UNBOUNDED: Jane Goodall saw nature as a spiritual sanctuary
When asked whether she identified with a particular faith tradition, Jane Goodall smiled impishly and replied, “Is the forest not a cathedral? For me, it is, with its canopies of trees and beautiful lights.” For her, the sacred was not confined to ritual spaces; it was alive in root and branch, in the luminous weave of life itself. That was Jane Goodall’s genius: an eloquence that dissolved boundaries between science and spirit, between human and animal, between nature as backdrop and nature as sanctuary…
It was the summer of 2000, at the United Nations’ World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. More than 1,500 dignitaries had gathered in New York: priests, bishops, rabbis, imams, shamans, and yogis… In a hall filled with robes and rituals, Jane Goodall was the only one without an institutional affiliation… The primatologist and anthropologist who died Oct. 1 at age 91…
Yet she was the one who spoke most like a spiritual guide… Others invoked Scripture; she invoked the natural world and described sunlight through rain forest leaves as stained glass, and the gaze shared with a chimpanzee as a holy encounter… By then, Goodall had already changed how humanity understood itself. As a young researcher in Africa, she had shown that chimpanzees used tools, organized societies and displayed emotions once thought exclusively human…
That revelation humbled our species, forcing us to see continuity between us and our fellow primates where we had imagined a wall. Later she broadened her mission, shifting from discovery to advocacy, fighting for habitats, for conservation, for the survival of the natural world itself…
When asked whether she identified with a particular faith tradition, she smiled impishly and replied, “Is the forest not a cathedral? For me, it is, with its canopies of trees and beautiful lights.” For her, the sacred was not confined to ritual spaces; it was alive in root and branch, in the luminous weave of life itself.
When pressed further. “You lived closer to the chimpanzees than perhaps anyone in history. How was it different from living among people?” “Not so different,” she said. “Staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back. You never really knew what their thoughts were, but you knew there was a real presence there, a consciousness. How should we treat them? Surely, with the same consideration and kindness we show humans. And if we recognize human rights, should we not also recognize the rights of the great apes? I think so”…
That was Jane Goodall’s genius: an eloquence that dissolved boundaries between science and spirit, between human and animal, between nature as backdrop and nature as sanctuary… And that the true test of faith is whether we can treat the earth and all its inhabitants, human and other-than-human, with the reverence they deserve. JOSHUA M. GREENE
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