Audubon Society, Sierra Club, National Wildlife

Federation, and The Nature Conservancy), and who had spent significant time by themselves in pristine environments, found that those experiences affected their environmental conservation values. Subsequent studies confirmed that intimate experiences outdoors (especially as a youth)

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 86 is a critical factor in developing personal concern for the environment (e.g., Chawla, 2006;

Palmer, 1993; J. A. Palmer et al., 1996).

Experiences with nature, potentially, deconstruct the dominant ideology that humans are separate from and superior to nature, with Morse (2015) and Kohak (1992) stressing the significant role that people’s lived experiences in the natural world have on their perceptions of its intrinsic worth. Morse (2015) claimed that experience “is more than just seeing and thinking, it involves a constant embodied interrelationship with the world around us” (p. 114). Experience, thus, has an important visceral component, with cultivation of an embodied relationship with and appreciation of nature’s intrinsic worth being integral to the visceral experiences that Earthfire seeks to foster at its physical site.

Of relevance to this discussion, scholars studying nature and effects of experience have forged connections between self and Other (whether human or other life forms). Roberts (2012), for example, argued that experience imposes an engagement with something that is other than self, with Morse (2015) explaining that “this sense of interrelatedness or engagement with something more than self involves pre-reflective and perceptual components of experience that provide opportunities for meaning making and a sense of being-in-the-world that may be easily overlooked” (p. 114). Earthfire’s cultivation of people’s visceral sense of knowing (through experiences at its physical site) is designed to create new meanings regarding other life forms, with Dr. Eirich claiming that visitors’ interactions with animals residing at Earthfire, in contrast to zoos that do not allow interactions between humans and animals, lead visitors to develop a deep understanding of their connection to other life forms. Earthfire’s physical site, according to

Dr. Eirich, thus, provides visitors with unique, visceral experiences with animals that tear down the constructed wall that separates people from other living forms. Organizational members

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 87 believe that visitors’ intimate experiences with Earthfire’s wildlife and with the natural surroundings expand their consciousness, which, in turn, leads them to engage in pro- environmental actions.

Schultz (2000) argued that people’s level of environmental concern is based on the degree to which they see themselves as connected directly to nature. Schultz studied effects of people’s’ perceived connectedness to nature by having them view a picture of an animal being harmed by pollution and asking them to take that animal’s perspective. As Schultz found:

In addition to producing feelings of empathy, taking perspective may also have

temporarily increased the extent to which participants viewed themselves as

interconnected with nature. That is, taking perspective may have expanded the

participants’ inclusiveness of self and reduced the degree of separation that participants

perceived between themselves and nature. (p. 403)

In line with that finding, as described in Chapter 4, participants in Earthfire’s Council of All

Beings step out of their human perspective by attending the second session embodied physically as another life form.

Schultz’s (2000) findings also revealed how people’s experiences in the physical world may facilitate their belief in their interdependence with other life forms:

My results suggest that any activity that reduces an individual’s perceived separation

between self and nature will lead to an increase in that individual’s biospheric concern.

For example, a hike in the woods, a class trip to a natural park, a family camping trip (in

a tent, not a recreational vehicle), an animal presentation in which students can see and

touch the animal, or creating birdhouses or gardens should all lead to greater

interconnectedness and inclusion. (p. 403)

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Schultz’s results validate Dr. Eirich’s comments about the potency of experiencing Earthfire’s physical site for expanding people’s consciousness, which is why organizational members see it as crucial to improve Earthfire’s physical property and to hire more staff, which will offer more visitors, than currently can be handled, opportunities to have intimate, visceral experiences of being interconnected with the Earth and all life forms. However, as explained in the next section,

Earthfire’s view of its physical property as constituting the ideal image of nature, as well as the organization’s lack of offering people information about engaging in specific pro-environmental behavior, potentially, is problematic.

Problematic Features of and Recommendations for Earthfire Institute

In line with the goals of applied communication research, this section identifies problems characterizing Earthfire’s Institute’s communication and offers recommendations for confronting those problems. Two significant problems (and their solutions) surfaced from this study: (a)

Earthfire’s communication about its physical site privileges pristine nature instead of recognizing all environments as intrinsically valuable for visceral experiences that the organization promotes, and (b) Earthfire’s belief that pro-environmental behavior results automatically from expanded consciousness and visceral experience instead of offering people such information. Each of these problems and their proposed solution are discussed below.

Earthfire Institute’s View of Nature

Although Earthfire Institute, in line with academic research, recognizes the significance of people having visceral experiences with nature for promoting the paradigm shift sought, the organization actually may be reinforcing, unintentionally, the Western dominant binary of humans and the natural world, by viewing the organization’s pristine environment and wild animals as the optimal and, arguably, only environment for those experiences. By privileging its

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 89 remote location in the Teton Valley, as discussed below, Earthfire contributes to a problematic view of what constitutes nature.

Davis (1996) argued that, for the last couple of hundred years, Euro-Americans have endowed nature with cultural and spiritual properties that keep nature “out there” (p. 211), which reinforces the view that nature is separate from the human world. Although spiritual properties endowed into pristine landscapes was influenced by European Romanticism, reverence of sublime landscapes became uniquely U.S. American through the work of influential environmentalists, such as Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Muir (see, e.g.,

Cronon, 1996a). Cronon (1996b) claimed that during the early to mid-19th century, wilderness gained remarkable influence in U.S. culture and “became loaded with some of the deepest core values of the culture that created and idealized it: it had to become sacred” (p. 73). By the mid-

19th century, Cronon (1996b) claimed that a “doctrine of sublime” (p. 73) was ingrained into

U.S. culture that promoted the value of “those rare places on earth where one had more chance then elsewhere to glimpse the face of God” (p. 73). The quasi-religious experience of pristine landscapes became entangled in U.S. Americans’ values of what nature, inherently, is, because as Cronon (1996a) argued, nature is “a profoundly human construction” (p. 25).

The cultural construction of nature as God-like has had major implications for the environmental movement and its discourse, creating the foundation for the way that the environment is communicated about in environmental organizations and writ large (Cronon,

1996b).

The doctrine of sublime was imbued into influential environmental nonprofit organizations (EMOs), such as the Sierra Club (started by John Muir), which helped to secure passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, with wilderness defined as “an area where the earth and

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 90 its community of life are untrampled by man, where man himself is a visitor that does not remain” (Baltz, 1980, p. 29). Landscapes admired as “true nature” and designated for protection, thus, inherently, were viewed as being separate from humans’ daily physical environments. The

Sierra Club’s rhetoric about protecting wild spaces above all other environmental concerns (e.g., environmental justice), along with the Sierra Club’s renowned photography of pristine landscapes, still affects profoundly today people’s conception of nature as being separate from human activity (Dunaway, 2013).

That view of nature is problematic because, as Cronon (1996a) claimed, conceiving of nature as “being out there” idealizes a distant and removed sense of nature that overlooks nature in everyday places that people inhabit. As Cronon (1996b) explained, “Wilderness gets us into trouble only if we imagine that this experience of wonder and otherness is limited to the remote corners of the planet, or that it somehow depends on pristine landscapes we ourselves do not inhabit” (p. 88). Earthfire’s staff members fall into this trap by privileging the organization’s beautiful, remote physical site as being ideal for people to have visceral experiences with nature and animals that promote the desired paradigm shift. By viewing and valuing Earthfire’s specific landscape as being the ideal representative of nature, instead of promoting nature as an inherent part of humans’ quotidian existence, the organization’s rhetoric reinforces nature being “out there” and wilderness as being sublime.

The dualism created by the assumption that nature is “out there” is especially problematic for an organization that seeks a paradigm shift in how humans understand their relationship with the natural world. Earthfire’s staff members do not seem to realize that people can recognize their interdependence with nature by seeing and listening deeply to trees growing on streets where they live, plants growing in their homes, raccoons digging in their garbage, food they eat,

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 91 and even products they consume, because all are made from nature. Davis (1996), for instance, argued that nature is found at the mall, contesting the large majority of environmentalists’ view

“that shopping, in contrast to a day’s hike up a mountain, is less ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ encounter to nature” (pp. 198–199).

The false distinction between material objects (made from nature) and nature found on a walking trail also has been highlighted from a spiritual perspective, with Buddhist leader Thich

Nhat Hanh (1998) recognizing the interdependent nature of commodities:

For a table to exist, we need wood, a carpenter, time, skillfulness, and many other causes.

And each of those causes needs other causes to be. The wood needs the forest, the

sunshine, the rain, and so on. The carpenter needs his parents, breakfast, fresh air, and so

on. And each of those things, in turn, has to be brought about by other conditions. If we

continue to look in this way, we’ll see that nothing has been left out. Everything in the

cosmos has come together to bring us this table. Looking deeply at the sunshine, the

leaves of the tree, and the clouds, we can see the table. (p. 222)

Thich Nhat Hanh wanted people to look at a chair and see the interrelated processes and physical elements from which it was constructed. Earthfire’s mission to expand people’s awareness, however, does not point to humans’ interdependence with the natural world in mundane objects or human activities.

This discussion suggests that although Earthfire wants people to recognize their interdependence with the natural world, organizational members’ touting of Earthfire’s remote natural landscape and wild animals privileges a type of nature and wilderness that actually limits the expanded consciousness being promoted. Cronon (1996b) spoke about the fear that favoring pristine wilderness would affect negatively pro-environmental efforts:

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On the one hand, one of my most important environmental ethics is that people should

always be conscious that they are part of the natural world, inextricably tied to the

ecological systems that sustain their lives. Any way of looking at nature that encourages

us to believe that we are separate from nature—as wilderness tends to do—is likely to

reinforce environmentally irresponsible behavior. (p. 87)

Earthfire staff members’ tendency to view nature as being “out there” and, therefore, not promote the natural beauty found in quotidian spaces, ironically, reinforces the nature–human binary and may have negative consequences for people engaging in daily pro-environmental behavior.

To minimize the belief that humans are separate from nature, Dunaway (2013) claimed that a new model of ecological citizenship was needed that viewed and appreciated familiar and mundane spaces as worthy of environmental protection, and that promoted a “broader sense of responsibility for spaces beyond the wilderness” (p. 14). As Dunaway (2013) argued,

“Ecological citizenship requires relinquishing the myth of purity and working to create new forms of accommodation between people and nature in places beyond the wilderness” (p. 43).

Although Dunaway focused on the work of photographers to create this new model of ecological citizenship, that model easily is transferrable to an EMO whose mission is to protect the environment by expanding what it means for humans to be in/with the natural world.

Earthfire’s desired paradigm shift regarding the interdependence of humans and the nature would be more effective, or, at least, more comprehensive, if organizational members stressed the natural world’s role everywhere on the planet. As Cronon (1996b) argued:

If wilderness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start

being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of

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struggling to live rightly in the world–not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness,

but in the home that encompassed them both. (p. 90)

Given Earthfire’s concern with people living ethically environmentally in the world, the organization’s communication (about its mission, on its website, and in its online activities) needs to embody fully all intersections of humans and nature, including appreciating nature in people’s daily lives. Connecting nature to daily life will make it easier for people to understand how humans and the natural world are interdependent. An appreciation of nature in the mundane also would reinforce Earthfire’s assertion that all forms of life inherently are valuable, even those that people tend to view as “pests.” To exhibit more fully the organization’s commitment to principles of interdependence and the intrinsic worth of all life forms, conservation conversations, for instance, could discuss how each principle applies, specifically, to people’s mundane experiences, which has been a fleeting topic of conversation that the organization has initiated only minimally. Another topic of discussion in conservation conversations that could be elaborated upon with regard to viewing nature in the mundane is how humans reify the nature– human binary. Earthfire’s facilitators should ask participants to reflect on whether and how they may be reinforcing that binary by imagining nature in very limited ways (e.g., as a pristine environment). Furthermore, the Council of All Beings could highlight the prevalence and importance of nature in people’s ordinary lives and routines, by devoting one of the four yearly councils to living beings that reside in people’s houses or on their streets (e.g., houseplants and squirrels).

Finally, Earthfire can promote people’s expanded consciousness better by not relying on its physical site to create visitors’ visceral knowing of their interdependence with nature. Given the site’s limitations, the desired paradigm shift would be more promising if the organization

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 94 provided advice about creating visceral experiences in people’s habitual activities and environments. For instance, deep listening could be invoked in home meditation practices or in walking meditations taken during work lunch breaks, with Earthfire’s website explaining techniques to use to connect with life forms during those or other meditative practices.

The recommendation for Earthfire to focus on nature that is found in the mundane is especially important because the lofty goal of creating a paradigm shift cannot rest solely on hoping that enough people have access (e.g., in terms of location, time, and resources) to powerful visceral experiences at Earthfire’s physical site (or similar sites). In addition to how favoring visceral experiences in remote beautiful landscapes disenfranchises already marginalized groups, privileging pristine environments is far too limiting to create that widescale, lasting paradigm shift; Earthfire, therefore, should reconsider its communication about where and how that paradigm shift is achieved, especially with regard to people’s daily routines and activities, and, thereby, encourage an expansive understanding of humans’ interdependence with the natural world. In addition to focusing on nature in people’s daily lives, as explained below, Earthfire needs to offer people recommendations for engaging in daily pro- environmental behavior.

Earthfire Institute’s View of Pro-environmental Behavior

Although findings from scholarly research bolster Earthfire’s assertion that visitors’ viscerally felt experiences will influence their environmental views, research does not support staff members’ (particularly, Dr. Eirich’s) position that those experiences will lead people to know how to engage in environmental conservation efforts. In fact, many scholars have argued that people need guidance about engaging in pro-environmental actions. Reser and Bradley

(2017) claimed that “overwhelmingly big problems without effective ways to counter them

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 95 frequently result in denial, numbing, and apathy” (p. 12). Reser and Bradley’s meta-analysis of scholarship about climate change appeals found that appeals were more effective when coupled with information and explicit environmental behavioral instructions that increased people’s perceived self-efficacy. Hine et al.’s (2016) study confirmed that finding, with messages that included negative emotive content, such as fear, in combination with specific adaptive advice, such as using alternative transportation to automobiles (e.g., biking, busing, and carpooling), increasing people’s environmental adaptation intentions, regardless of their view of climate change (i.e., alarmed, uncommitted, or dismissive).

Despite the need for explicit environmental behavior recommendations, Dr. Eirich expressed concern that instructing people about how to behave toward the environment diminishes their individual contributions to Earthfire’s paradigm shift and to the environmental movement writ large, there are environmental behaviors in which everyone should engage, such as recycling and consuming less animal products. Recognizing the value of engaging in those behaviors does not diminish individuals’ unique capacities; it strengthens the collective’s capacity to tackle the environmental crisis. People still can be encouraged to discover and direct their abilities to fostering environmental change and, simultaneously, enact needed behaviors that benefit everyone and the environment.

Earthfire staff members’ resistance to providing information about simple environmental behavior changes, thus, potentially, undermines the organization’s larger mission of creating the desired paradigm shift. Earthfire, therefore, should provide online and to physical site visitors a list of environmental conservation practices in which people can and should engage. In a staff meeting about Earthfire’s mission statement, members came up with the phrase, “What if we see all Life as sacred? How would we live then?” and offering concrete examples of living that way

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 96 would help people to enact that philosophy. Monthly conservation conversations (facilitated by

Chelsea and Dr. Eirich) also should feature as a regular component discussion of pro- environmental actions. Addressing such practical action will complement the larger conceptual discussions taking place in conservation conversations, because knowing what environmental behavior to perform produces a stronger sense of self-efficacy (Reser & Bradley, 2017), which is important for creating the desire large-scale paradigm shift, as people must see that shift as not only as being possible but that their contributions will achieve that goal.

Limitations of the Study

Although this research revealed important findings about communicative practices of an

EMO that employs eco-spiritual principles to achieve its mission, those findings need to be interpreted in light of some limitations that characterized the study. For instance, because this was an MA thesis, I spent a limited amount of time at Earthfire’s physical site, observing, for instance, staff meetings. Ideally, participant observation would have been conducted as soon as

Dr. Eirich decided to clarify Earthfire’s mission and hired Prosper Strategies to work on the organization’s capital campaign (May 2019), with research conducted throughout the launching of that campaign during Summer 2020 and a few months into Fall 2020. Additional time to conduct this study would have given me more extensive exposure to the organization and people participating in Earthfire’s online activities. Although increasing the time spent observing the organization probably would not have changed the results about Earthfire’s promotion of an expanded consciousness of interdependence to create a widespread paradigm shift, it would have been helpful to have read Prosper Strategies’ final report about Earthfire’s capital campaign launch and observed (at least to some extent) whether the organization’s investment in Prosper

Strategies was successful.

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Another limitation of the study was that no data were acquired to demonstrate whether and to what extent those who participated in Earthfire’s online activities expanded their consciousness. Although those online communicative activities promote the desired ecological paradigm shift, with, as documented in Chapter 4, organizational members and participants articulating specific ways that paradigm shift can develop (e.g., deep listening to the natural environment and intentional language choice about the natural world), those strategies were based on participants’ online discourse and not on, for instance, their perceived belief that

Earthfire’s goal of expanded consciousness will be effective for creating large-scale ecological change. The study, thus, would have benefitted from conducting interviews with Earthfire’s online participants about their views of the organization and its mission and strategies for expanding people’s environmental consciousness.

Another limitation of the study was that visitors to Earthfire’s physical site were not interviewed. Although Earthfire’s staff members spoke highly about their and visitors’ personal experiences at the site, the visceral sense of knowing that staff members spoke about was not assessed from visitors point of view. Moreover, interviews conducted with site visitors could have inquired about the possibility of having visceral experiences with nature in their everyday lives, as well as assessed whether they know and the extent to which they engage in pro- environmental behavior.

Suggestions for Future Research

The results of this study suggest several directions for research about EMOs, including their online communication, employment of spiritual philosophies, and investigation of privileging of nature “out there” in EMOs external communication. Although there is a plethora of empirical research that has been conducted about EMOs—specifically, in regards to their

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 98 online communication—and research that has examined connections between spirituality and environmentalism, more research needs to be conducted about eco-spiritual organizations’ communication, including their online communication.

First, research should examine whether and how EMOs utilize their online presence to create community around their missions and to enable participants to contribute to those organizations’ meaning-making processes. Researchers, for instance, might focus on EMOs’ use of chatrooms and/or virtual meetings (such as Earthfire’s conservation conversations and

Council of All Beings) to support their organizational goals and to increase membership.

Second, research should consider how EMOs employ (explicitly or implicitly) spiritual philosophies to bolster their missions. If spirituality creates a lens for how people view their relationship to the world, it can serve an important function by influencing people’s worldview about, and actions toward, the natural environment. Although research has examined religious

(or spiritual) organizations that encourage environmentalism in their followers, it is important to consider how EMOs, not anchored in a religious creed but grounded in science, may utilize spiritual philosophies that transcend any single religion to increase people’s environmental consciousness. More studies that investigate the prevalence and ability of EMOs to utilize spirituality would help environmental movements, which need to appeal to humankind in a variety of ways, with spirituality being an underexplored method of environmental engagement.

Third, environmental communication scholars may examine how nature is a human construction and thereby theorize about alternate ways that nature can be communicated (and constructed) that might demonstrate the interdependence of the natural world. By investigating how environmental discourse is a product of human (and cultural) construction, scholars may gain insight into how environmental discourse creates realities about how humans conceive of

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 99 nature. Future studies may employ the theory of communication being constitutive (Craig, 1999) to deconstruct the impact of various environmental discourses on human perception about the natural world.

Finally, a textual-analytic research should be conducted about EMOs’ mission statements, outreach materials, and online content to examine how widespread the “nature as out there” conceptualization is in their messages. Understanding more about privileging a “nature out there” framing may have significant effects on future environmental frames, stories, and words that EMOs employ to change people’s perceptions of and actions toward the natural world.

Conclusion

This research study of Earthfire Institute documented and demonstrated how this environmental organization’s communication employs spiritual philosophies to create two ideological principles—expanded consciousness and visceral sense of knowing—that inform its mission of creating an ecological paradigm shift that recognizes the interdependence of humans,

Earth, and other species. Participant observation and interviews revealed that Earthfire cultivates people’s expanded consciousness through awakening them to their interdependence with the ecosystem, listening deeply to nature, and choosing appropriate language when referencing the natural world, all of which are reinforced by the visceral sense of knowing that visitors experience at the organization’s physical site. Hopefully, insights discovered through this research, and particularly these philosophical principles, will prove useful to communication scholars who study both mainstream environmental and radical environmental or eco-spiritual organizations that seek to change how humans understand their relationship with nature.

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 100

This research also adds to scholarly conversations that problematize the current framing of overcoming the ecological crisis, which relies on technologic and scientific advancements, and provides a spiritual framework to replace current ontological assumptions about nature and humans’ role in the natural world. In the final analysis, the spiritual or philosophical principles that Earthfire employs to spark the needed ecological paradigm shift show how environmental organizations’ communicative practices seek to cultivate new ontological understandings of humans’ relationship with the natural world, challenge current problematic conceptualizations of the ecological crisis and perceived solutions, and employ novel communicative practices that, hopefully, will contribute to lasting positive environmental change.

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APPENDIX A:

INTERVIEW GUIDE

1. What is your position at Earthfire?

2. How did you find first hear about Earthfire? Why did you decide to work for them? And for how long have you worked at Earthfire?

3. What does “spirituality” mean to you conceptually and pragmatically? With what other words do you associate “spirituality”?

4. How would you describe the way that you grew up with regard to religion or spirituality?

5. Do you associate “spirituality” with the environment or natural world in any ways? If so, how?

6. If you have had what you would describe as a “spiritual experience,” can you describe it?

7. Even though Earthfire’s mission statement does not explicitly mention “spirituality,” do you see Earthfire incorporating spirituality? Please be as specific as possible.

8. Are there any specific spiritual traditions (e.g., Christianity, Buddhism, and/or Paganism) present/represented in Earthfire’s practices? If so, please be as specific as you can about them.

9. Would you say that Earthfire’s privileging of spirituality strengthens the organization internally (e.g., communication with and/or among staff members)? If so, how?

10. Would you say that Earthfire’s privileging of spirituality affects how the organization communicates with external audiences? If so, how?

11. Do you think that Earthfire will or should emphasize spiritual values more than it does now? If so, what would you recommend?

12. How do you see Earthfire’s mission expanding?

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APPENDIX B:

INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD PROTOCOL APPROVAL

28-Aug-2019 Dear Audra Barber,

On 28-Aug-2019 the IRB reviewed the following protocol:

APPROVAL

Institutional Review Board 563 UCB Boulder, CO 80309 Phone: 303.735.3702 Fax: 303.735.5185 FWA: 00003492

Type of Initial Application Submission: Review Expedited - Category 7 Category: Risk Level: Minimal Spirituality in Environmental Organizations: An Applied Communication Title: Approach to Translating Spiritual Values into Communicative Practices Investigator: Barber, Audra Protocol #: 19-0485 Funding: None Interview Guide Earthfire Participants; 19-0485 Consent Forms Interviews Documents (28Aug19); 19-0485 Consent Forms Observation (28Aug19); Recruitment Script Approved: for Participants; Interview Guide Employees; Recruitment Script for Gatekeeper; 19-0485 Protocol (28Aug19); Documents Protocol; HRP-211: FORM - Initial Application v8; Reviewed:

The IRB approved the protocol from 28-Aug-2019 to 27-Aug-2020 inclusive. Before 28-Jul-2020, you are to submit a Check-in Form to request continuing approval or closure. This protocol will expire if continuing review approval is not granted before 27-Aug-2020. You are required to use the IRB Approved versions of study documents to conduct your research. The IRB Approved

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 119 documents can be found here: Approved Documents In conducting this protocol you must follow the requirements listed in the INVESTIGATOR MANUAL (HRP-103).

Sincerely, Douglas Grafel IRB Admin Review Coordinator Institutional Review Board

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APPENDIX C:

INTERVIEW CONSENT FORMS

Title of research study: Spirituality in Environmental Organizations: An Applied Approach to Translating Spiritual Values into Communicative Practices

IRB Protocol Number: 19-0485

Investigator: Audra Barber

Sponsor: Dr. Lawrence Frey

Purpose of the Study The purpose of the study is to inform research that will constitute my Master’s thesis at CU Boulder. The subjects are being invited to participate in structured interviews to discuss environmentalism, spirituality, and specifically how EarthFire Institute incorporates both in its communicative practices. The purpose of this research is to understand how an emphasis on spirituality as well as science may improve the internal and external communication at an environmental nonprofit. The research will advance knowledge about environmental organizations, spirituality within organizations, and the connection between environmentalism and spirituality. Additionally, this study will help fill a gap in the communication literature by focusing on the routine external and internal communication practices at an environmental organization.

We expect that you will be in this research study for 9 months until the academic year ends in May 2020.

We expect about 10 people will be in this research study.

Explanation of Procedures If you choose to participate, you will be asked to meet me, Audra Barber, at either EarthFire Institute or via online platform. We can meet at a time convenient for you. The interview will consist of 5-15 questions and take about 30-60 minutes of your time and will be recorded with a digital voice recorder to aid in the accuracy of the study.

Voluntary Participation and Withdrawal Whether or not you take part in this research is your choice. You can leave the research at any time and it will not be held against you.

Confidentiality Information obtained about you for this study will be kept confidential to the extent allowed by law. Research information that identifies you may be shared with the University of Colorado Boulder Institutional Review Board (IRB) and others who are responsible for ensuring compliance with laws and regulations related to research, including people on behalf of the

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 121

Office for Human Research Protections. The information from this research may be published for scientific purposes; however, your identity will not be given out.

Payment for Participation You will not be paid to be in this study.

Questions

If you have questions, concerns, or complaints, or think the research has hurt you, talk to the research team at [email protected] or you can email my advisor at [email protected].

This research has been reviewed and approved by an IRB. You may talk to them at (303) 735- 3702 or [email protected] if: • Your questions, concerns, or complaints are not being answered by the research team. • You cannot reach the research team. • You want to talk to someone besides the research team. • You have questions about your rights as a research subject. • You want to get information or provide input about this research.

Signatures

Your signature documents your permission to take part in this research.

______Signature of subject Date ______Printed name of subject ______Signature of person obtaining consent Date ______Printed name of person obtaining consent

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 122

APPENDIX D:

PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION CONSENT FORMS

Title of research study: Spirituality in Environmental Organizations: An Applied Approach to Translating Spiritual Values into Communicative Practices

IRB Protocol Number: 19-0485

Investigator: Audra Barber

Sponsor: Lawrence Frey

Purpose of the Study The purpose of the study is to inform research that will constitute my Master’s thesis at CU Boulder. The subjects will be part of the researcher’s participant observation during staff meetings. The purpose of this research is to understand how an emphasis on spirituality as well as science may improve the internal and external communication at an environmental nonprofit. The research will advance knowledge about environmental organizations, spirituality within organizations, and the connection between environmentalism and spirituality. Additionally, this study will help fill a gap in the communication literature by focusing on the routine external and internal communication practices at an environmental organization.

We expect that you will be in this research study for 9 months until the academic year ends in May 2020.

We expect about 5 people will be in this research study.

Explanation of Procedures If you choose to participate, I will take fieldnotes about the internal communication at staff meetings. Specifically, I will be investigating whether and how spiritual practices characterize the organization’s internal communication. Internal communication in this context refers to communication solely within staff meetings. I am interested to see if spiritual values such as interdependence, impermanence, or compassion come up during staff meetings. Additionally, I will be taking fieldnotes about how spiritual values are talked about in relation to Earthfire as an organization. The duration of participant observation for each staff meeting will be 60 to 90 minutes or the entirety of the staff meeting. I will conduct participant observation once at the physical site (Earthfire Institute). I will also conduct participant observation through an online platform (e.g., zoom) an additional 3 times. My fieldnotes will be taken in a safely protected laptop.

Voluntary Participation and Withdrawal Whether or not you take part in this research is your choice. You can leave the research at any time and it will not be held against you.

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 123

Confidentiality Information obtained about you for this study will be kept confidential to the extent allowed by law. Research information that identifies you may be shared with the University of Colorado Boulder Institutional Review Board (IRB) and others who are responsible for ensuring compliance with laws and regulations related to research, including people on behalf of the Office for Human Research Protections. The information from this research may be published for scientific purposes; however, your identity will not be given out.

Payment for Participation You will not be paid to be in this study.

Questions If you have questions, concerns, or complaints, or think the research has hurt you, talk to the research team at [email protected] or you can contact my advisor at [email protected].

This research has been reviewed and approved by an IRB. You may talk to them at (303) 735- 3702 or [email protected] if: • Your questions, concerns, or complaints are not being answered by the research team. • You cannot reach the research team. • You want to talk to someone besides the research team. • You have questions about your rights as a research subject. • You want to get information or provide input about this research.

Signatures Your signature documents your permission to take part in this research.

______Signature of subject Date ______Printed name of subject ______Signature of person obtaining consent Date ______Printed name of person obtaining consent

COMMUNICATION IN AN ECO-SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION 124

APPENDIX E:

RECRUITMENT SCRIPT FOR GATEKEEPER

Hi (gatekeeper’s name),

I am hoping to interview former participants of Earthfire’s public monthly conservation conversations or public “council of all beings” practice. Can you give my contact information to past participants? No one is required to participate in an interview. Interviews would take place via an online platform (e.g., zoom, skype) and would take about 30 minutes. I would be inquiring about participants’ participation in EarthFire events and overall attitude toward EarthFire’s mission (e.g., why does EarthFire’s mission resonate). Interviews will be recorded so I can analyze them later. Participants can reject being recorded with no consequence. All participants are required to sign a consent form.

Please let me know if this is viable at [email protected]