Abstract

In the face of the exploitation of nature in this century, this paper is about restoring our deeper sense of place in nature which would guide our professional practice and provide humanity's place in nature. From my overview of the Western tradition of thoughts and indigenous tradition, I identify grossly four different threads of naturalism, from which I can weave a "paradigm boat" to float over upcoming "floods" such as ecological crisis, domination, depression, lack of beauty in our life words. ;I characterize humanity in scientific naturalism as the "thinking thing in a cosmos governed by mechanical scientific law." Ecological naturalism views humanity "thinking like a mountain in the interlocking order of nature"; Romantic naturalism views humanity as "feeling like a river in purpose coursing through nature; spiritual naturalism views humanity as "intuiting a divine face of things in a spiritually deep cosmos." ;Different environmental philosophies are also an invitation to restore the deeper sense of our place in nature. For example, land ethics initiates us to do "thinking like a mountain." ;Indigenous cultures demonstrate that humans are deeply implicated in the natural order. Their cultural practice shows that sacred/human development/professional practice/nature are integrated. This is also exemplified in the medicine wheel which emphasize the integration of different ways of knowing, different ways of being, different realities. ;Contemporary psychologists interpret the ecological crisis as a crisis of the human mind in its failure to integrate different part of our selves as is told by Reich, Jung, and Hillman or different modes of knowing told by Wilber, and Kolb. Environmental philosophies and indigenous psychology challenge our narrow definition of our selves. These different ways of knowing and different way of conceiving our selves are related to the different naturalisms. Studies of indigenous naturalism as well as psychological interpretation of ecological crisis recommend the integration of different naturalisms. ;Efficiency orientation in our discipline is an expression of scientific naturalism. Different orientations from these different naturalisms would restore our professional practice in a holistic fashion