Tag: Ecology & Rights of Nature

Justice issues that affect our natural world, including water justice, animal rights, pollution, and biodiversity

“May You Survive and Thrive” Curriculum

Surviving and Thriving Together

In this time of reckoning, repair, and transition, we are committed to supporting congregations like yours with resources that cultivate deep, lasting connection to each other and your local communities and ecosystems. 

We believe this requires going beyond conventional environmental education and curriculum design.

UUMFE is excited to announce the development of “May You Survive and Thrive,” a new multi-generational, arts-based family ministry curriculum designed to cultivate and sustain ecological awareness within and between congregations and communities.

We are looking for congregations like yours to help pilot this draft curriculum! Join the Survive and Thrive Cohort, a cohort of committed congregations who will be among the first to use the curriculum with support from UUMFE and each other.

Find out more below, and Sign up here to join our next Cohort Support & Share call to learn more!

Building lasting connections between people, place, and our faith.

The overarching goals of Survive and Thrive are to:

  • Cultivate Biodiversity Sunday as an annual event on the UU church calendar,
  • Strengthen Unitarian Universalist cultural and spiritual practices of honoring the Web of Life in our congregations, local climate justice events, and at the UUA General Assembly,
  • Strengthen multi-generational relationships and connections between UU climate/environmental team members and the children and youth in their congregation and other congregations across bioregions, and
  • Strengthen Unitarian Universalist communities’ understanding, relationship, and ethic of accountability to Place and to the Rights of Nature.

The Curriculum

Developed by Rev. Dr. Leonisa Ardizzone, and Vassar College students Elliot Porcher, Oliver Mendel, James Grosjean, Grace Cazzaniga, “May You Survive and Thrive” is an accessible, experiential curriculum that facilitates creative, embodied connection to the natural world, each other, and local endangered species and habitats. Our goal is to make this available to congregations across the country to foster a felt, sustained awareness of our 7th principle–our interconnected Web of Life–in this time of climate crisis and transition.

The curriculum culminates with an Endangered Species Creative Art Project, which congregations can use in their own worship and programming, to participate in local eco-activism events, and/or to the annual Procession of the Species at General Assembly! UUMFE will facilitate support for creating the art and representing it at GA, as well as host a virtual maker-space and gallery for sharing with other congregations and teams.

Drawing from methodologies of nature-based education and community arts-organizing, “May You Survive and Thrive” uses collective learning and creativity as a vehicle for integrated, long term community building and social change.

This curriculum is perfect for congregations hoping to build an integrated, multi-generational, and multi-cultural ecological awareness. 

And sign up to join the Pilot Program below!

Survive and Thrive Pilot Program

Survive and Thrive Cohort member congregations will have access to:
  • The full draft curriculum and subsequent versions, including 5 full Lessons, field and research guides, additional resources, and Council of All Species community event script to be used in worship, at climate justice events, or in learning spaces.
  • A virtual makerspace and gallery to use and share additional resources and for congregations to offer mutual support and inspiration in making the art project and implementing other lessons.
  • Monthly “Support & Share” group calls with UUMFE staff to ask questions, give feedback, hear updates, and build relationships with other Cohort members.
  • Additional one-on-one support from UUMFE staff as needed for adapting curriculum to your community and facilitating cumulative creative project.
  • Opportunities to be featured in any UUMFE and other UU publications and communications that result from this Pilot Program.
Survive and Thrive Cohort member congregations will be expected to:
  • Designate a point person to be a liaison with UUMFE and stay connected.
  • Document and share experiences through writing and photos.
  • Participate in “Support & Share” group calls and virtual makerspace and gallery as you are able – can be anyone from your congregation, at least one call and virtual post.
  • Fill out form after facilitating to record and reflect on your experience and any feedback.
  • Make mistakes! Take chances! Get messy! And have fun 🙂 We hope you will embody these activities boldly and authentically, and we look forward to seeing all the creative ways this emerges in your congregation and local ecosystems.

Timeline

Join monthly “Support & Share” calls to receive updates, share experiences, offer feedback, and connect with other congregations.

May 21, 2023: Biodiversity Sunday! Use this curriculum, your creative project, and additional worship resources from UUMFE to celebrate and honor your local species and the whole beautiful biodiversity of our Web of Life.

June 21-25, 2023: Bring or share your creative projects in the annual UU Procession of Species at General Assembly.

Featured Survive and Thrive Creative Project

Unitarian Universalist Justice for Arizona’s (UUJAZ) project is a great example of using creativity to tell a story about migration, biodiversity, and climate justice for all. Under the leadership of Casey Clowes, 13 congregations across the Arizona decorated paper cut-outs of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo bird, which were then collected and strung together into a banner and display at GA.

View this video they created that weaves together the story of this endangered bird, the border wall, the land and water flow, and the native O’odham peoples.

What climate justice story is waiting to be uncovered and shared through your congregation?

What sources of insight, connection, and hope might emerge from reconciling the story of your congregation with the story of local species, as well as human communities, land, and water?  

Biodiversity Sunday & Eco-Art Project 2022

Join us this Sunday and Beyond to Honor Biodiversity!

Biodiversity Sunday 2022 is on May 22, directly following Endangered Species Day on May 21, and on the International Day for Biodiversity. This is a day for honoring, celebrating, and committing to restore and protect the Web of Life. It is also the final day of Spring for Change: A Season of Sacred Activism. 

This Biodiversity Sunday, UUMFE is excited to announce the development of “May You Survive and Thrive,” a new multi-generational, arts-based curriculum to cultivate and sustain ecological awareness this Sunday, at the upcoming General Assembly, and throughout the year. 

We are looking for congregations like yours to help pilot this draft curriculum! Join the Survive and Thrive Cohort, a cohort of committed congregations who will be among the first to use the curriculum with support from UUMFE and each other. Find out more and sign up below.

Whether or not joining the Survive and Thrive pilot cohort works for your congregation, below you’ll also find some great ways to incorporate Eco-arts elements into your worship and congregational life this Biodiversity Sunday and beyond. 

We look forward to hearing how you and your community are honoring the Web of Life, and we hope to see you at the Procession of Species at GA in June!

Building lasting connections between people, place, and our faith.

The overarching goals of Survive and Thrive are to:

  • Cultivate Biodiversity Sunday as an annual event on the UU church calendar,
  • Strengthen Unitarian Universalist cultural and spiritual practices of honoring the Web of Life in our congregations and at the UUA General Assembly,
  • Strengthen multi-generational relationships and connections between UU climate/environmental team members and the children and youth in their congregation and other congregations across bioregions, and
  • Strengthen Unitarian Universalist communities’ understanding, relationship, and ethic of accountability to Place and to the Rights of Nature.

Ways to celebrate Biodiversity on May 22 and beyond:

Worship

Incorporate words, prayers, hymns, and practices related to Biodiversity and our interconnected Web of Life in your worship service. 

To view these and additional worship elements, click here.

Chalice Lighting

We light this chalice in honor of the Web of Life. 
We honor this sacred ecosystem of ecosystems we call home.
We honor all of our diverse animal, plant, fungal, and insect relatives,
And the land, water, and air we all share. 
May we remember that all life is worthy, all life connected, all life is sacred. 

Reading

“We Americans are reluctant to learn a foreign language of our own species, let alone another species. But imagine the possibilities. Imagine the access we would have to different perspectives, the things we might see through other eyes, the wisdom that surrounds us. We don’t have to figure out everything by ourselves: there are intelligences other than our own, teachers all around us. Imagine how much less lonely the world would be.”

― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Prayer / Closing Words

Spirit of Life,

On this Biodiversity Sunday and always,
We give thanks
For the bees, moths, and butterflies
For the glistening green mosses and prickly pear cacti
For the pine trees, purple flowers, and fleshy fungi
For the birds, the bears, and the big cats

We give thanks
For the whales, the worms, and the walruses,
For the flies, the foxes, and the ferns
For the llamas, the lichen, and the lizards

We give thanks
For the land, water, and air we share
For this whole sacred ecosystem of beings

Bless what we share in common – our hungers, thirsts, our drive to connect
Bless our beautiful differences and diversity – our bodies, histories, our unique paths
Bless the roots and relationships that connect us to one another
And bless our right to belong, to be, to become
In this wild, wonderful Web of Life that is our home.

May it be so, May we be so. Amen, Blessed be.

Learn

Use an activity from the UUMFE’s new Biodiversity-focused curriculum this–or any!–Sunday, and consider joining the growing Survive and Thrive Cohort of congregations to pilot the whole draft curriculum. 

UUMFE is excited to launch the piloting of “May You Survive and Thrive,” a new draft curriculum for building multi-generational connections, ecological awareness, and spiritually nourishing experiences with their families, youth groups, climate/environmental teams, and worship teams. We need YOU to help us in this important stage of development!

“May You Survive and Thrive” is an accessible, experiential curriculum that facilitates creative, embodied connection to the natural world, each other, and local endangered species and habitats. Our goal is to make this available to congregations across the country to foster a felt, sustained awareness of our 7th principle–our interconnected Web of Life–in this time of climate crisis and transition. 

The curriculum culminates with an Endangered Species Art Project, which congregations can use in their own worship and programming, to bring to local eco-activism events, and/or to the Procession of the Species at General Assembly this June! UUMFE will facilitate support for creating the art and representing it at GA, as well as host a virtual maker-space and gallery for sharing with other congregations and teams. 

Drawing from methodologies of nature-based education and community arts-organizing, “May You Survive and Thrive” uses collective learning and creativity as a vehicle for integrated, long term community building and social change. 

This curriculum is perfect for congregations hoping to build an integrated, multi-generational, and multi-cultural ecological awareness. 

SIGN UP HERE to get a copy of the draft curriculum and find out more about joining the piloting cohort for the “May You Survive and Thrive” program. 


Create 

Make a banner, puppet, poems, or costumes to represent your local Biodiversity at worship services, local eco-activism events, and General Assembly. 

As in previous years, UUMFE is hosting another Procession of the Species at the UUA General Assembly, in Portland, OR this June, in collaboration with UUA General Assembly organizers and the UU Animal Ministry. We invite congregations to bring any local species-related art to this special event! Ideally, this art would travel with the delegates from participating congregations to the GA, but we understand that many are attending virtually this year. There is some capacity for artwork to be mailed to Portland, as well. Definitely reach out to coordinate!

The “May You Survive and Thrive” curriculum, outlined in the section above, includes creating local species and habitat-inspired art as a culminating collaborative activity, but you can also facilitate this as a stand alone experience in Religious Education classes, a multigenerational event with your sustainability/climate teams, or in partnership with a local campaign to protect local species and habitats.  

UUMFE is here to support you in building and bringing this art to GA 2022 in Portland this June. If you want to make something but will not be attending in person, please fill out the form and we will work with you to figure out an alternative way for your local species art to be represented! Sign up and find our more below:

Click here for the 2022 Call for Arts! Eco-Art toolkit

SIGN UP to bring or share your art at the GA Procession of the Species!

Questions? Email Stephani Pescitelli, biodiversity@uumfe.org 

Resources and Examples from Prior Years:

Here is a virtual Biodiversity Sunday program from May 2020:

Here are some photographs from the “Environmental Justice Forest” at the 2017 General Assembly and the “Procession of the Species” at the 2019 General Assembly to give you some inspiration and ideas for how each group’s project will feed into a larger UU arts-witness:

Pictured:

[1] California Condor Puppet by Neighborhood UU Church, Pasadena, CA
[2] Golden Cheeked Warbler banner by Wildflower UU Church, Austin, TX
[3] “We need bees!” banner by Woodinville UU Church, Woodinville, WA
[4] Talequah the orca puppet by UU churches of Corvallis and Eugene, OR
[5] Participants in the 2019 Procession of Species posed together for an ariel drone photograph creating the shape of an orca
[6] The Environmental Justice Forest at GA 2017. Each tree banner was made by a different congregation. Photo by Peter Bowden
[7] Participants in the UU Climate Justice Collaboratory workshop at GA 2017 gather & smile together with banners from the Environmental Justice Forest. Photo by Peter Bowden (UU Planet, UU Climate Action)
[8] Earthworm puppet made by member of UU Young Adults for Climate Justice, used for puppet theater during a morning worship homily by Rev. Sara Green at GA 2017

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Biodiversity Sunday & Species Art Project 2021

What:

Biodiversity Sunday 2021 is on May 23, directly following Endangered Species Day on May 21, and the International Day for Biodiversity on May 22nd. This is a day for honoring, celebrating, and committing to restore and protect the Web of Life. It is also the final day of Spring for Change: A Season of Sacred Activism.

UU Ministry for Earth is aiming to form a cohort of families and congregations who want to participate in the 2021 Biodiversity Sunday and Endangered Species Art Project.

This program is ideal for families &/or congregations who are seeking new Religious Education content for May-June 2021, and are interested in building multi-generational connections and spiritually nourishing experiences with their families, youth groups, climate/environmental teams, and worship teams.

This Endangered Species Art Project is based in methodologies of popular education and arts-organizing, using collective learning and creativity as a vehicle for community building and social change. Visual and written artwork that emerges from this project will be featured in a special program hosted by UU Ministry for Earth at the UUA General Assembly, June 23-27, 2021.

SIGN UP BELOW if you are interested in participating in the 2021 Biodiversity Sunday and Endangered Species Art Project!

Why:

The overarching goals of this program are to:

  • Cultivate Biodiversity Sunday as an annual event on the UU church calendar
  • Strengthen Unitarian Universalist cultural and spiritual practices of honoring the Web of Life in our congregations and at the UUA General Assembly
  • Strengthen multi-generational relationships and connections between UU climate/environmental team members and the children and youth in their congregation, and
  • Strengthen Unitarian Universalist communities’ understanding, relationship, and ethic of accountability to Place and to the Rights of Nature

How:

Each participating family &/or congregation will spend time together researching and learning about endangered and threatened species in their local area, and then will pick at least one species to create written and visual artwork about. Participants will also learn about and consider Rights of Nature frameworks and what the Rights of their chosen species are.

Some groups may choose that they want to focus on a particular ecosystem or water body where they live instead of one species, and that is welcome as well!

Congregations are encouraged to uplift the artwork, stories and poems that emerge from this creative project in a worship setting on Biodiversity Sunday (May 23). This could be a special Story for All Ages segment, or it could be an entire multi-generational worship service! This will depend on each group’s unique circumstances and capacity. Biodiversity Sunday could also be the primary day for channeling what has been learned into creative arts.

UU Ministry for Earth will then be working from May 23 to June 23, to compile stories, poems, photographs, and visual art for showcasing in special programs at the UUA General Assembly, June 23-27, 2021. Stay tuned for more details about this as the program schedule gets finalized!

The cohort of participating families and congregations will also have an opportunity to share their artwork and stories with one another, and to inspire and support one another along the way.

SIGN UP HERE if you are interested in participating in the 2021 Biodiversity Sunday and Endangered Species Art Project:


Resources and Examples from Prior Years:

Here is a virtual Biodiversity Sunday program from May 2020:

Here is the “Call to Arts!” toolkit from 2020, and here are some photographs from the “Environmental Justice Forest” at the 2017 General Assembly and the “Procession of the Species” at the 2019 General Assembly to give you some inspiration and ideas for how each group’s project will feed into a larger UU arts-witness:

Pictured:

[1] California Condor Puppet by Neighborhood UU Church, Pasadena, CA
[2] Golden Cheeked Warbler banner by Wildflower UU Church, Austin, TX
[3] “We need bees!” banner by Woodinville UU Church, Woodinville, WA
[4] Talequah the orca puppet by UU churches of Corvallis and Eugene, OR
[5] Participants in the 2019 Procession of Species posed together for an ariel drone photograph creating the shape of an orca
[6] The Environmental Justice Forest at GA 2017. Each tree banner was made by a different congregation. Photo by Peter Bowden
[7] Participants in the UU Climate Justice Collaboratory workshop at GA 2017 gather & smile together with banners from the Environmental Justice Forest. Photo by Peter Bowden (UU Planet, UU Climate Action)
[8] Earthworm puppet made by member of UU Young Adults for Climate Justice, used for puppet theater during a morning worship homily by Rev. Sara Green at GA 2017

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