Holistic listening to nature through the concept of the heart-mind in environmental education

Abstract

Abstract As a Chinese Canadian environmental educator and musician, I explore how the concepts of the heart-mind and holistic listening from guqin music could be applied to environmental education (EE) as a non-western perspective on the ecological crisis and the problematic separation between humans and nature. The early Chinese concept of the heart-mind (psyche) is exhibited in guqin culture. A cultivated and enhanced heart-mind is free from individual self-interest and competition– mindset of the capitalist system that has produced massive destruction of our planet. Holistic listening to nature engages the heart-mind and whole body, highlighting human connections with nature within a correlative cosmology. Holistic listening and the heart-mind can be used in EE as an environmental ethic that promotes simplicity, holistic learning, and harmony with nature as the good life, engaging learners’ cultural and environmental consciousness and ability to connect to the environment ethically and spiritually.