Note: The official discussion group has ended, but feel free to reach out to any of the organizers to learn about current projects.
Environmental collapse permeates our lives, creating anxiety, depression, helplessness, anger. One known path towards healing and towards collective action is to come into a more tangible relationship with our environments. This begins with what we call ecological attention: A deepened focus on relationships among organisms and environments. When we leave our labs, screens, and classrooms to move out into the world, we ground our sense of ecological health/unhealth in the experiential as well as the theoretical. We reawaken awareness of ecological beauty, strangeness, and complexity, including the sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste of the environments that house and sustain us. This deepened awareness leads to a desire for care. A desire for care leads to a desire to act. Ecology, Attention, Action.
With support from the College of Arts and Sciences Expanding Horizons Initiative, we hosted a monthly discussion group centered on this concept during 2025 and 2026. Learn more about those events below!
Publications shaped by the project:
Parrill, F. (2025). Nature Connection Without “Nature”: Pedagogies of Multimodal Attention in Ruderal Environments. Ecopsychology, 17(4), 361-372. https://doi.org/10.1177/19429347251362843
(Several others in progress.)
1/16: Planning meeting
We pinned down details for Spring events.
3/6: Spring Meditation
12:45-5ish. We held a family friendly, slow-paced celebration of the end of winter. Fire, warm beverages, extended set of activities. Held off campus.
4/3: Discussion group meeting
12:45-2. Planning, reading, or activity.
March 24, 25: Radical Visions for Re-Connecting Academia and Nature: A Community Truth, Reckoning, and Right Relationship Convergence
Radical Visions for Re-Connecting Academia and Nature was a two-day, student-led summit aimed at advancing climate justice, community resistance and resilience by digging into the deeper systems that shape how we learn, how we teach, how we act, and who our education ultimately serves.
8:30-4 each day, MoCa Cleveland.
Fall 2025 Events
10/3: Encountering Forest Hill Park
What: Enjoy time in a beautiful space while working on actively connecting with nature and fostering connections between East Cleveland and CWRU.
We joined community partner Judge William Dawson to discuss the park’s human and ecological history. Judge Dawson is a yoga teacher, author, motivational speaker and Presiding Judge of the East Cleveland Municipal Court. He shared work on restorative justice and led exercises in mindful awareness.
10/24: Discussion group meeting
What: Eat lunch, read papers (see below), start a discussion: How we might interact with and support Forest Hill Park, from various disciplinary angles? We'll bring people together to for a conversation. The second half of the meeting will focus on organizing a chapter Josh Wilt is writing for the Handbook of Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. Lunch is provided. Always vegetarian with a vegan option.
When/Where: Friday, 10/24, 12:45 – 2 pm. 11635 Euclid Ave, Room 140. See sidebar for more information about this location.
Required readings:
Look through this report, with attention to photos and drawings.
10/28: Attending to place: An exercise in embodied, place-conscious learning
We asked what happens when we redirect attention to the places we teach learn? How does education divert our attention from these human and non- human systems? We read a paper (click here to access), participated in a silent walk to Lakeview Cemetery, and joined in activities intended to connect to nature and place.
11/19: Discussion Group Meeting
What: To be determined. Followup from 11/24? Something new?
When/Where: 2:30-3:45, location TBA.
October
We convened at 11635 Euclid Ave for lunch and short walk around the area. Participants met plants growing in the neighborhood and engaged in an "active looking" practice facilitated by Fey Parrill. We focused on the use of visual attention as a way to reconnect to nature.
November
We met in Harkness Classroom. After lunch, we took an urban sound walk. (A sound walk is a walk with a focus on listening to the environment.) Facilitated by Francesca Brittan. We focused on how music, noise, silence, and natural soundscapes impact our physical and mental health.
December
We convened at 11635 Euclid Ave for lunch and learned about research on the intersection of religious/spiritual beliefs and nature connection, facilitated by Joshua Wilt, Julie Exline, Sudi Harbool, and Anastasia Frank. We carried out a meditative exercise and discussed how our religious and spiritual beliefs impact what we attend to, how we feel, and how we make sense of the world.
January
After lunch at at 11635 Euclid Ave, Tim Beal facilitated a writing exercise entitled Prayerful Animism: Playing with Inherited Forms. We played with the poetic form of the collect (pronounced “CAH-lect,” not “cuh-LECT") as a means of cultivating earth creatureliness in a more than human world.
February (early)
We met at the Cleveland Museum of Art and conducted a slow looking exercise and discussion cented on the Rose B. Simpson exhibit Strata (click here to learn more), in a discussion facilitated by Andrea Rager and Car Aldana. We asked how seeing works of art through an ecocritical lens help us make sense of and address the climate crisis.
February (late)
Nárcisz Fejes and Anurag Rakesh facilitated a discussion in Crawford Hall, Room 111. We engaged in a slow tasting experience with our lunch, talked about how can attention to food and food systems facilitates nature connection and systems change, planted seeds, and tasted "AI cheese".
April
After lunch in 11635 Euclid, undergraduate fellows shared what they have learned, where they would like to see the group go, and how they might participate or recommend participation to others.
May
In Mather House 100, we brought together people across campus who are interested in discussing opportunities and challenges around an environmental humanities major or minor at the undergraduate level.