Spirituality and Science: Leah Kostamo and A Rocha Canada | Ep. 5

In this episode we’ll be speaking with Leah Kostamo. Leah and her husband Markku co-founded A Rocha Canada, and today she provides leadership and spiritual direction at A Rocha’s Brooksdale Environmental Center in the greater Vancouver, BC area. We’ll be talking about her work, and also about a book that she wrote, called Planted: A Story of Creation, Calling, and Community. Leah explains the work of A Rocha worldwide, an organization that is in great part focused on education—on helping people to understand the spirituality of creation care, but also the science of it—and importantly, on the interconnectedness of both realms. We also touch on themes of hospitality, children and nature, spiritual practices, eco-justice and our “ecological footprint”, and environmental science.

Guest: Leah Kostamo https://arocha.ca/who-we-are-a-rocha-canada/team/

Book: Planted: A story of creation, calling and community
https://arocha.ca/who-we-are-a-rocha-canada/our-story/

A Rocha, Canada
https://arocha.ca/

Peter & Miranda Harris, founders of A Rocha
https://www.arocha.org/en/people/?filters[position]=founder

Professors Loren & Mary Ruth Wilkinson, Regent College https://www.regent-college.edu/faculty/retired/loren-wilkinson
https://www.regent-college.edu/faculty/part-time-and-visiting/mary-ruth-wilkinson

 Dr. Frank Richardson, ornithologist, and Dorothy (Frank’s obituary)
https://academic.oup.com/auk/article-abstract/103/4/812/5191568?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder,1965.
https://books.google.com/books 

Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods
http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/

Eva Selhub, Your Brain on Nature
http://www.yourbrainonnature.com/

Dr. Steven Bouma-Prediger
https://hope.edu/directory/people/bouma-prediger-steven/index.html

Hebrew Passover prayer: Dayenu
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/dayenu-it-would-have-been-enough/

Ecological footprint calculator
http://www.footprintcalculator.org

Semiahmoo People
https://www.surreyhistory.ca/semipeople.html

Dr. Cheryl Bear
https://cherylbear.com/

Dr. Terry LeBlanc
https://naiits.com/faculty/

Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Wright

Joanna Macy, on active hope

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