Kerri Arsenault

“Buddhist Environmental Storytelling” is a four-day workshop on public environmental storytelling led by Natasha Heller in collaboration with Kerri Arsenault at Morven, the University of Virginia’s place-based, land-centered sustainability lab. Throughout history, Buddhists have used different storytelling forms to educate, entertain, and motivate practitioners. These stories have often been in service of cultivating an ethics of cross-species care that aligns with the ideals fostered and supported by contemporary environmentalism. The workshop asks: How can we employ the methods, practices, and goals of environmental storytelling so that Buddhist environmental perspectives reach a broad audience, while simultaneously deepening our responsibilities to the more-than-human world?