Ecosystems are holy. The word "environmental" is a deadly

Host: The forest was alive with the soft pulse of twilight — a dim, golden light sinking through the trees like honey over bark. The river, restless and ancient, whispered nearby, its voice folding over itself like prayer. The air was thick with the scent of pine, moss, and rain, a kind of sacred mixture — older than language, purer than thought.

At the river’s edge stood Jack, his boots half sunk into the mud, a cigarette dangling forgotten between his fingers. His eyes were grey and reflective, mirroring both the water and the weight of something unspoken.

Jeeny knelt beside the bank, her hands trailing through the current, fingertips stirring the surface as though in reverence. Her hair caught the last glint of light, and her expression was one of quiet wonder — that rare kind of listening that feels like worship.

Host: The world around them breathed — slow, deliberate, holy — and the conversation that rose between them was not of argument, but of invocation.

Jeeny: “David James Duncan said, ‘Ecosystems are holy. The word “environmental” is a deadly compromise itself. It's a policy word that lives only in the head, and barely there.’”
Her voice trembled slightly, not with doubt, but with reverence. “He’s right, Jack. The way we talk about the earth has become bureaucratic. We’ve replaced sacredness with strategy.”

Jack: “Holy,” he repeated, the word tasting strange on his tongue. “You make it sound like the trees should be worshipped.”

Jeeny: “Not worshipped — remembered. Reverence isn’t kneeling. It’s knowing you’re part of the thing you’re touching.”

Jack: “You and your mysticism,” he said, though his tone lacked its usual edge. “You think if we change the words, the world heals?”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. I think if we remember the meaning, we stop killing what we pretend to save.”

Host: The wind sighed through the tall cedars, making their leaves shimmer like green glass in motion. A heron drifted above the river — slow, elegant, ancient — its shadow gliding across both water and faces.

Jack: “You know what I think?” He flicked the cigarette into the river and watched it vanish. “Calling ecosystems holy is easy for poets and dreamers. But try saying that to someone who has to cut down trees to feed their kids.”

Jeeny: “You always measure reality in currency.”

Jack: “Because that’s what the world runs on. Not prayer. Not poetry. Policy. You call ‘environmental’ a compromise, but compromise is the only way change happens.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s why nothing changes. Because compromise is a word for surrender — for pretending that half a soul is enough.”

Jack: “You can’t save the planet by sanctifying it.”

Jeeny: “And you can’t save it by commodifying it.”

Host: The sky darkened, the first faint stars revealing themselves between branches. The river deepened in color, the sound of its movement becoming the bassline of their disagreement.

Jack: “You talk about holiness like it’s a strategy. But holiness doesn’t fix pollution. It doesn’t pass legislation.”

Jeeny: “No, but it prevents pollution from being necessary in the first place. We talk about ‘environmental policy’ as if the world were a spreadsheet. But the earth isn’t an equation, Jack — it’s a body. It bleeds when we dissect it.”

Jack: “That’s poetic. But policy is the only language governments understand.”

Jeeny: “And that’s exactly Duncan’s point. The word ‘environmental’ exists in the head, not the heart. We’ve turned the living world into paperwork.”

Host: Her eyes glimmered with the reflection of the river, fierce and sad at once. The air between them grew thicker — not with hostility, but with truth pressing at the edges of silence.

Jack: “So what do you want — to bring religion back into nature? To turn forests into cathedrals?”

Jeeny: “They already are cathedrals. We just stopped knowing how to pray.”

Jack: “You think prayer will undo centuries of consumption?”

Jeeny: “No, but reverence might prevent another one.”

Jack: “Reverence doesn’t feed people.”

Jeeny: “Neither does greed, not for long. It only feeds hunger until it multiplies. Look around you — this river, these trees — they give without asking. And we take without noticing.”

Jack: “You’re describing a moral system, not an economic one.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because the one we have now doesn’t work.”

Host: The moon emerged above the tree line — pale, solemn, watching. The river caught its light and scattered it across the rippling surface like broken silver.

Jack: “So what, we stop saying ‘environmental’ and start saying ‘holy’? That’s not activism, Jeeny. That’s sentiment.”

Jeeny: “Sentiment is what keeps a species alive. You can’t legislate love, but you can remind people of what it feels like.”

Jack: “And if they don’t feel it?”

Jeeny: “Then they’ll die by the absence of it.”

Jack: “You think words can save the world.”

Jeeny: “No. I think the right words can remind us that we’re still worth saving.”

Host: The silence that followed was deep enough to hear the small movements of life — a frog shifting in the reeds, the flutter of wings against damp air, the sigh of roots beneath the earth. It was a silence that wasn’t empty, but inhabited.

Jack: “You really think the word ‘environmental’ kills meaning?”

Jeeny: “It sterilizes it. It turns the living into the manageable. It’s a word that lets us keep our distance — like saying ‘resource’ instead of ‘life.’”

Jack: “But maybe distance is what allows action. You can’t govern sentiment.”

Jeeny: “And yet every tragedy begins when sentiment leaves the room.”

Jack: “You want people to feel the planet again.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because the heart remembers what the mind forgets — that the earth isn’t ours. We belong to it.”

Host: The fireflies began their slow illumination — tiny stars come down to live among the grass. The air shimmered with quiet magic, the kind of light that refuses to ask permission.

Jack: “You know,” he said finally, softer now, “I used to think words like ‘holy’ were dangerous. They start wars.”

Jeeny: “They also end them. Depends on who’s listening.”

Jack: “So you’re saying the forest is sacred?”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. I’m saying everything is — and that’s what terrifies us. Because if we believed that, we couldn’t keep pretending destruction was progress.”

Jack: “And yet, here we are — still pretending.”

Jeeny: “Then stop pretending.”

Host: He looked at her then — really looked. The moonlight caught the curve of her cheek, the steadiness of her gaze. She wasn’t preaching; she was remembering. Something in her stillness made his own pulse slow, his cynicism soften.

Jack: “If ecosystems are holy,” he said, “then what are we?”

Jeeny: “The ones who forgot.”

Host: The words landed like prayer — quiet, absolute, undeniable.

For a long time, neither spoke. The river murmured on, ancient and unbothered by their revelations. A bird cried in the distance, then silence again — deep, honest, eternal.

Finally, Jack knelt down beside her, touching the surface of the water, feeling the cold, unflinching truth of it.

Jack: “Maybe holiness isn’t something to believe in,” he said quietly. “Maybe it’s something you remember when the noise finally stops.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she whispered. “And the remembering is the only revolution that still matters.”

Host: The river carried on — silver, alive, infinite. Around them, the forest breathed — not a resource, not a policy, not a thing to be saved — but a being that had never stopped forgiving.

And as the two figures sat in silence beneath the patient moon, the world, for one fleeting moment, felt whole again —
not as an environment,
but as a holy body,
beating quietly beneath their hands.