Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
connection to nature, and to ground these ethical insights in practical action in the ser-
vice of genuine ecological sustainability. The emphasis on action is what distinguishes
deep ecology from other ecophilosophies, and is what makes deep ecology a
movement
as much as a philosophy. Perhaps the most fundamental insight of the movement is that
all life has intrinsic value, irrespective of its value to humans.
For me, there are three radically interconnected senses of the word 'deep' in deep
deep ecology in oneself one can begin to develop what Naess calls one's own personal
'ecosophy', or ecological wisdom—a way of being in the world which minimises harm
to nature whilst enhancing one's own feelings of awe, wonder and belonging.
Figure 2: Three senses of 'deep' in the deep ecology approach.
First, there is
deep experience,
which is the sense of profound waking up into Gaia ex-
perienced by Aldo Leopold when he looked into the eyes of the dying wolf out in the
mountains of New Mexico, and by David Abram in his Indonesian cave. Deep exper-
ience needn't be as dramatic as Leopold's or Abram's, nor is it felt only in wilderness
areas, for there are many kinds of deep experience. Some people have them whilst tend-
ing small window boxes in the city; others experience a continuous, almost background
sense of deep connectedness to nature. My own practices as a deep ecology educator
have shown me that for most of us deep experience lies just below the surface of every-
day awareness, and that a slight shift of context can easily make it visible. Deep experi-
ence is easily evoked, but its ethical implications are more difficult to assimilate.
This assimilation happens when one engages in
deep questioning
of both oneself and
society. In questioning oneself, one asks whether one is living in a way which is con-
sistent with the general flavour of one's deep experience by using the rational mind to
