In ancient times, spiritual leaders mediated among people and the world of plants and animals. Cultures from around the world have indicated, through artifacts and practices, their different ways of understanding ideas of earth, ecology, and environment. For example, tribal shamans of indigenous peoples have long represented the power, energy, and spirits of place as both male and female deities. In ancient Egypt, the Earth father was named Geb. The world's vegetation was believed to have sprouted from Geb's back. The Algonquin Indians regarded the Earth as their mother. Similarly, in creation myths of the Hopi Indian, Tiowa or Spider Grandmother is said to have been sent in the beginning to give structure and form to the earth.
Concepts of earth, ecology, and environment are also represented through objects and ritual practices in contemporary societies. "Shimenewa," ceremonial straw rope, is used to mark the spiritual power of place in Japan. In the Amazon, shaman Pablo Amaringo creates paintings of animals, plants, spirits, and mythological beings as a way to help preserve the Amazonian ecosystem. Spiritual, social, and physical connections are also simultaneously referred to in the sandpaintings of Navajo healing ceremonies. Stones, plants, and sacred objects are often placed inside the painting to represent the interconnectedness of the physical, social, and spiritual needs of people and the earth's greater life forces.
In the 1990s, ecological artists such as Lynne Hull mediate relationships between humans and the environment by reintroducing native plants and animals into sites to help reclaim and sustain biodiversity. Wetlands and forests are two types of habitats vanishing around the world that ecological artists have recreated on city streets, parks, and nature preserves. Most of these works are csonceived as sanctuaries where human beings can experience nature's beauty along with the natural abundance of ecological systems. Changes in the ways that artists look at relationships among art, aesthetics, ecology, and culture from ancient times to present continue to evolve.