Judging by the emptying of the traditional churches and the increase in size of bookstore sections on Nature and the environment, Native studies, "New Age" subjects, and feminist theology, a change in spiritual beliefs and practice, at least in the Christian world, has already begun. In the twenty-first century it will constitute a religious revival.

With the scientific revolution we believed we'd conquered the world, we replaced awe with a smug sense of our own mastery and lost faith in any unknown other than that which science might touch, dissect, and describe. It was a barren belief system, the author of a soul-destroying emptiness that, to appease the human craving for fulfilment, substituted the visible and palpable for spirit. Traditional churches' fundamental beliefs and rituals no longer satisfy, with the result that many people are creating personal rituals to sanctify the significant moments of their lives, or are turning for sustenance to ancient rituals and ancient belief systems-those of First Nations people, Goddess religions, or pagan religions such as that of the Druids.

Nature, it is discovered, is being destroyed by the effects of modernity and without a concerted and widespread effort to save it, may well disappear completely in the new millennium. The environmental movement, although conceived of originally as political, soon developed a strong spiritual undertow, along with adherents who hold sacred trees, birds, bears, whales, grass, and so on. It also has its theologians, its saints, high priests, and prophets, and a growing body of disciples and devotees. Offshoots of it have already devolved into cults, and with its influence continually growing, a single, coherent religion is a definite possibility.

Such a religion might be based on these beliefs: that the earth is alive and has consciousness in (at least) another, no less "real" dimension (although many of the faithful will be confused among dimensions, or fail to recognize the existence of different dimensions); that to be human is to be part of Nature and that the less we maintain a careful connection with Nature the less we are human; that all human beings, recognizing the wild as our original home, are drawn ineluctably to its sweet and terrifying chaos and to its great, mysterious peace; that human beings need the beauty of Nature to be fully human; that with that beauty comes awe, which is a natural route to the spiritual; that-and belief wavers on this one -humans are not the sole purpose or even the centre of creation.

Such a religion raises many questions: What is the relationship of Nature to the deity or deities? Is Nature itself the deity? Or does a Nature religion need a deity? What has a belief in the sanctity of Nature to say to Evil? What has it to say to the afflicted? To "the poor, and the lame, and the halt, and the blind"? Such a religion will be a long time shaping itself and, in the meantime, those of us raised as Christians will continue to turn to Christian beliefs (and, without noticing it, accepting them as self-evident) to fill the gaps.

Not to mention that with a belief in the power of Nature comes (as it always has in the past) an understanding of the human ability to manipulate its spirits and/or various forces. Witches and warlocks will appear (not that they ever went away) with their curses and spells and all the horrors of that unseen world manipulated by the power-hungry or the malevolent will become a fact of life.

A major problem with this belief system, even where it is moderate and humble, will be that it won't work very well for nearly all the people who espouse it, since it only makes full sense in the context of a life lived in Nature, among people who grow or kill their own food, have a place in its ongoing natural state to retreat to, and, preferably daily, at least weekly, have some deep, first-hand understanding of Nature and her modus operandi. And, lacking this, many will, without understanding, merely mouth beliefs devised by and taught to them by others, as in the current systems.

And since it seems unlikely that former Christians will be able to stop being "people of the book", will someone compile or write a holy book of wisdom, the framework and foundation for this new religion? If so, will anyone accept such a text as divinely inspired? It strikes me as contradictory, or possibly paradoxical, to find the source of one's religious belief in Nature and yet to continue to require a holy book.

I can't quite imagine this: the woods full of sorcerers and their apprentices in long white robes, or full of families struggling for survival on too-small plots of infertile land, outdoor celebrations being rained out or hailed out or blown away. Doubtless in some quarters common sense will prevail over religiously-motivated desires and churches will be built-but wait a minute-haven't we been here before?

Doubtless these new churches will fall as readily into corruption as the old; most if not all their prophets will be false; for every truth there will be a hundred lies and evil will be mixed with good; new ritual will harden too and thus apostasy will rapidly appear, with fallings-out, and condemnation thundering from the grassy pulpit.

In time, slowly, perhaps a workable synthesis will be created among various current belief systems and the new beliefs. If this occurs, the result will be a genuinely North American church, the Church of the New World, since much of the old world is still too occupied in the struggle with war, poverty, and famine to have much interest in saving Nature, and other continents, seeing a different face of Nature, will develop different rituals, possibly even different belief systems.

I think a new religion grounded in the earth and not the sky, extricated from the thickets of theology, and recognizing our absolute need for the wild and the sanctity of all life, is at least a start toward something appropriate to the trials and problems of the twenty-first century.

Sharon Butala is the author, most recently, of Coyote's Morning Cry, which we reviewed in October 1995. She lives on a ranch near Eastend, Saskatchewan.