The document discusses a case study of how the Karen villagers in Dokdaeng Village, Chiang Mai, Thailand apply their traditional ritual practices to recreate sacred spaces and reinterpret their spiritual beliefs in the context of outside influences putting pressure on their environment and resources. Specifically: - The villagers perform water spirit rituals to create a sense of place attachment and maintain relationships between humans, nature, and spirits/the Absolute Being for guidance in living harmoniously. - They reconstruct these rituals and reinterpret their meanings and concepts to confront environmental crises and commercialization of nature from outside forces. This helps give new spiritual meanings and empowerment. - Recreating sacred spaces through rituals is seen as a strategy for conversation between

1. ANCESTRAL WISDOM FOR RE-CREATING SACRED
SPACE OF KAREN HOMELAND: CASE STUDY IN
DOKDAENG VILLAGE, CHIANG MAI, THAILAND
Sunthorn WongJomporn

2. Chiang Mai
Sw-disrt./08

3. RTRC-
CM/2006
There are many indigenous people in
north Thailand such as Lawa, Lahu,
Lizu, Mian, Hmong, Akha, Karen and
Naative Thai people

4. Government Intervention
- Reinforce forest law
- Commoditized nature
Capitalists Intervention
Demystify Nature
Commercialized nature
Background of the study
Sacred
Mountain
Commercial
Mountain
Powerful Influence
from outside
Ritual as
Weapon to
Protect
Nature ..?
How the villagers apply their traditional ritual practices in recreating
sacred space through the water spirit ritual and how they re-interpret
the power, meaning, and strength in the new context which the villagers
believe in the power of the Absolute Being, and in giving hope to
encounter with outside influences in almost every case of their life
journey.

5. • The study is guided by the following
theory:
– The philosophy of Environmental balance
based on Cosmic Spirituality which rely
on an assumption that Environmental
crisis cannot be solved by scientific and
technology alone, since the roots of the
crisis are largely lack of religion and
spiritual dimensions, the remedy must
also be essentially religious and with
deep sense of spirituality.
Sw-disrt./008

6. • Promoting indigenous beliefs on spiritual power as a
source of empowerment from within or intangible force of
change in a secularized, modernized and post-modernized
world, that is nevertheless, search for spirituality.
• Theorizing and articulating indigenous knowledge/wisdom
in encountering with the concept of modern development
with heavily emphasis on scientific knowledge/technology
and depreciated and subjugated local knowledge and
wisdom.
Sw-disrt./08

7. . Providing sustainable development and
environmental protection model based on
cosmic/creation spirituality to different sectors
such as GOs/NGOs, the Church, educational
institutions, etc.
. Encouraging spiritual leaders and other villagers
to be proud as environmental protectors and
imparting their valuable spiritual experiences to
the future generations, and
. Promoting an integral sustainable development
based on cosmic spirituality especially among
the indigenous community.
Sw-disrt./08

8. 1. What are the mystery power, strength and
meaning that emerged or are generated by rituals
and how do the people interpret such power,
strength and meaning and give hope to the
villagers when encountering the environmental
crises (the signs of the times)?

9. The mystic-events emerge from the practice of the water ritual
Absolute Being
(Ta Hti Ta Tau)
God Absolute Truth
Destroy Spirit’s altar
(Getting sick)
Waste/urinate into the
water (Getting sick)
Permission first
ask before Utilize
water
( Broken glass of rice wine)
(Land slide/Calamity) Hunting in protected
area wild spirit block
your way back home
Invasion Sacred place
(Sickness profit lost)
Impolite to nature
(Wild Sprit punish)
Nature Humans
Seeds / Fields blessing
River / Forest Consecration
- Forest ordination
- Ashram Forest
Mystic Events

10. *
Nature has spirit
intrinsic values,
we must respect &
reverence
* Strictly follow the
rules of resources
used
Maintaining and
renewal covenant
between Human-Nature
-Spirit / absolute Being
Fertility / abundant
nature and production
Mysterious power exist
in all nature / universe
(invisible eye)
Having holistic view
(material-spiritual)

11. Mysterious Power Emerge from Water Spirit Rituals
The villagers believe all creation (land, forest, water, etc.)
have its spirits with strength and mysterious power which
strongly influences the villagers’ beliefs, thinking and way of
life.
The mysterious power of the spirits manifest itself in different
forms in different events in the daily life of the villagers. The
meanings of the events can be interpreted only by those who
perceiving, and who have a holistic view that perceive nature
having both spiritual and material dimensions. This is a way
of looking at everything as it has interconnectedness and co-
existence. These beliefs and experiences are accumulated
and crystallized from childhood through story telling, and
then, adolescence through participating in ritual practices,
self-experience and then, to adulthood through conducting
their own rituals in their families as a head of the family.

12. Mysterious Power Emerge from Water Spirit ritual and
Interpretation
- The performance of water ritual in different places in the forest, the river,
watershed etc. aims to create a sense of place attachment.
- (Stewart, 1998) ritual creates “the collection of meanings, beliefs,
symbolic values and feelings that individuals or groups associate with
particular locality.
- Rituals helps in maintaining good relationships between humans, nature
and spirits or the Absolute being.
- The villagers are very much concerned with community-based traditional
ritual practices as a principle to guide their living in peace and harmony
with other creatures through the holy order of nature and the cosmos.

13. How do the villagers re-construct or re-
conceptualize their traditions
rituals/practices as they encounter
environmental crisis?

14. The reconstruction and re-conceptualization of spirit Ritual
Creation - Spirituality
Reconstruction Spirit Ritual
Re-conceptualization Spirit Ritual
SUSTAINABLE (Community)
DEVELOPMENT
Sw-disrt./08

15. The reconstruction or reproduce of traditional ritual and
traditional knowledge in resource protection and become a
social current management from DokDaeng Village to other
villages in connecting forest areas.
Religious beliefs and ritual practices can be conceptualized
theologically as revealing certain sacred truths about the
nature of the universe. They be analyzed sociologically in
terms of the social structure and functions.
Religious beliefs and ritual practices can also be treated as an
ideological field. This is, how rituals practices function
ideologically among various groups of people through their
history.
Religion has profoundly shaped culture and left its imprint on
the major forms of social consciousness.

16. • The villagers reconstruct and re-conceptualize the water
ritual in order to confront with outside influence and
struggle to give new meanings and concepts in the new
context.
• Recreating sacred space aiming to change ordinary place
or forest to become sacred place and also serve as space
for expansion of sufficiency philosophy economy and
against concept of consumerism, and is alternative for
sustainable development.
Sw-disrt./08
Watershed ritual Forest ordination

17. Reconstruction & Re-conceptualization of Water ritual
as reaffirmed by different scholars
• The villagers reconstructing their traditional spirit ritual practices and
reinterpreting the concepts and meanings in accordance to new
context (environment).
• (Luke, 1998) traditional religions should not regarded as static,
backward, but dynamic and are actively part of every one’s daily life in
the modern world.
• (Pattana, 1999:4) through religious ritual practices, ritual has been
revived, reconstructed, and reinterpreted.
• The performance of ritual is also a strategy to reinvent new meanings
and gained different levels of space for presenting and expanding the
spiritual belief and cultural struggle in the new context.

18. Recreating Sacred Space as Conversation between Traditional-Dominant views
Ideas / Concepts
Discourse
Traditional World view
(Holistic view)
* Consumerism
* Money Centered Economy.
•Capitalizing,
•Commercializing nature
•Sufficiency Economy/
Moral Economy/God
centered Economy
* Spiritualizing Nature
Dominant Worldview
(Mechanistic view)
Integral Concept on SD

19. • The expansion of different rituals performance in different
places create a common feeling or emotional place and
that emotional place attachment was significantly related
to environmentally responsible behavior.
Recreating Sacred Space as a conversation between
Dominant- traditional World view (or strategy for
Spiritualizing nature)

20. Returning the Sacred to Nature in other
communities

21. Recreating Sacred Space as a conversation between Dominant-
traditional World view (or strategy for Spiritualizing nature)
• The recreating sacred space is a strategy in conversation
between the concept of consumerism and sufficiency
economy or moral economy by transforming spirit ritual or
symbolic power into instruments for protecting the
environment and community resources.
• (Prasert, 2008) ritual can be seen as significant tools to
create a power of spirituality and become an abstraction of a
space of contestation.

22. • Living in a sustainable way, we need to live in
harmony with nature and restrain ourselves from
greed and anger, and live moderate life will
contribute to sustainability of resources use and
sustainable community development.

23. Mapping sacred Places: The meeting between satellite & the Spirit
Spirit Altars

24. What are the significant implications of the ritual in
terms of perspective in environmental protection and
sustainable community development based on
creation/cosmic spirituality for the future in the Church,
POs/NGOs, government, and educational institutions?

25. Perspective on Sustainable Development
• Sustainable development should encompasses at least four elements
such as economic sustainability, ecological/environmental sustainability,
spiritual sustainability, social and cultural sustainability.
• Sustainability is a call to ethical responsibility which focused directly on
the values that are preconditions to a just all sustainable world.
• Creation-spirituality or religious traditional present the appropriate
spiritual paradigm for sustainable future because sustainability cannot be
managed within a capitalist world economy.
• Thus, sustainability should based on the integral perspective as
mentioned by Ken Wilber that we need to integrate mind, culture, society
and nature with the post modern world, which is to say, the way to honor
spirit manifests in all four quadrants, intentional, behavioral, cultural and
social.

26. Mode of
thought
Mode of
Belief
Mode of
production &
resource
Mgnt.
Community
lifestyle
Mode of thinking
- No concept of
control over nature
- No concept of
accumulation
- We are part of
nature
Mode of Belief
-Nature has spirits
- Nature has rights
& intrinsic values
Mode of
production
& Rs Mgnt.
Based on mode
of thought
and belief
Mode of
thinking/Belief
- Control over
nature
- Demystify nature
- Accumulation
- Benefit oriented
(Exclusive
Economic)
Community lifestyle
Practice of generosity
on sharing economy, etc.
Natural Resources Mgnt. Based on the belief and wisdom of Indigenous People

27. The Distinction between Dominant and Traditional Worldview
Dominant Worldview
• Segmentation: head-heart,/mind-body,
human-nature-spirit,
( I think therefore, I am).
• Dominance over nature.
Nature only as resources for human’s
desire, without intrinsic values.
• Accumulation of wealth (all for one or
for few) and money centered economy.
• Advance technological process and
solutions (forces/rapes nature).
• Consumerism: modernizing,
capitalizing, commercializing,
commoditizing nature and
desacralizing nature.
• What is around us “Economies”
(HildYards, 1993).
• Accumulation of resource maintain to
power and status.
Traditional Worldview
• Interconnectedness with nature and
cosmos (we related, therefore, we are).
• Harmony with nature, Nature has
spirits, intrinsic values and has
freedom/ rights.
• Taking only what we needs. One for all
or all for all. God/moral centered
economy/sharing economy.
• Harmonizing/appropriate technology, if
violate to nature, apology ritual
immediately performed.
• Re-sacralizing, spiritualizing, remystify
nature.
• What is around us “Homes” (Hildyards,
1993).
• The more we share the more we are
and God/Absolute Being will bless us.

28. The concept of sustainable development from the
perspective of Cosmic Spirituality encompass of five main
areas: economic, ecological, social, cultural and spiritual
sustainability. Based on the assumption that the
environmental crisis which emerged by unsustainable
development, therefore religious traditions represent
alternative appropriate spiritual paradigm for the earth
survival of our time today (Fox, 1983).
In this study, it examined and analyzed our lived-
experiences in re-creating sacred space through the water
spirit ritual as third space and flexible in counter discourse
between dominant forestry views and traditional forestry
views for common solution to protect the integrity of nature
and environment.

29. Holistic Worldview
Sustainable development based on the
creation/cosmic -spirituality as experienced
by the people in Dok Daeng Village

30. Possible implications in
different sectors

31. For Governmental Organization
• In response to environmental disturbances that
signal the need for change, the change must occur
in a way that remains consistent with itself in that
environment. Therefore, environmental education
and programs have played important roles in the
development of consciousness and personal
growth as well as in the community. It would be
beneficial to restart and continue these programs in
all government sectors.
• Development of environmental spiritual
consciousness in government environment-related
groups, and recognition of the way local people
manage and protect their environment based on
traditional knowledge, wisdom and spiritual values.
Sw-disrt./008

32. For the Church
• A challenge for the Church today is to help people see beyond
the glitter of this “development” paradigm. Rather than creating a
world full of plenty for everyone, it has encouraged a culture of
exploitation and death. The Church must shape a new,
compassionate and sustainable culture that is designed to
support and enhance all life.
• People view the world as an object, set themselves up as a
master of nature and the conquerors of alien forces. The time
now is immanent for us to return to a very ancient wisdom and to
adopt a new cosmic-spirituality, based on conviviality and
cooperation rather than on patriarchal supremacy and planetary
domination.
• Development of the teaching outline for catechists, Christian
leaders and priests to create a sense of care for creation based
on Christian belief for the parishioners.
• Renewal theology of creation from the people’s perspective. and
liturgy rooted in their culture and daily concerns, and a
spirituality that evaluates critically the oppressive, dominant
structures.
Sw-disrt./08

33. For Groups/Community Organizations
• It is evident in the study, and is also insisted by
different religious scholars, environmentalists,
anthropologists, and even scientists that the way to
protect the environment is by utilizing the traditional
knowledge and wisdom that helps to maintain and
balance nature and utilize resources in sustainable
way. There is recognition that today, people are not
only effective if they have a suitable level of intellectual
quotient (IQ), and a suitable level of emotion quotient
(EQ), but also with a suitable level of spirituality
quotient (SQ). Therefore, traditional beliefs, knowledge
and wisdom should be formulated as curricula both for
dissemination to outsiders and to serve as tools for
transfer to younger generations.
Sw-disrt./08

34. For Community Spiritual Leaders/Religions
Leaders
• Restoration of local beliefs, cultures, poems, proverbs, storytelling,
chanting as well as encouraging children to participate in annual
ritual practices, and including explanations of the meanings to
make them more easily understandable to children and to other
guests in the community.
• Arranging teaching programs for traditional beliefs, knowledge,
and wisdom to be taught in public schools in different communities
by local experts.
• Promoting and articulating indigenous knowledge and wisdom as
important for environmental and ecological protection should be
recognized by outsiders, especially the government forest
department.
Sw-disrt./08

35. Education Institution/s
(Feb. 20/2020 Integral ecology study in Catholic schools)
• Education institution/s consider as the most influence the worldview
and way of thinking of the people. In the past the education
institution/s more emphasized on scientific knowledge (Intelligence
quotient or IQ) but ignored the spiritual dimension and the local
knowledge and wisdom with totally emerge from nature. People
considered and perceived nature only as resources without intrinsic
values and disrespect to nature. Resulting in exploitation and
degradation of environmental and bear great impact in our time today.
Therefore, the issue of environmental awareness is crucial to raise
common concern and responsibility by starting to the children in
schools at all levels.
• The community spiritual leaders, local environmental and ecological
experts who know best about nature, ecology and environment should
be invited as resource person to share or give lecture to the student at
all levels. Because the local experts immerse themselves and live
with nature, embedded and woven together with nature and learn
from nature in their life long process of learning by doing. For the out
side experts they learn and know through reading from the text book,
but not come from the hearts and blood or their real lives situations
like the local experts (Local people).
Sw-disrt./08

36. For institutions/Training centers
Provide environmental education and training
- Provide Eco-tour study/meditation/Contemplation program.
For Spirituality
- Restoration of local culture/belief values and ritual practices
- Utilization of Local knowledge/wisdom in environmental protection
program Ecological Conversion)

37. Contemplate with
surrounding environment

38. RTRC-
CM/2006
(LS146) For the indigenous people, land is not a
commodity, but rather a gift from God and
from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred
space with which they need to interact if they
are to maintain their identity and values.

39. Walking together on the way of wisdom
Thank you very much
Sunthorn Wongjomporn