On Sunday, March 8 GC|RH will offer a liturgy of ecological lament. UVa religious studies professor Natasha Heller will give a presentation entitled "When Trees Weep for Us."

Professor Heller is a cultural historian of Chinese Buddhism with research interests spanning the premodern period (primarily 10th through 14th c.) and the contemporary era. Illusory Abiding: The Cultural Construction of the Chan Monk Zhongfeng Mingben, her first book, is a study of an eminent monk of the Yuan dynasty . Her second monograph, titled Literature for Little Bodhisattvas: Making Buddhist Families in Modern Taiwan was published in the Contemporary Buddhism series at the University of Hawai‘i Press in 2025, and is now out in paperback. She is now working on two books: a cultural and religious history of Alishan, Taiwan and a history of trees in Chinese Buddhism.