Justice as Ecology, Spirituality, and Balance

When I reflect on justice, I think about what it means, who is it for, and what is at stake if we don’t have it? This line of questioning always brings me to what I know to be true, justice is vital. And not superficially vital in that way that justice is in my “top 10 most important things to do” kind of way. Rather if I were to point to the values I adhere to in my life – the values which guide my decision making, justice is one of them. It used to not be in there. Previously, I had compassion, love and relationship. Adding justice, means that when I ask, “what’s at stake?” I am reminded that humanity is at stake – the humanity of my brothers and sisters of our planet, of our relationships with each other. Interlinking justice with compassion, love, and relationship means I reframe how I perceive and experience ecology, spirituality, and balance.

Ecology as justice speaks to a reciprocal relationship with the earth and all livingkind. When we care for each other and the land in an ecological manner, then justice becomes a reflection of wealth and security which is rooted inside a community bonded by reciprocity and gratitude. (Wall, 2013, Raworth, 2017). Spirituality speaks to a kind of justice that integrates activism driven by the sacred covenants and vows we make to each other. And finally, balance as justice speaks to a kind of ebb and flow of energy, resources, commerce, power. It’s a concept of life in motion. A life that is constantly seeking to regenerate, distribute and restore.

ECOLOGY AS JUSTICE

The scholars who have impacted the foundation of my framework for ecology as justice are Robin Wall Kimmerer, Kate Raworth, and Giovanna DiChiro. For all three of these activists and scholars, they use nature as a model for humanity to live by. With our earths ecosystem at the core, ecology becomes a model for a system of reciprocity and gratitude. (Kimmerer, 2013). Supporting the inner foundations of ecology as justice, success is found in community well-being and environmental health (Raworth, 2017). Ecology as justice means a belief in earthly abundance while at the same time obeying the natural laws that govern our biosphere. It also means that we have social and moral agreements to reciprocate and to “pay it forward.” (Raworth, 2017) By paying it forward, individual success is built upon a foundation of a thriving community. Nestled inside a system of ecology is a belief that the natural world is a gift, which is meant to be honored. For ecological justice occur we must believe in cooperation, limits to growth and diversity. (Raworth, 2017)

When I think of ecological justice I am reminded of a quote from David Sloan Wilson a professor of biology and anthropology, “Competition makes evolutionary sense only when we consider the unit of evolution to be the individual. When the focus shifts to the level of a group, cooperation is a better model, not only for surviving, but for thriving.” Domination culture exposes concepts of scarcity and limited resources which are upheld by promoting individualism as the cure. As a response, ecological justice counters domination culture by believing in diversity as an anecdote to scarcity. “If there is not enough of what you want, want something else.” (Raworth, 2019, p.19).

Building upon the Environmental Justice movement, ecology as justice requires us to think “ecosystemically” (Di Chiro, 1998) by focusing on more than just single-issue environmentalism. DiChiro wrote an essay called, Nature as Community. (1998). In it she exposed the flaws of the mainstream environmental movement declaring it a movement which served to exclude people of color in low-income communities from conversations about the health of our urban environment and at the same time, fore fronting single issues like protection of the spotted owl or the grey wolf in our national park systems. Ecological justice invites environmental historians to reflect on not just the environmental crisis of our planet but also to reflect on the interlinked crisis between racism and the environment. DiChiro writes about our colonial history of slavery and the stealing of land from Native Americans, how African Americans have been systematically kept from land ownership, and about the ongoing injustices of toxic duming and waste sites located in predominately black and brown, low-income neighborhoods, consisting of mostly women and young children.

Together, DiChiro, Kimmerer, Raworth, taught me that the earth is life giving and she calls on us to respect her boundaries. Using ecology as a framework for justice when I ask myself “What’s at stake?” I think, my community and the supportive network which serves to nurture our connections with all livingkind, that’s what’s at stake.

SPIRITUALITY AS JUSTICE

When I think about the scholars who have informed me about spirituality and justice, I think first of john a. powell (2012) and Rev. angel Kyodo Williams. Powell (2016) explores how social justice can be used to inform our development of spirituality. In his book, Racing to Justice (2012) he writes about two types of suffering – spiritual suffering and social suffering. Powell writes how spiritual suffering is rooted in existential suffering – one that reminds us that our body is only here for a limited time. Social suffering, on the other hand, is a type of suffering which is informed by our ontological and metaphysical theories of how social organizations in the community are structured. It is suffering that is caused by systems which are built upon deep inequities around race, gender, class as well to name a few. He writes if spirituality is to engage with suffering, then it must be troubled with how our social organizations function in society. In other words, we must also be concerned with how we are perpetuating suffering through systemic racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, anti-able bodied and misogynistic thinking. Powell writes, “spirituality is the practice of addressing ontological suffering by relating to something more authentic or larger than the egoistic self.” (powell, 2012, p. 208). Powell reminds me that my spiritual practice is constantly engaging and seeking justice from the suffering found in humanity.

Spirituality is at the heart of many human rights movements – movements which are driven by a need to end suffering. For world leaders like Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Dr. Martin Luther King, social justice was essential to their spiritual practice and development. Powell shares that none of them began their social justice activism with a spiritual practice already intact. Instead, their work for spiritual justice was the act of cultivating and refining their spiritual practice.

Reading Rev. angel Kyodo Williams (2016) book, Radical Dharma, I find guidance on liberation, whiteness, oppression and the “unwrangleability of love.” Rev. angel speaks to spirituality and justice as a kind of radical self-care and radical self-love. She describes them both as being rooted in the notion that we take care of ourselves by taking care of each other. Together, these two authors taught me that spirituality is about relationship with livingkind. When I am in relationship with you or any other living thing, I have a greater sense of interconnectedness. Acknowledging our ties, I am inclined to expand my sphere of empathy and compassion such that I include those who are suffering. And I am guided to heal my own sense of suffering with the radical notion of doing so by first caring for others. Spirituality as justice can brings us together to acknowledge the fullness of our community boundaries – boundaries which outline us as unified on a single planet as opposed to the us/them conditions created by geopolitical lines.

BALANCE AS JUSTICE

Ann-Cathrin Jarl defines justice as, “not as a state of affairs, but as a continuing effort to overcome injustice.” May Elawar describes her understanding of the Goddess Ma’at. “In constant motion, Ma’at is not about beliefs and laws, but about regaining balance.” What Elawar is teaching me, is that like a balancing act, justice is not something that sits still. Implied in the word justice is an action, a desire to right-size, and bring harmony. Balance as justice feels like the perfect interconnected link to ecology and spirituality because balance speaks to the interconnectedness and movement inherent in both the earth as a teacher, and to spirituality as an ongoing development and practice. Elawar teaches me that Ma’at is known as the Goddess of truth and justice and writes about the Goddess as “a regulating system that takes into consideration how things come together peacefully and harmoniously, and acknowledges that justice is found in the constant motion from harmony to disharmony to harmony.”

Ma’at seeks justice in the motion of a balancing act that never ends. As a balancing force, ecology is a continuous consideration of resources and diversity in nature and thrives in a system which uses, distributes, and replenishes. Likewise, spirituality is something that comes from a practice of compassion which is in formed by activism and the desire to end suffering for our sisters, brothers, the spirit world, animals, and plants. And finally, spirituality, like balance, is constantly in motion, being developed and liberated such that we radically care for our whole community as way of caring for ourselves.

References

Di Chiro, G.D. (1998). Nature as community: The convergence of environment and social justice. In D. Faber (Ed.) The struggle for Environmental Democracy: Environmental Justice Movements in the United States (pp. 298-320). New York: Guilford.

Kimmerer Robin Wall. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass : indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.

Powell John, A. (2012). Racing to justice : transforming our conceptions of self and other to build an inclusive society. Indiana University Press.

Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut economics : seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. Chelsea Green Publishing.

Williams, A. K. (2016). Radical dharma : talking race, love, and liberation. North Atlantic Books.