Alex Theship Rosales

2019 graduate and Environmental Studies and Religious Studies major Alex Theship-Rosales created his first film, a documentary. “To Walk Alongside: Awakening Spiritual Ecology” explores how an individual’s spiritual tradition shapes their responses to climate change.

Alex began working on the film when he studied in New Zealand for a semester. While there, he began exploring the ecological spirituality of the Maori community in which he was studying. He began recording interviews with the people he met, in which he asked them a set of questions: What do you love about the earth?” How do your spiritual views shape the way in which you walk alongside the earth? How do you understand climate change as a form of injustice? And what do you think everyone else should be thinking about right now?

The interviews launched him on the documentary project, which would prove to be the perfect senior thesis for an environmental studies student with a humanities focus, one that enabled him to draw together themes he’d begun exploring in classes like Environmental History and Religion and Ecology.

The film’s name derives from his translation of the Hebrew word “dominion”: to walk alongside. For Alex, the film is an invitation to the audience to consider how their own worldview shapes their ecological outlook.

You can catch the trailer here...and watch for the release of the full documentary on Youtube!