Ecological Self-Care and Caring for the Earth

This essay, from my blog on June 15, 2022, couldn't come at a better time

Welcome! I am Jessica Hetherington, and this newsletter is about faith and climate action. You can subscribe by clicking here:

Long story short, I am experiencing climate anxiety. I have been wondering why my thoughts have been somewhat scattered lately, and why I have found it harder to focus and put my thoughts into words for essays, sermons, and other writings.

I finally put my finger on the root of the problem a couple of weeks ago while watching a PBS news program about climate anxiety. That’s what’s going on for me, as it is for many other people paying attention to what is happening in the world right now.

My vacation time, then, couldn’t come too soon. As you read this, I am off on a canoe camping trip and completely offline! It is time for some ecological self-care, immersing myself in the Earth community, and spending time with God and the more-than-human creation around me.

Even though I am away, I know that many of you may need some ecological self-care, too, so I am offering you an essay that I posted over a year ago on my blog. This is written outside of the particular context of climate anxiety; I hope to address that after my return.

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Ecological Self-Care and Caring for the Earth

I have been extremely fatigued lately. There are a few reasons for it, most of which I am aware of. When talking with a good friend who knows all too well about fatigue and the wear it can take on the body and spirit, she said to me, “There’s also an emotional weight to the environmental work that you are doing.” She was referring to the recent launch of my ecotheology ministry and this website, as well as the year of work that has been building up to it. I hadn’t thought of that; I have found this work to be so exciting and fulfilling that I hadn’t thought it could, at the same time, contribute to the fatigue that I have been experiencing. 

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