AWAKENING TO THE ECOLOGICAL SELF

Joanna Macy

500 Word Critical Thinking Essay

Vivienne Elanta 12021131

Ecofeminism S221 April 2003

Central to Joanna Macy’s thesis is what she sees as the emergence of the ecological self. She suggests that our current conventional understanding of the self is limited to a narrow ego-self, which is competitive and endlessly needy. The ecological self, on the other hand extends beyond the ego-self, “transcending separateness and fragmentation”(p.262). The process of this extension she refers to as the awakening of an “ecological selfhood”(p.261.

She gives three main reasons in support of her thesis. First, she presents the reader with the idea that the ecological self is born directly out of the current environmental crisis. Through “Despair and Empowerment Work”(p.262) grief and fear of what is happening to our world can be expressed. This pain for the world, she asserts, when “redefined as compassion can free us from the confines of a narrow sense of self.

Second, she argues that this understanding of self is emerging through systems theory, which teaches that the web of life is self-organising and interdependent, and that ultimately there is no recognisable separation between the self and the other.

Last, she points to the resurgence of what she refers to as “non-dualistic spiritualities”(p.264). She gives an example from Buddhism, that of dependent co-arising, which “presents a phenomenal reality so dynamic and interrelated that categorical subject-object distinction dissolve”(p.264). She says that, “What emerges, when free from the prison cell of the separate, competitive ego, is a vision of radical and sustaining interdependence”(p.264).

Joanna Macy’s thesis is groundbreaking in offering a process in shifting from a self obsessed ego-self towards an eco-self, which in my view is an essential process to insure a sustainable and viable future for all beings. I strongly agree with her supporting reasons, because, like Macy I also believe that the current ecological crisis is derives from a distorted and dysfunctional sense of self. General systems thinking informs us that everything is in constant flow of matter, energy and information. Creatures that isolate themselves from the flow of life eventually die.

Some ecofeminists like Marti Kheel would trivialise and dispute the concept of an ecological self, a view with which I totally disagree, as I can personally testify to the emergence of the ecological self, which is occurring in myself. I have witnessed this metamorphosis from the small self into this larger self in a growing number of people, as they become involved in the wellbeing and enhancing of all life. I agree that the ego-self has no interest or loyalty beyond its own “skin” and the effects of its self-absorption can be witnessed through the degradation and annihilation of our ecological world.

I find Joanna Macy’s argument compelling and indisputable in its logic and practice and I believe that the awakening of the ecological self is pivotal in the next stage of the evolution of Homo Sapiens. Without such a leap forward we will choke to death from the smog, the greed, terror, hate and loneliness of spirit produced by our shrivelled sense of self. Macy not only offers the theory, but also gives us the tools¹ for such a transformation from the ego-self towards an ecological self, a priceless gift for a society, which finds its deep interconnectedness with all life in a place beyond self-absorption.

1 Joanna Macy’s “Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect our Lives, Our World” (1998, New Society Publ., Canada) provides practices, rituals and meditations for individuals and groups with a framework to nurture the awakening of the ecological self.