The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
Jane Goodall, A Creation
Spirituality Saint for Our Times, Dies at 91 By Matthew Fox 10/4/2025 |
Today is the Feast Day of St. Francis, friend of the animal kingdom. The day following our most recent gathering of the Order of the Sacred Earth on Zoom, the world and I heard the news that Jane Goodall died at 91 years of age. She was on tour in California, still carrying on the
good fight on behalf of Mother Earth and her marvelous creatures. |
It was my privilege to attend a conference several years ago, where about 14 of us gathered together, and she was among us. What I remember best was her humility. She listened intently and spoke quite sparingly. No doubt that |
The late, beloved and influential primatologist Jane Goodall spent more than half a century studying chimpanzees and advocating for animal rights and environmental protection. PBS NewsHour |
was her practice among chimpanzees with whom she actually lived for a number of years in her life. I was also struck by her calmness and her joy—she seemed to be a deep lover of life, and others have spoken to that dimension to her as well. She has been called a “hero” among fellow naturalists for her contributions to our understanding of wildlife. While living among the chimpanzees in Tanzania, she discovered that they used tools and created complex societies and could be aggressive to the point of even killing one another. In other words, chimps and humans hold a lot in common. Her work helped inspire the issues of animal rights and raised questions about what it means to be human. |
Dr. Jane Goodall receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden, January 4, 2025. Photo clipped from CSPAN coverage. | At her death, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that “she is leaving an extraordinary legacy for humanity and our planet.” He thanked her for her lifelong commitment to environmental protection efforts
and |
her support of the UN in that regard. President Biden, late in his administration, bestowed on her the Medal of Freedom, and in the UK, she received the honor of damehood. The International Animal Welfare Protection Coalition (IAWPC) described her as one of “the world’s most inspiring voices for
animals” whose “message was always rooted in hope, that even the smallest actions, when multiplied, can bring about great change.” The organization’s chairman said, “Jane was more than a conservationist; she was a beacon for compassion for all life.” |
She has been called “an inspiration to generations of women” who, because of her, pursued vocations as scientists. Toy companies Lego and Barbie created dolls of her wearing khaki and binoculars and paired with chimpanzee David Greybeard, one of her beloved chimpanzee companions in the wild. The Lego doll was released in |
Dr. Jane Goodall presented a new Barbie doll named after herself, as part of the toy company’s Inspiring Women series. The Independent |
2022 in commemoration of International Women’s Day. When I think of Jane Goodall, I think of Rachel Carson, who also was a woman pioneer who effectively launched the environmental movement with her book, The Silent Spring. And also of Rupert Sheldrake who laid bare the many powers of animals that we often neglect in his groundbreaking study, Dogs Who Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. Goodall first worked among chimps in the wild in the 1950s and ’60s and had no college
degree. She was brave enough and bold enough to report on the things that she knew and came to understand because of that close proximity to them, naturalist Chris Packham reports. She was “revolutionary,” and “remarkable,” and “immersed right in the heart of these animals.” Her love of life was an “enormous motivating force” for her work, which included advocating strongly about climate change. |
Jane Goodall delivers the Beatty Memorial Lecture after receiving an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from McGill University. Photo by Antares Prime on
Flickr. | She eventually earned a PhD in ethnology in the 1960s from Cambridge University, enrolling without an undergraduate degree. She received almost 50 honorary degrees in her lifetime. In 2024, she warned of the “sixth great extinction” that is happening and spoke about protecting the forests. She herself planted over |
two
million trees. She said, If we don’t get together and impose tough regulations on what people are able to do to the environment…move away from fossil fuel,…industrial farming, that’s destroying the environment and killing the soil,…the future ultimately is doomed.* God bless this saint on behalf of the
animals and the environment, and the truth about climate change. May we all heed her call to compassion for Holy Mother Earth. |
Queries for Contemplation How does Jane Goodall inspire you to speak truth to power? And to stand up
for the rights of animals and trees and soil and resist those forces killing the planet as we know it? |
Responses are welcomed. To add
your comment, or read other comments and enter into dialogue, please click HERE to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments
field. |
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