What Are Ecozoic Studies? - Center for Ecozoic Studies

The Art and Skill of Living Well in Earth Community

Herman Greene

Ecozoic studies concern the art and skill of living well in Earth Community. Modern humans are not very good at this. There are exceptions ancient and contemporary— and from these exceptional human individuals and communities we need to learn— but broadly speaking, we moderns are not very good at this.

By describing ecozoic studies as above, we mean to emphasize that to engage in ecozoic studies is not just intellectual. One might think of the training of a dancer which continues from the time of beginnings and continues, often with even more vigor, when levels of proficiency are attained.

Or take a tennis player. A tennis player needs a coach at the beginning to learn basic skills and those tennis players who are at the highest level need full-time coaches. The need for study continues and in the case of both the dancer and the tennis player practice is essential. There is no learning without practice because what one learns with one’s head or by observing others has to become embodied. The skills that one learns become art . . . the seemingly effortless and beautiful expression of embodied skills.

Alfred North Whitehead wrote that the aim of the universe is the production of beauty. Beauty aims at harmonization and intensification of feeling. “Thus, in its broadest sense, art is civilization. For civilization is nothing other than the unremitting aim at the major perfections of harmony.”¹⁴ Truth and beauty are reflected in human experience in science and art.

In them the finite consciousness of [humankind] is appropriating as its own the infinite fecundity of nature. In this movement of the human spirit types of institutions and types of professions are evolved. Churches and Rituals, Monasteries with their dedicated lives, Universities with their search for knowledge, Medicine, Law, methods of Trade—they all represent that aim at civilization, whereby the conscious experience of [humankind] preserves for its use the sources of Harmony.¹⁵

In this issue, Meijun Fan wrote about “Resolving Grievances.” In her article she gave the Chinese meaning of harmony. She said “harmony is different from sameness because it includes differences; it opens to and invites differences to come in. Without difference, harmony is not harmony at all. . . . Harmony is constructive and always brings new things into existence, but sameness does not. It is destructive. . . . Harmony is openness, but sameness is not. Harmony is closely related to openness. Whereas sameness is built on closing things off by pretending they are identical. Harmony is built on cultivating difference and respecting otherness.”

So when we describe ecozoic studies as involving art and skill we mean all of these understandings above.

In another article in this issue by the present author on “How Do We Live Well on Earth with All of Her Beings?” the Latin American understandings of buen vivir were discussed. This, also, applies to living well as a part of ecozoic studies. And to this, we might add these definitions of “well” from the American Heritage Dictionary.

well (adv.)

In a good or proper manner: behaved well.
Skillfully or proficiently: dances well.
Satisfactorily or sufficiently: slept well.
Successfully or effectively: gets along well with people.
With reason or propriety; reasonably: can’t very well say no.
In a prudent or sensible manner: You would do well to say nothing more.
In a close or familiar manner: knew them well.
In a favorable or approving manner: spoke well of them.
Thoroughly; completely: well cooked; cooked well.
Perfectly; clearly: I well understand your intentions.
To a suitable or appropriate degree: This product will answer your needs equally well.
With care or attention: listened well.
Entirely; fully: well worth seeing.

Continuing with the discussion of ecozoic studies, “in Earth Community” differs from on Earth Community. Moderns have lived on Earth Community in the sense of using Nature and being superior to it and seeking to control it. They see themselves as separate from Nature. Ecozoic studies involve moving from an orientation of separation to one of interdependence, entanglement, and mutuality.

Finally, ecozoic studies concern the integration of (i) human knowledge in science and technology as they have developed in the modern period with (ii) the wisdom of the humanities as developed in various cultures and times, including Indigenous wisdom, and (iii) the intelligence of the lifeworld of plants, animals, life systems, and ultimately the evolving universe and higher orders of meaning inherent in the universe’s processes. The last is the first knowledge on which the other two depend. Ecozoic studies, thus, could also be called lifeworld studies.

Ecozoic studies are radically transdisciplinary—science, humanities, lifeworld. Evolution is now dependent on human culture, and developing the culture for the Ecozoic era is dependent on ecozoic studies with the recognition, as stated above, that ecozoic studies include practices.

Many groups and individuals are involved in ecozoic studies whether they call their studies by this name or not. Naming these studies as ecozoic studies ties them to the lineage of Thomas Berry. We of CES humbly take our place in this lineage and commit anew to the four key tasks that have guided us since we began in 2000, which are

To provide education concerning the “Ecozoic era” and the “Great Work,” so that these terms and their meanings may become part of the global lexicon.
To support research, publications, education, events, arts, literature, and action concerning ecozoic (life-giving) societies.
To assist in the sharing of critical reflections, stories, dream experiences, and practices of and for the Ecozoic era.
To provide resources for individuals and groups engaged in the Great Work.

14 Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (1933, 1^st paperback ed., New York: The Free Press, 1967), 271.

15 Ibid., 272.