Search Results (1,243)

The historical debate over the apparitions’ historicity has overshadowed the beauty of the Guadalupe message. An understudied aspect warrants further analysis: the Indigenous interpretations and background of the Nahua stories of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In this paper, I will analyze the inner Indigenous Nahua meanings of the following Guadalupe Accounts: Nican Mopohua, Tepoanxcuicatl, Inin Hueitlamahuilzoltzin, and Relación Mercuriana. The sources will be studied in the context of Nahuatl literature, particularly the Nican Mopohua, in comparison with the Cantares Mexicanos (Songs of the Aztecs) and the Romances (Ballads of the Lords of New Spain). This work will complement Timothy Matovina’s scholarship on indigenous devotion and on the Indigenous interpretation of the Image. Therefore, the three sources of Guadalupan knowledge (Image, devotion, and the story) could be read through a Nahua-Indigenous lens. This piece will close the gap in the story source, arguing for the “nahuatization of Christianity” and presenting the extent of the Nahua worldview’s influence on Colonial Christianity. Full article

This article documents and analyzes a three-month intercultural performance collaboration with Metamorphosis Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the summer of 1992—a pivotal moment following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Drawing on the author’s fieldwork methodology developed through decades of collaboration with Indigenous communities in Alaska, Southern Africa, and Siberia, the project employed trance techniques, rhythm-based training, and ritual archaeology to reconstruct pre-Christian Slavic performance practices. The resulting production, Shadows from the Planet Fire, emerged through a process that positioned ritual not as nostalgic revival but as a living technology for addressing cultural trauma and existential displacement. This account contributes to performance studies, applied theatre, and cultural heritage discourse by demonstrating how cosmocentric Indigenous methodologies can be adapted to address the spiritual and psychological wounds of post-industrial, post-colonial societies. The work establishes foundational principles for what the author terms “Techdigenous” practice—the synthesis of Indigenous wisdom traditions with contemporary performance contexts—and argues for ritual as a necessary consciousness technology in an era of ecological crisis and cultural fragmentation. Full article

This paper examines the philosophy and practice of interfaith dialogue (IFD) developed by Daisaku Ikeda (1928–2023), a prominent religious leader and peace philosopher. It explores how his dialogical approach can contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and pathways to global peace. Ikeda’s dialogue is not confined to doctrinal debate or temporary reconciliation among faith communities. Rather, it is framed as a transformative process in which participants from diverse religious and civilizational traditions rebuild relationships through mutual respect and understanding, thereby contributing to personal transformation and broader societal change. Focusing on Ikeda’s core concepts—humanism, the dignity of life, and human revolution—this study first clarifies the philosophical foundations of his interfaith dialogue rooted in Nichiren Buddhism and a life-affirming worldview. It then examines major dialogues with global thinkers and leaders (e.g., Arnold J. Toynbee, Linus Pauling, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Johan Galtung) and selected institutional practices associated with Soka Gakkai International (SGI), the Institute of Oriental Philosophy (IOP), and the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue. These cases illustrate how Ikeda’s IFD functions as praxis for civilizational understanding, social cohesion, conflict transformation, and solidarity for the public good. The paper further analyzes the linkages between Ikeda’s IFD and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions), SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), SDG 4 (Quality Education—especially Target 4.7 on Global Citizenship Education), and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). It argues that IFD can operate as both a normative and practical resource for mitigating religious conflict, strengthening inclusion, enhancing global citizenship education and education for sustainable development (ESD), and fostering multistakeholder partnerships. The paper also reflects on the challenges of translating an approach grounded in a particular religious tradition into broader SDG governance contexts. Full article

In Canada, Indigenous communities have been disproportionately flooded. Specifically, Fort Albany First Nation (FN) located on a flood plain near the mouth of the Albany River in subarctic Ontario, Canada, has been evacuated frequently due to flooding or the threat of flooding―even though dikes were constructed in the late 1990s to safeguard the community. Thus, a fundamental question needs to be asked: Why is Fort Albany FN located on a flood plain in the first place? We answer the question through an Indigenous environmental justice lens using document and archival research in the context of the treaty making process between Fort Albany FN and the British Crown, and the establishment of reserves. In brief, procedural issues were noted, as there was no transparency in reserve choice at the time of signing the treaty, and during the actual surveying of the reserve boundaries with certain types of land being excluded from reserve locations, unbeknownst to the FNs peoples. The Cree were also misled into believing that they would retain access to their whole traditional homeland―and not be confined to reserve land―the Cree believed that they only agreed to share the land. Historically, the Cree harmonized with the seasons and would not be residing in the Albany River floodplain during river freeze-up and during river break-up―adaptive behaviour to avoid flooding. Harmonizing with the environment had allowed the mobile Cree to live successfully with the annual flooding of the Albany River for millennia, until being forced to live permanently on reserve land by the colonial government. Nonetheless, the Cree still sustain their cultural worldview acknowledging the Cree cycle of life. The way forward for Fort Albany First Nation will be either relocation to high ground or trying to tame nature by reinforcing the existing dikes—or some novel combination of both based on two worldviews. Full article

This work focuses on the study of traditional Andean therapeutic knowledge of spirituality, understood as current practices that articulate health, territory, and sacredness. In a setting invaded by modernity and conventional medicine, Pampapu survives as a healing ritual that expresses a symbolic and spiritual relationship with the Earth and Andean deities. The objective is to understand the religious, cultural, and symbolic meanings that the inhabitants attribute to this ritual. It was carried out using qualitative research methods with an ethnographic and interpretive approach, based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with traditional healers, older adults, and patients’ families. Thematic and hermeneutic analysis confirmed categories such as sacredness, illness of the Earth, generational transmission, and religious syncretism. The results show that the ritual fulfills therapeutic functions, identity, and social cohesion, and is transmitted through generations. It is concluded that this practice constitutes a living expression of the Andean religious worldview and an essential component of intangible cultural heritage. Full article

As a critical review and theoretical reflection, this study explores the transformation of funeral rites in contemporary Korean society and analyzes how ‘Filial Piety,’ a core Confucian value, has been reshaped by the mechanisms of medicalization and capitalism. Traditionally, in the Confucian worldview, death was not a biological termination but a religious process of advancing toward immortality through descendants’ ‘remembrance and representation.’ This paper identifies ‘cultural hybridity,’ where contemporary Korean funerals combine various religious traditions such as Christianity and Buddhism with secular forms, as positive evidence that the aspiration for spiritual bonds still persists. On the other hand, it establishes that the primary cause of damaging the public significance of death is not this mixture of rituals but ‘funeral capitalism’ based on market logic and medicalization. The study criticizes the fact that capitalist secularity has replaced the practice of Filial Piety with ‘reified consumption,’ thereby excluding those lacking economic means from the process of death. Conclusively, this study suggests the restoration of ‘spiritual publicness’ based on non-material continuing bonds and communal mourning, rather than material display. Full article

This article considers traditional Inuit beliefs and practices as expressed through human–animal relationality, examining the physical and spiritual significance of qimmiit (sled dogs), and how qimmiit functioned as co-travellers with humans across physical and spiritual realms of existence. Drawing on ethnographic and missionary narrative sources, it explores Inuit–Qimmiit relationality as central to survival in the pre-modern period. Consulted sources include the writings of explorer–ethnographer Knud Rasmussen, Church of England missionary Edmund James Peck, anthropologist Franz Boas, explorer–author Peter Freuchen, and Oblate missionary Pierre Henry (Kajualuk). These accounts, despite Euro-centric and Christian biases, provide distinct yet overlapping experiences with sled dogs and understandings of Inuit traditions and worldviews. Read comparatively, these ethnographic texts reveal how qimmiit were essential to mobility and spiritual–social order. The article draws on the Qikiqtani Truth Commission to contextualize the harm and suffering caused by the loss of qimmiit during the dog killings of the 1950s to 1970s. The song “Travel Without Me,” from the Animal Kinship Project and written to commemorate qimmiit in the aftermath of the sled dog slaughter, provides a narrative framework structured around kinship and travel, foregrounding Inuit understandings of shared journeys across human and canine existence and framing Inuit–Qimmiit relations as enduring bonds that traverse both physical life and afterlife. Within Inuit religious cosmologies, relationships between humans and qimmiit extend beyond practical cooperation to encompass shared spiritual existence, relational obligation, and continuity of soul across physical and metaphysical worlds. Ethnographic accounts recorded by Rasmussen, Peck, Boas, Freuchen and Henry describe dogs not merely as working animals but as ensouled beings who participate in travel, naming practices, shamanic mediation, cosmogonic and afterlife narratives. Read through a religious studies lens, these sources reveal a cosmological framework in which mobility and survival are embedded within sacred relational structures linking human and animal life. This article examines Inuit–Qimmiit kinship as a form of physical–spiritual relationality, arguing that dogs function as co-travellers whose relational position across embodied and cosmological domains illuminates Inuit understandings of personhood, cosmological balance, and the continuity of life beyond death. Full article

This multi-university, multi-disaster study examined associations among prior trauma exposure, disaster exposure, and post-disaster life stressors with mental health outcomes, as well as the potential protective roles of a perceived altruistic community, post-disaster social support exchanges, and changes in world beliefs. University students in disaster-affected areas of the mainland United States and Puerto Rico (N = 666; 77.5% female; M age = 21.26) completed an online survey assessing disaster exposure, post-disaster life stressors, perceptions of community unity, social support exchanges, post-disaster changes in world beliefs, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress (PTSS), depression, and anxiety. Younger age emerged as a risk factor for depression and anxiety, and Black participants reported higher PTSS than White participants. Greater lifetime trauma exposure, experiencing the hurricanes in Puerto Rico or the California wildfires (compared to mainland hurricanes), and reporting more post-disaster life stressors were each associated with elevated PTSS, depression, and anxiety symptoms. In contrast, a stronger sense of an altruistic community was associated with lower levels of these symptoms. More positive post-disaster changes in beliefs about the world were related to lower PTSS and depression, whereas greater involvement in social support exchanges was associated with higher PTSS. Findings underscore the importance of identifying both risk and protective factors that shape young adults’ post-disaster adjustment. Full article

The accurate estimation of tree canopy volume is fundamental in precision agriculture for quantifying vegetation structure, biomass, and productivity in perennial cropping systems. This study investigates a shadow geometry approach for estimating olive tree canopy volumes from a single, very high-resolution WorldView-3 multispectral image. The method integrates multispectral classification for canopy and shadow delineation with a geometric model that infers canopy height from shadow measurements, accounting for solar position and terrain morphology. Two classification strategies were evaluated: object-based image analysis (OBIA) and pixel-based (PB) classification, each applied to the original eight-band multispectral image and to a derived dataset enriched with vegetation indices (NDVI—Normalized Difference Vegetation Index; NDRE—Normalized Difference Red Edge Index) and principal component analysis (PCA) components. The canopy volume was estimated by integrating classified canopy and shadow areas with shadow-derived canopy height. The methodology was tested in a Mediterranean olive orchard and validated against UAV-derived point clouds for approximately 700 trees. The results indicate that the approach captures spatial variability in canopy structure. The Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) applied to filtered PCA-enhanced imagery achieved the highest accuracy in canopy volume estimation (RMSE = 2.04 m³; R² = 0.56), outperforming the alternative pixel-based (PB) classification applied to the original multispectral data. Overall, the study demonstrates the potential of single-image WorldView-3 data for rapid and scalable three-dimensional canopy characterization in precision agriculture. Full article

Sustainability education increasingly calls for innovative learning environments that help learners recognize ecological interdependencies and challenge anthropocentric worldviews. Everyday multispecies relationships, such as with companion animals, often underexplored, offer opportunities for cultivating ecological literacy and care. This paper introduces Augmented Ecological Relating (AER), an approach that combines Augmented Reality (AR) with embodied inquiry to explore multispecies perspectives. Going beyond embodied inquiry, AER specifies how digital augmentation can systematically support learners’ iterative noticing, ethical reasoning, and action within everyday multispecies ecosystems. We draw on a virtual summer workshop for adolescents in which participants used AR filters simulating dog and cat vision to investigate their pets’ sensory worlds. We used qualitative case study methods to examine how AR tools mediated human youths’ noticing, inquiry, and reflection. We found that the AR filters used in the study’s context enabled participants to critically reconsider pet behaviors within home ecologies. Participants recognized companion animals as ecological beings with distinct sensory experiences, explored interconnections among humans, animals, and environments, and reflected on ethical responsibilities in multispecies relationships. Through iterative inquiry, youth moved beyond companionship to sustainability-oriented perspectives grounded in relational care, systems thinking, and practical action. By embedding digital augmentation into everyday contexts, AER enabled learners to engage with more-than-human perspectives, fostering ecological awareness, ethical reflection, and sustainability literacy in accessible, meaningful ways. Full article

Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa is the Indigenous Te Reo Māori name of New Zealand) experience disproportionately higher rates of anxiety than the general population. However, while informal relational support is strongly utilised, formal or professional help-seeking remains comparatively low. Understanding how Pacific peoples conceptualise anxiety is critical for addressing this disparity. This study provides a snapshot of Pacific peoples’ understandings of anxiety in Aotearoa NZ. A total of 548 Pacific peoples aged 16 to 83 years who resided in Aotearoa NZ completed the Pasifika Mental Health in Aotearoa (PMHA) survey between 2018 and 2019, which included questions about anxiety. Inductive Content Analysis (CA) grounded by Pacific epistemologies was used to categorise open-ended responses, and participants’ response frequencies were analysed. The findings suggest that anxiety was understood as a transient, everyday experience, rather than a prolonged mental health condition. Informal relational support networks were strongly preferred in addressing or managing anxiety, followed by professional support. Perceived causes of anxiety were complex and evenly attributed to experiential, contextual, and health-related risk factors, highlighting the centrality of holism in Pacific worldviews. These findings suggest a nuanced understanding of anxiety that challenges deficit-based assumptions about Pacific peoples’ Mental Health Literacy (MHL), and emphasises the ongoing need for more culturally responsive, community-based, relational, and holistic mental health support. Full article

The article examines the religio-ecological framework articulated in Ming–Qing morality books 勸善書, focusing on how animals, Ledgers of merit 功過格, and karmic 業報 are integrated into a system of moral causality. Within this framework, actions such as killing or saving animals are directly linked to karmic reward and punishment, generating a dual mechanism that combines moral technology with an ultimate logic of justice to cultivate ecological consciousness and enforce social discipline. A central contribution of the study is the articulation of a triadic analytical framework—merit–demerit ledgers, karmic narrative, and animal ethics—showing how these elements form a coherent system of measurable and actionable ethical practice. In doing so, the framework challenges a strictly human-centered worldview by foregrounding an interconnected ecological order in which humans and animals are bound together through shared moral obligations and karmic entanglements. The article further situates this religio-ecological mechanism within contemporary debates in environmental ethics and animal rights. Through comparison with modern approaches—such as anti-speciesism, animal welfare and rights discourse, and proposals for cross-species political communities—it identifies both points of convergence and structural divergence. It concludes by exploring how this historical model might be critically translated and revised for present-day conditions, proposing a “revised morality book” framework that is more publicly defensible and more amenable to institutional implementation. Full article

Since children spend a significant portion of their developmental years in educational settings, the environmental quality of these institutions—specifically, the extent to which they expose their occupants to green space and heat stress—is a critical determinant of well-being and academic performance. This study assesses the green environmental quality of 121 educational institutions (kindergartens, and elementary and secondary schools) in Debrecen, Hungary. The main objective of the research is to identify educational institutions that require immediate intervention to address their lack of green spaces, improve the green environment, and mitigate the urban heat island (UHI) effect. A further aim of the study is to understand how different urban planning practices over the past century have led to the current situation. Therefore, we utilized high-resolution geospatial data (specifically, WorldView-2 imagery) to classify schoolyard vegetation; Landsat data to derive Land Surface Temperature (LST); and the Hoover index to quantify institutions’ spatial concentration. We developed a composite indicator to categorize green environmental quality and heat stress exposure. Our results reveal deep spatial and institutional inequalities. 47.5% of students attend institutions with low environmental quality. While kindergartens typically offer green-rich environments, secondary schools with significant student populations—which are primarily concentrated in the dense historical downtown—are trapped in “grey” zones possessing poor environmental quality. Furthermore, we identify a “green paradox” in socialist housing estates: despite abundant surrounding greenery, schools here record high LST values due to the heat-trapping morphology of vertical concrete structures. The study also highlights institutional maladaptation, such as converting schoolyards into parking lots and using rubber pavements for safety reasons, which contributes to the deterioration of environmental quality. We conclude that current urban planning and school architecture must shift paradigms, treating schoolyards as integral components of the public green infrastructure network through climate-adaptive design. In addition, stakeholders should develop the green environment of educational institutions comprehensively, taking into account both on-site and surrounding green spaces. Full article

In the face of escalating ecological crises, this study explores the ecological wisdom embedded in Laozi’s concept of “Dao” and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s belief in the “Over-Soul,” conducting a systematic comparative analysis of their views on nature within the framework of ecological religion. Laozi’s “Dao” serves as the cornerstone of Daoist thought, emphasizing the unity of heaven, earth, and humans as the origin and governing law of the universe. It advocates “Dao follows nature” (道法自然), urging humans to relinquish excessive interference and utilitarian desires, humbly integrating into nature’s inherent rhythms for harmonious coexistence while inspiring reverence for nature’s sacredness and inherent worth. Emerson’s “Over-Soul,” central to New England Transcendentalism, posits a universal spirit permeating all existence, with nature as its outward manifestation and symbolic expression of the divine. Through direct engagement with nature, individuals access spiritual elevation, moral insight, and reverence for all life forms. Despite distinct cultural origins, both Laozi and Emerson sacralize nature, foster opposition to anthropocentric exploitation, and envision harmonious human–nature relations—albeit through different pathways: Wuwei and surrender for Laozi; intuitive communion for Emerson. While their metaphysical visions do not fully align with modern ecocentric notions of objective intrinsic value (as articulated in contemporary environmental ethics), they offer profound resources for reverent coexistence. This comparative study deepens cross-cultural understanding of ecological wisdom, challenging modernity’s instrumental worldview and providing philosophical insights for constructing a rational, reverent ecological ethic. By bridging Eastern and Western mystical traditions, it highlights their shared potential to inspire sustainable development, spiritual renewal, and a transformative shift toward coexistence with the non-human world. Full article

This study examines the Laozi Zhigui—a key text of Han dynasty Huang-Lao thought—and reconstructs the categorical status of qi to reassess received primordial qi-centered cosmological interpretations and clarify the text’s distinctive worldview. The Laozi Zhigui explains the relation between Dao and the myriad entities through four stages of wu (nothingness)—Dao, De, Spirit-Illumination, and Great Harmony—and previous studies, working within inherited qi-centered cosmological frameworks, have generally assimilated these stages to qi. A contextual reading of key passages on cosmology, mind–nature, and self-cultivation clarifies that in the Laozi Zhigui, qi does not belong to the same ontological category as these four stages of wu. Instead, it functions as a mediating substance through which the order of wu is carried over into you (somethingness). Furthermore, the four stages of wu are likewise not as the internal differentiation of qi but as a non-substantialist account of the “generation of order.” On this basis, the worldview of the Laozi Zhigui can be reconstructed as a triadic schema of wu–qi–you (nothingness–qi–somethingness), which yields a distinctive model of qi cosmology that, unlike Han dynasty primordial qi-centered accounts, does not presuppose the generation and fission of a single primordial qi. Full article