Storytelling is an integral part of human culture that has existed since the beginning of time. Stories can wield a strong influence over our attitudes and behaviour. The stories we hear and relay affect how we understand ourselves and the world around us. They can change how we relate to each other by increasing empathy and reducing prejudice.
Eco-spiritual teacher and author Joanna Macy is a respected voice in movements for peace, justice and ecology. She tells three stories to help people to make sense of the multiple crises we are facing, to understand what is happening and how we might respond.
Business As Usual
Business As Usual – This is the story of our industrial growth society, the dominant narrative of our time, which we hear from people in business, the media and in government. This is the story that identifies us as consumers, championing economic growth and bringing us many things that we have come to expect: personal choice; convenience; and the right of the individual to consume. Business As Usual says that this is how the world works and anything that gets in the way of our right to consume – global heating, flooding, pandemics – is just a temporary inconvenience that can be overcome with more economic growth or the right technology. Continuing ‘as normal’ is key, no matter the exploitation, destruction and violence that it wreaks to keep on track. Business As Usual keeps us preoccupied with ‘stuff’, wanting bigger and better, even though we know in our hearts that life is about so much more than status and the things we possess.
The Great Unravelling
The Great Unravelling – this is the story of the myriad ways that humans are destroying the earth – deforestation, species extinction, pollution, soil erosion leading to health and refugee crises, famine and war. This is the story of ecological and social unravelling happening increasingly all around us, where the world’s most vulnerable and marginalised people are hit first and the worst. We get used to hearing reports of heatwaves, drought and extreme storms about on the news and, for those of us who have the privilege of living in relative calm at the moment, it is hard not to just turn away from the reality that this points us to. This is not normal. The last ten years have been the hottest on record. Things are not just falling apart, they are being torn apart… by Business As Usual.
The Great Turning
The Great Turning – This is the story of the many people who are feeling outraged about what is happening to our world and are joining with others to help create a global movement to build a more just and life-sustaining way of living together. This is the story of a longing to live in a world where there is clean air and water and safe food to eat, with enough for everyone, regeneration of soil, fair wages and good work for all who need it, space for wild nature, strong communities where everyone is welcome and free to express themselves, where we care for children the sick and our elders. This is a story brimming with possibility, bringing us back into right relationship, accepting our responsibility to protect what is sacred, learning just ways of living, with less consumption and more community and working together co-operatively.
Joanna teaches that these three stories are all happening concurrently at this time and that we all have the freedom to make choices. These may not be choices of where we live, or how much money or power we have, but we always have a choice of how we respond and what to give our attention to. We are all involved in differing ways in each of these three stories and we can all choose which of these stories we most value and want to dedicate our lives to.
The more we choose The Great Turning, the more we look for it and join together with others who are a part of it, the stronger this story becomes.
The Great Turning offers the possibility of creating a world that does not yet exist, but comes into being because of our commitment to it, through The Great Unravelling and turning away from Business As Usual.
Jakki Phillips
Love this❤️❤️❤️ thank you xx