What is Nature Worship?
Nature worship is the veneration of natural objects, forces, and phenomena as sacred, divine, or spiritually significant. Rather than focusing devotion on transcendent deities detached from the physical world, nature worship recognizes divinity within rivers, mountains, trees, animals, celestial bodies, and the earth itself. This broad category encompasses animistic traditions that perceive spirits inhabiting natural forms, polytheistic systems with deities embodying natural forces (sun gods, storm gods, earth mothers), and pantheistic philosophies that identify nature as the totality of the divine. Nature worship appears across human cultures and geological time, from Paleolithic cave sanctuaries to contemporary Earth-centered spiritualities.
The term “nature worship” functions as an anthropological and comparative-religion descriptor rather than a self-designation used by practitioners. Indigenous traditions, ancient paganisms, and many Eastern philosophies contain elements of nature reverence without framing themselves as “worshipping nature” per se—they experience no separation between sacred and natural realms that would require such a distinction.
Origins & Lineage
Archaeological evidence suggests nature veneration predates organized religion. Upper Paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux (circa 17,000 BCE) and Chauvet (circa 30,000 BCE) depict animals with apparent ritual significance. Neolithic sites like Göbekli Tepe in Turkey (circa 9600 BCE) feature carved pillars with animal reliefs, suggesting ceremonial attention to fauna long before agriculture. Stonehenge (circa 3000–2000 BCE) and other megalithic structures align with solstices and equinoxes, indicating solar and seasonal veneration.
Documented religious systems formalized nature worship into theological frameworks. Ancient Egyptian religion deified the Nile, sun (Ra), and sky (Nut). Greek and Roman pantheons included Demeter/Ceres (grain), Poseidon/Neptune (sea), and Artemis/Diana (wilderness). Vedic hymns in the Rigveda (circa 1500–1200 BCE) praise Agni (fire), Indra (storm), Surya (sun), and Prithvi (earth). Shinto, Japan’s indigenous tradition codified in the Kojiki (712 CE) and Nihon Shoki (720 CE), venerates kami—spirits inhabiting mountains, waterfalls, ancient trees, and exceptional natural features. Celtic traditions honored sacred groves and rivers, though much knowledge was lost through oral transmission and later suppression.
Indigenous cultures worldwide maintain unbroken nature-centered cosmologies. The Lakota recognize Wakan Tanka permeating all existence; Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime narratives locate ancestral beings in landscape features; Amazonian traditions like those of the Shuar or Achuar perceive personhood and spirit in plants, animals, and rivers.
How It’s Practiced
Nature worship practices vary enormously but share common elements: ritual acknowledgment of natural cycles, offerings to natural entities, pilgrimage to sacred natural sites, and ceremonies marking seasonal transitions.
Seasonal festivals constitute a major expression. Ancient Celtic cultures celebrated Samhain (harvest end), Imbolc (spring’s beginning), Beltane (fertility), and Lughnasadh (first harvest). Neopagan movements revived these as the Wheel of the Year. Hindu traditions observe Chhath Puja, offering thanks to Surya and Chhathi Maiya at riverbanks. East Asian cultures mark solstices and equinoxes; the Qingming Festival honors ancestors while celebrating spring’s renewal.
Offerings and sacrifices appear across traditions. Shinto practitioners leave rice, sake, or salt at kamidana shrines or natural sites. Tibetan Buddhists create offerings of water, incense, and food for local mountain deities and nagas (water spirits). Indigenous ceremonies often include tobacco, cornmeal, or sacred herbs offered to earth, directions, or specific natural features.
Pilgrimage to sacred natural sites remains widespread. Mount Kailash in Tibet attracts Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Bon pilgrims who circumambulate the peak. The Ganges River receives millions seeking purification and offering funeral rites. Mount Fuji in Japan, Uluru in Australia, and countless sacred groves, springs, and caves worldwide function as pilgrimage destinations where the boundary between mundane and sacred dissolves.
Direct communion practices include forest bathing (shinrin-yoku), vision quests involving wilderness solitude and fasting, and ceremonial work with plant allies. Some traditions practice tree-hugging, sun-gazing at dawn and dusk, or bathing in sacred waters as devotional acts.
Nature Worship Today
Contemporary seekers encounter nature worship through multiple channels. Neopagan movements—Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry, reconstructionist polytheisms—offer structured frameworks blending historical research with modern practice. Environmental spirituality and deep ecology movements frame ecological activism as spiritual practice, exemplified by Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects and Thomas Berry’s writings on the “Great Turning.”
Retreat centers worldwide offer nature-immersion experiences combining meditation, ceremony, and wilderness time. Organizations like the Foundation for Shamanic Studies teach cross-cultural shamanic techniques emphasizing nature connection. Indigenous-led education increasingly shares traditional ecological knowledge within appropriate cultural protocols.
Contemporary Druid orders like the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD) and Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF) provide correspondence courses in nature-centered Celtic spirituality. Reclaiming Collective offers Witchcamp intensives blending activism and nature ritual. The Gaia Foundation and similar organizations integrate indigenous wisdom with ecological restoration.
Scholarly works like Mircea Eliade’s Patterns in Comparative Religion, Graham Harvey’s Animism: Respecting the Living World, and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass provide intellectual frameworks. Theological developments in ecotheology and creation spirituality, articulated by figures like Matthew Fox and Sallie McFague, offer Christian interpretations of nature reverence.
Common Misconceptions
Nature worship is not primitive or superseded by “higher” religions. This evolutionary model, popularized by 19th-century anthropologists like Edward Tylor and James Frazer, has been thoroughly discredited. Nature-centered traditions contain sophisticated cosmologies, ethical systems, and theological complexity.
Nature worship does not mean worshipping nature instead of divinity—for most practitioners, nature is divine or a direct manifestation thereof. The perceived opposition between nature and spirit reflects Cartesian dualism foreign to most nature-venerating traditions.
Nature worship is not necessarily polytheistic. While many nature-worshipping traditions are polytheistic, others are pantheistic (identifying divinity with nature’s totality), panentheistic (seeing nature as within divinity), or animistic without hierarchical god-concepts. Conversely, monotheistic traditions contain nature-reverence elements, as in Sufi poetry celebrating creation’s beauty or Franciscan mysticism.
Nature worship does not require rejecting technology or modernity. Contemporary practitioners integrate ancient wisdom with scientific understanding, environmental activism, and urban life. The practice concerns orientation toward the sacred, not lifestyle primitivism.
How to Begin
Begin by developing direct, attentive relationship with local nature. Spend regular time outdoors without agenda—sitting with a tree, observing a stream, watching sunrise or sunset. Notice seasonal changes: when do specific plants bloom, when do birds migrate, how does light quality shift through the year?
Learn the names and stories of your bioregion. What plants, animals, geological features, and indigenous peoples characterize your place? Field guides, local nature centers, and indigenous-authored texts provide entry points.
Establish simple devotional practices. Create a home altar with natural objects—stones, feathers, seasonal flowers, water. Offer thanks before meals, acknowledging the beings who became your food. Mark solstices and equinoxes with observation or ceremony.
Read foundational texts representing diverse traditions: the Rigveda for Vedic nature hymns, the Tao Te Ching for Taoist perspectives on natural harmony, Shinto texts like the Kojiki, or contemporary works like Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer or The Earth Path by Starhawk.
Seek teachers and communities aligned with your interests. Druid orders, Wiccan covens, bioregional animism groups, indigenous-led workshops (when appropriately offered to outsiders), and Earth-centered churches provide communal context. Approach indigenous traditions with respect, understanding that some practices are closed to outsiders.
Engage with nature not as resource or backdrop but as subject, as kin, as teacher. The shift from seeing nature as object to recognizing it as alive, aware, and sacred constitutes the essence of nature worship across its myriad expressions.