Consecration and Conservation; Walden Pond as a Sacred Site
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This essay explores the dynamic interplay between religion, science, and the environment by focusing on Henry David Thoreau\'s consecration of Walden Pond and the subsequent history of the site \'s conservation as a natural and cultural shrine. The author suggests that consecrated natural sites such as Walden enable us to get beyond the overdrawn dichotomies of nature/culture, sacred/mundane, and inherent/ascribed and provide fresh insights for the study of religion and ecology.