CREATIVE PROJECT

Vivienne Elanta 12021131

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

Aidan Davison

The Idea of my creative project was born on the way home from the Animal Rights lecture. I felt so deeply distressed for several days after. What concerned me was how my fellow students would process and integrate the information about the suffering of animals for experimentation. I knew that I had the skills to deal with my own emotional overload. So several days later I became quite excited about the idea of sharing my knowledge and skills with my fellow tutorial students by offering a very creative process in the form of a “Despair Ritual”. Although I have been extensively trained in leading this work, I have never led this particular despair ritual I wanted to share with the group.

I am convinced that despair work is very essential in coping with the bad news with which we are daily bombarded. To shut down or look away will not address our current ecological and social crisis we are finding ourselves in as humans. To face reality and sustain the gaze is absolutely vital in order to respond to difficult situations confronting us everyday.

Shared grief within a ritual setting is very powerful and allows the participants to feel their deep interconnectedness with each other and the more than human world. The process also frees up a lot of energy, which was previously used to suppress our pain we feel in response to the suffering in the world. This energy can now be used for positive action in the form of projects etc.

Reclaiming ritual of such nature, especially within an academic environment is so important for the healing/wholing process for our tattered world.

I hope to make a worthwhile contribution by offering my creative project as a shared experience, which students can choose to draw from for the rest of the semester and hopefully beyond.

I am very grateful to Joanna Macy for her wisdom and knowledge in this work, which she has pioneered over the last 30 years and so generous shared with me.