Loving Nature to Death:
Better Pagan Practices for Your Ecosystem
Lupa
Many pagans would describe themselves as nature-based in their path, enjoying hiking, camping, and other outdoor activities. Common pagan imagery includes animals, plants, fungi, and other living beings, as well as the four physical elements, celestial bodies, and many other natural phenomena.
Yet we still fall prey to practices that do more harm than good to the natural world. We also play our own part in climate change, habitat loss, and other major ecological disasters. And many of the practices common in paganism are directly harmful. Here are some ways to make your practice more eco-friendly.
Safely Dispose of Offerings
This is probably the biggest way that pagans have a tendency to inadvertently do damage with good intentions. Just as with garbage, though, there is no “going away” for things we leave outside, such as offerings or spell components.
Don’t leave food offerings out where wildlife can eat them. A lot of the things we like to eat are bad for the wildlife and can make them sick. Wildlife might also not get a complete amount of nutrients from our food; ducks that are fed bread don’t eat the natural foods they’re supposed to have, leading to serious wing deformities and other conditions.
You’re also encouraging wildlife to associate humans with food. They lose their fear of humans, which leads to animals getting hit by cars or having to be shot because they got too aggressive in begging for food. When you artificially increase the amount of food available, you are also directly promoting overpopulation, starvation, and disease.
Do keep food offerings away from wildlife. Eat them yourself or give the food to someone in need. Donate money to a wildlife rehabilitation center so they can buy the sorts of foods their animals need. Plant a variety of native plants that offer wildlife food and shelter year-round. (Wild songbirds and hummingbirds are the one exception to the “don’t feed wildlife” rule. These animals are less likely to lose their fear of humans, and bird feeders offset the effects of habitat loss. Never encourage birds to do things like eat out of your hand!)
Don’t discard spell bottles, charms, and other non-biodegradable magical items by throwing them into water, tying them to trees, or burying them. Wildlife may eat litter, choke on it, die from a painful intestinal blockage, or slowly starve to death because their stomachs are so full of plastic and trash that they can’t eat and digest food. Items tied to tree branches can entangle wildlife and harm or kill the tree. Plastic infests the entire planet, and glass can break and become hazardous to living beings.
Do find better options for your spells that don’t involve throwing things away. Make use of items already in nature, such as stones, grass, or legal feathers. If you have to do something destructive, like burning a piece of paper, keep it small. Use non-physical spell aids, like visualizing your intent flying away on the wind or asking a spirit to carry it for you.
Humane Harvesting and
Responsible Foraging
Don’t pick all of a particular plant or fungus in a given area. Take no more than 25 percent of what you see, unless there are only very few individuals there. In the case of delicate plants such as trillium, picking the flower or leaves can kill the entire plant. Others, like ghost pipe, grow only every few years in a given area and are best left alone.
Do be a responsible forager. Educate yourself on native plants and which ones are at the greatest risk. Ask other pagans, wildcrafters, and foragers about how to ethically forage in your area.
Don’t deliberately introduce a non-native species to a place just so you can harvest it. It’s one thing if it’s your personal garden where you can keep things contained. It’s another to go out into a wild area and seed it with non-native herbs or wildflowers. This also goes for fungi; inoculating a dead tree with a non-native fungus can lead to ecological chaos down the road as it spreads from that first host tree.
Do promote the growth of native plants and fungi in your garden and yard and in wild places. This is good for both you and the wild creatures who share your ecosystem. If you are in the United States, many states have a Native Plant Society chapter you can join.
Don’t just pick up any feather or bone you find. In the United States at least, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits the possession of any feather or other part, as well as nests and eggs, of almost every wild bird in the country. Many countries, states, and other regions have their own laws. You can research wildlife parts laws at http://www.thegreenwolf.com/animal-parts-laws.
Nature also needs those resources! Bones are a very important source of calcium for many animals, including rodents, rabbits, and even deer, as well as plants and fungi. Take only what you need from a carcass, and leave the rest for the wild. Or, if you’re an omnivore, consider using bones from meat that you’ve eaten.
Don’t leave crystals or other items around plants after taking some of their leaves. Most of them aren’t especially harmful, but it’s mostly a feel-good action that doesn’t actually help the plant.
Do say thank you by picking up any litter nearby. Extra credit if you learn about the local watershed and how to keep pollution from being flushed out into the waterways and the soil.
Be a Conscientious Consumer
As pagans, it’s important for us to be conscientious consumers, especially since so many of our practices involve buying altar tools or spell components. Unfortunately, we often let our esthetic desires take priority over ethical considerations. Here are some ways to do better.
Don’t buy crystals unless you know exactly where they came from and who dug them up. The majority of crystals and gemstones on the market were produced by environmentally harmful mining practices, dug up by abused workers who are often enslaved and many of whom are children. While diamonds are the best known example of “blood crystals,” the pretty amethysts, fluorites, and other stones in your local New Age shop are also suspect.
Do find ways to collect your own crystals and stones. Talk to your nearest rockhound group or mineralogical society about how to get started. Ask if anyone in your community is getting rid of some crystals, and check thrift stores, too. Secondhand stones are simple enough to cleanse, especially if you consider how much negative energy is stuck to a crystal that was dug up by a seven-year-old slave in a pit mine.
Don’t buy cheap statues, candles, Halloween/Samhain decorations, and other items from dollar stores and big-box discount stores. Much like the crystals and minerals we just discussed, these are almost always made by underpaid, abused workers out of eco-unfriendly materials, transported globally on ships that leak pollutants and transport invasive aquatic species in their ballast.
Do buy local and buy secondhand. Buy directly from local artisans … Know that your money is going to someone who is getting a fair wage and may even be self-employed in your community.
Do buy local and buy secondhand. Buy directly from local artisans working in better materials such as beeswax, hand-dyed fabrics, and pottery. Know that your money is going to someone who is getting a fair wage and may even be self-employed in your community. You can even ask for customization!
If you’re on a budget, look to your local thrift stores for options. Many of them have candles and candleholders, statues, and other cool trinkets for altars. They also often get bunches of Halloween and other seasonal decorations donated to them year-round. And best of all, you can often find things that aren’t in the big-box stores! Again, all they need is a bit of cleansing.
Safe and Respectful Behavior
Around Wildlife
We humans are very good at making things all about us. And especially in nature-based religions, we want so badly to feel like we’re a part of nature that we inflict our selfish needs onto other beings. Even wanting to attract wildlife so you can see them benefits you more than them, and can be harmful to those creatures.
If you encounter animals that don’t run when you approach, it probably doesn’t mean you have special powers. They likely do the same with other people too, because they think you might have food or they aren’t afraid of people.
Don’t bother the wildlife. If you encounter animals that don’t run when you approach, it probably doesn’t mean you have special powers. They likely do the same with other people too, because they think you might have food or they aren’t afraid of people. Or they might have rabies. Do you really want to take that chance?
Do maintain a respectful distance from wildlife. Getting too close to wild animals can make them run, which causes them to burn unnecessary calories. Those calories can be the difference between making it through the week or not; a pregnant animal may also miscarry if scared away. Increased human presence makes more sensitive animals such as cougars and elk stay away from feeding grounds and waterways, which is a form of habitat loss for them.
Don’t let familiars and other pets roam free. Domestic pets kill millions of wild animals every year, and injure even more. Even if the wild animals hear your pets coming, they still have to deal with the stress of escape. Cats return home with only about a quarter of the animals they actually catch or kill, so even if your outdoor cat has never brought a kill home, chances are they’ve slaughtered numerous songbirds and other wildlife. Moreover, cats and dogs that run free are at serious risk of injury or death due not only to attacks by coyotes and other predators, falls down cliffs, and drowning in waterways but also to getting hit by cars, abused by malicious humans, eating poisons left out for rodents, etc.
Do be responsible with your familiars and pets. Keep cats indoors or in enclosed “catios” in your yard or on your porch. Keep dogs in a fenced yard. (Tying them up is unhealthy for them, both physically and mentally.) Dogs and cats benefit from leash training from an early age and can enjoy frequent walks with you, keeping them safe from outdoor dangers. They’ll live longer lives, and your local wildlife will thank you for taking away one of the threats they face.
Don’t overly romanticize wildlife. If you’re seeing more wildlife than usual, stop making it all about you. Look at the actual reasons they may be coming around more. Did that pair of red-tailed hawks decide to annex your yard as part of their territory this breeding season? Is there a housing development or other construction project going on nearby that’s destroying habitat and causing disruptive, scary noise? Are certain species migrating, and your home happens to be along a traditional migration route? Is climate change causing some species to move north to avoid the heat (or south, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere)?
Do learn the natural history of the wildlife around you, as well as that of the plants, fungi, and other living beings they rely on in their ecosystem. Most importantly, learn about the challenges they face in their day-to-day lives, especially those caused by human interference. Then learn about how you can help support them and minimize your own impact while still appreciating the beauty of nature around you.
Stop looking at nature in terms of what you can get out of it, like spell components or magical help. Instead, turn the focus around and consider what you can do to give back to the natural world, which has helped support you every day of your life. Be generous instead of greedy.
I don’t want to sound like a big meanie with all these do’s and don’ts, but we really need to be mindful of how and where our spiritual practices can have seriously negative effects on the world around us. By stopping to consider the origin of something you want to do or have, and what the repercussions will be if that happens, you can be a more responsible member of the global community. And that is a much better offering to nature and its beings than a plate of food or a few quartz crystals dropped on the ground.
Lupa (she/her) is a pagan author, artist, and naturalist in the Pacific Northwest. She has been a practicing pagan since 1996 and is a lifelong nature nerd. She is the author of many books on nature-based paganism and related topics, including Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up: Connect with Totems in Your Ecosystem (Llewellyn, 2016), The Tarot of Bones (self-published, 2017), and Vulture Culture 101: A Book for People Who Like Dead Things (self-published, 2019). She can be found online at http://www.thegreenwolf.com.
Illustrator: M. Kathryn Thompson