Deep BlueCritical Reflections on Nature, Religion and Water
Edited by: Sylvie Shaw, Andrew Francis
| Paperback Price £16.99/$27.95 |    |
Description
Paganism has often looked to forest groves or mountain tops for inspiration and spiritual transformation. Deep Blue plunges deep into sacred waters through thirteen essays by leading writers in the expanding academic field of nature religion. This book will be of interest to nature religion academics, environmental researchers and activists, as well as practitioners and students of paganism and religion, faith and spirituality studies and those involved in the intersection between religion and ecology.
From anthropologic and mythological understandings of archetypal mind structure, through to sociological and psychological levels of analysis, academic theory and inquiry are blended with grounded accounts of experience and understanding from writers spiritually connected with water. This book aims to explore dimensions of the human spiritual relationship with river, sea and pool with a view to developing further understandings of the interrelationships between spiritual practice, academic nature religion discourse and environmental concern.
Ancestral cultures invest watery places with spiritual power. With this deep connection comes respect, understanding and sustainable relationship. Deep Blue reconnects contemporary Western culture to these roots, exposing the vital significance of salt and fresh waters to humankind and making a call to arms for the development of holistic, sustainable relationships with waterways.
Paganism has often looked to forest groves or mountain tops for inspiration and spiritual transformation. Deep Blue plunges deep into sacred waters through thirteen essays by leading writers in the expanding academic field of nature religion. This book will be of interest to nature religion academics, environmental researchers and activists, as well as practitioners and students of paganism and religion, faith and spirituality studies and those involved in the intersection between religion and ecology.
From anthropologic and mythological understandings of archetypal mind structure, through to sociological and psychological levels of analysis, academic theory and inquiry are blended with grounded accounts of experience and understanding from writers spiritually connected with water. This book aims to explore dimensions of the human spiritual relationship with river, sea and pool with a view to developing further understandings of the interrelationships between spiritual practice, academic nature religion discourse and environmental concern.
Ancestral cultures invest watery places with spiritual power. With this deep connection comes respect, understanding and sustainable relationship. Deep Blue reconnects contemporary Western culture to these roots, exposing the vital significance of salt and fresh waters to humankind and making a call to arms for the development of holistic, sustainable relationships with waterways.
Contents
Invocation
Author Biographies
Artist’s statement
Preface
Graham Harvey
Introduction: Sacred Waters
Sylvie Shaw and Andrew Francis
Section One - Entering Sacred Space
Editor’s Introduction
1. ‘Singing through the Sea’. Song, Sea and Emotion
John Bradley
2. Water of Life, Water of Death: Pagan Notions of Water from Antiquity to Today
Dieter Gerten
3. The Fertility Goddess of the Zulu: Reflections on a calling to Inkosazana’s Pool
Penny Bernard
4. Rivers of Memory, Lakes of Survival – Indigenous Water Traditions and the Anishinaabeg Nation
Melissa Nelson
Section Two - Divine Connections
Editor’s Introduction
5. Creature of Water
Andrew Francis
6. SaltWater Feet: The Flow of Dance in Oceania
Katerina Martina Teaiwa
7. I am the River Bleeding
Douglas Ezzy
8. Deep Blue Religion
Sylvie Shaw
Section Three - The Sacredness of Water
Editor’s Introduction
9. The Spirit of the Edge: Rachel Carson and Numinous Experience between Land and Sea
Susan Bratton
10. The Mystery of Waters
Vivianne Crowley
11. Sister Water: An Introduction to Blue Theology
Meg Ferris
12. Sea Spirituality, Surfing and Aquatic Nature Religion
Bron Taylor
Section Four - Waves of Energy: In Defence of Water
Editor’s Introduction
13. Animism, Economics and Sustainable Water Development
David Groenfeldt
14. Blue, Green and Red: Combining Energies in Defence of Water
Veronica Strang
15. Neglect and Reclamation of Water as Sacred Resource
Michael York
Eco-logue
And in Me You Find Peace
Adrianne Harris
Close
Reviews
'... the volume is an important contribution to developing a new water ethos resting upon the reverence due to the sacred waters of earth. Deep Blue is an essential and desperately needed contribution to any further discussions and study of the spiritual import of water.'
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture, 4.1 (2010)
'The aim of Deep Blue is to explore water's sacral and spiritual significance across various nature religions. The individual contributions draw from an impressive range of academic disciplines.... Despite the diverse approaches, in addition to the focus on water, there is quite a different theme that also emerges in almost all the contributions: the realization that there is a fundamental interdependence or interconnection between human beings and the entities and processes that constitute the natural environment. ...The volume is a worthwhile addition to the literature.'
Religious Studies Review, Vol. 36, No. 1 (March 2010)
Specifications
| ISBN-10 (Paperback) | 1845532554 |
| ISBN-13 (Paperback) | 9781845532550 |
| Price (Paperback) | £16.99/$27.95 |
| Publication Date | October 2008 |
| Pages | 328 |
| Size | 234 x 156mm |
| Illustrations | 5 line drawings and 20 half tones |
| Search All Books
| ||
|
Recently Published Books
|
||
| Forthcoming Books
|
||
| Browse by Series | ||
|
||
Browse by Subject |
||
Publish with Us |
||
|
||
 |
