Design that reconnects: Weaving Joanna Macy's teachings into design processes
One of the things I enjoy most about being a designer is that so much of the practice is centered around asking powerful questions.
Particularly as a designer passionate about climate justice, I am never short of questions to ask. How can we best stem ecosystem collapse? Who is most impacted by climate change, and who has the power to influence climate policies? Where are climate refugees migrating to and how are they cared for when they arrive? The list goes on and on.
There’s one question specifically that has plagued me from the beginning of my climate awakening: How come information about global ecosystem collapse is not inspiring more action? I searched many corners for answers and am grateful to have found Joanna Macy’s teachings, which I believe are inspired by this very inquiry.
Joanna Macy Ph.D is a scholar and author who weaves together her studies in Buddhism, systems thinking and deep ecology as well as her experience as an activist over six decades. She is the root teacher of The Work That Reconnects, a ground-breaking framework for personal and social change.
I think one of the things that makes Joanna such a world changer is her gift for storytelling. The foundational principles of The Work That Reconnects are not only succinct and compelling, they are also incredibly useful for any person living during this pivotal time.
I have been transformed by using these principles in my design approach and process. They have not only influenced my design practice, they have changed my life. In this entry, I will share the basics with you as well as examples of how these teachings can inform climate designers like us.
Three Stories of Our Time
Joanna explains that there are three stories which are happening simultaneously across the globe right now. We are observing and participating in a world that is flatlining, breaking down, and being rebuilt, all at the same time.
Business as Usual
This is the story of how our society is still operating from paradigms and patterns of colonialism and industrial growth. The default is to produce and consume, using resources in a way that is neither sustainable nor equitable. The historically wealthy and powerful maintain their dominance and control over the majority of people on our planet.
Design practice plays a major part in upholding this story. For example, designers produce advertisements that perpetuate consumerism and develop products that encode historical biases. Cartographers create geographic maps that shape both political power as well as a shared understanding of the landscapes we call home. Set designers and game designers mold our imaginations of not only our past and present but also our potential collective futures.
The Great Unraveling
There has for centuries been evidence of collapse, and in recent decades greater attention has been placed on this story. This is in part because of rapid changes in technologies and communications, which of course design has played a role in.
Design has led to the proliferation of personal computing devices, and their subsequent carbon and social costs. Design has also been used to educate people about climate collapse and about destructive societal systems, both in ways that cause alarm and despair and in ways that inspire individual and collective action.
The Great Turning
In the face of these two stories, a third story has been emerging, one that Joanna refers to as the Great Turning. Many people are actively working to shape our collective transition from an industrial growth society to a life-sustaining one. This work includes both honoring Indigenous traditions and cultivating the emergence of new possibilities.
Three Dimensions of the Great Turning
Just like with the three stories of our time, the three dimensions of the Great Turning are not linear, they are concurrent. Each dimension represents different ways that people are working together to build a different society, one that will sustain life on our planet Earth.
Holding actions to slow the damage to Earth and its beings
Typically, these actions might look like petitioning, protesting, boycotting, divesting, and indicting. In the field of design, it can look like creating materials and products that help people take the aforementioned actions, or others. Design can be especially effective here if it goes beyond information sharing and supports people in recognizing what they can do as individuals and groups to limit harm.
Co-creating structural alternatives
Visual and product designers can support ongoing education that helps people better understand not only the impacts that the industrial growth society has had on ecological, social, and psychological systems but also the reverse: the ways specific systems and structures have led to such impacts.
Designers, perhaps especially those in service design, can also help craft, draw attention to and/or amplify community-oriented solutions and systems that reduce reliance on fossil and nuclear fuels and uphold democratic principles. We need new patterns of relating with one another and with the land, new forms of education, new ways of measuring prosperity, etc. In general, this dimension is more proactive than the former one, it’s one looking to co-create a future we are still imagining.
Shifting consciousness
“Any new structures or patterns will die unless they are deeply rooted in our values, in our belief in what is worthwhile, and our assumptions about the nature of reality,” says Joanna.
Collectively imagining what is possible may be the area design can support the most. Design practices and processes (not just products) that are centered on values for liberatory justice and ecological sustainability provide not only the lenses but the experiences needed for the creation of societies based in such values.
As designers, we are shaping the world, and when we become aware of the values that are informing our designs, we can participate in shaping one that supports life.
Spiral of the Work That Reconnects
By now you might be pestered by your own question: But how?
The three stories and the three dimensions provide useful frameworks for thinking about how we can focus our energies on supporting life on this planet. But (remember my own persistent question) thinking is not enough.
In order to take appropriate action, we must navigate our emotional responses to these changing times, including avoidance and paralysis - not only in others, but in ourselves.
This last set of teachings is meant to support individuals and groups with moving from understanding the previous principles to putting them into action. They are, unlike the other teachings, linear steps that unfurl in a spiral expanding outward, which implies their continual unfolding. They have become touchstones for me in staying human during this transformational age.
Coming from Gratitude
“The originating impulse of all religious and spiritual traditions is gratitude for the gift of life,” writes Joanna. “Gratitude is politically subversive in the Industrial Growth Society. It helps inoculate us against the consumerism upon which corporate capitalism depends.”
“Gratitude is at the core of Indigenous culture on Turtle Island (North America),” she continues. “And that is an inspiration for all of us as we face the Great Unraveling and the suffering it brings. There is so much to be done, and the time is so short. We can proceed, of course, out of grim and angry desperation. But the tasks proceed more easily and productively from an attitude of thankfulness; it lets us rest in our deeper powers.”
In my experience, it is too uncommon to see gratitude included in design processes at any point. Yet I can’t help but wonder, why are we creating new products, services, or systems, if we aren’t appreciating what is already working?
In my design practice, I endeavor to start not only each design project but each day with gratitude for at least three things. Firstly, the gifts I’ve received from many teachers that grant me the ability to and the honor of practicing design in the first place. (Naturally, Joanna is one of the teachers I appreciate. I will share about more of my teachers in entries to come.)
Secondly, I am grateful for collaborators, be they community members, colleagues, or other people that co-participate in some way in the design process. These people are my teachers too, offering me lessons daily if I choose to see it so. They are my co-creators, and together we are able to create what none of us could at the mere individual level.
Thirdly, I am grateful for the opportunity to be alive at this time and thus to be participating in any way in the Great Turning. I realize for some it may seem unfathomable to be grateful for living in this age of rapid change and increasing collapse, and it is only because of Joanna’s teachings (including the ones I will describe next) that I have been able to find myself in this place of acceptance, wonder, and even joy.
Honoring our Pain for the World
I will admit it candidly: I was an incredibly reluctant designer. I did not want to participate in an industry that is not only complicit with industrial growth but also driving it, to some extent. I never would’ve imagined I’d be working in the tech sector today. I do so while also simultaneously mourning that this sector is pumping tons of carbon into the atmosphere on a daily basis, while also often perpetuating a wide variety of social harms.
This is of course the teeniest tip of the iceberg when it comes to confronting the painful truths of our time. Joanna’s sage and rare counsel is to stare the pain right in the face, to feel it deep in our bones, to shed tears not alone but together. This teaching flies in the face of existing norms, ones which tellingly underpin the systems we need to shift away from.
It’s easy to collapse into paralyzing despair, but that is not what is meant by honoring our pain. I have found that I can regularly, consciously, and relatively simply allow myself to feel and experience my climate grief - and that when I do I actually become more capable of taking actions, especially new ones.
But jumping into action is not where the spiral goes, yet. I believe as designers we aren’t taught enough about the importance of slowing down, pausing, reflecting, and reframing.
Seeing with New/Ancient Eyes
As designers, our craft is tied to the gift of sight (including accessible design which has the foresight to consider those who use assistive technologies due to visual impairment). But, like most everyone else, we are prone to looking through the spectors we inherited from our ancestors, our culture, our teachers, or all the above.
This part of the spiral invites us to broaden our view. We consider the perspectives not only of different people sharing this space-time, but also of long-past ancestors, of future generations, and of non-human fellow beings.
I’m not like other designers as I have from the beginning of my design practice drawn from teachers and disciplines outside the traditional bounds of the design field (as evidenced by this entry and more to come). Many designers who are passionate about climate concerns may likewise be drawing influence from biomimicry, ecological design, and regenerative design, for example.
How else might we seek out new lenses? Of late, I have been engaged in deep studies of sacred geometry and somatic liberation. I remain curious about a broad range of designs and technologies, especially those that are precolonial and/or not man-made, and how they might inform my design practice.
Going Forth
Coming from gratitude, honoring our pain, and seeing with new eyes, we are now prepared to go forth and fully participate in the Great Turning.
In her book Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy, Joanna asks: If you knew you could not fail, what would you most want to do for the healing of our world? I ask myself this question on a regular basis, and I observe how my responses evolve over time.
I hope learning about Joanna’s teachings inspires you, and I encourage you to follow this thread beyond this reading. Her teachings are meant to be experienced, particularly within a group context, so I highly recommend you explore further by engaging with the worldwide Work That Reconnects Network and seeking out interviews with Joanna like this one.
This entry is the first in a series of articles that will build on the Spiral framework. Stay tuned for more to come about other teachers whose wisdom can support your climate design practice.
So, call-to-action time
Head over to the Climate Designers community space on Mighty Networks and let us know what thoughts this entry inspires! And make sure to check out the Work That Reconnects Network and other works from Joanna.
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Whether you are a prospective writer/contributor, a commenter, or a reader: new experiences, new connections, and ways of seeing the world leave us richer than before.
This entry was written by
Lydia Hooper
Lydia Hooper is a hybrid professional with special expertise in communicating about complexity, facilitating collaborative design processes, and guiding teams through transformation. She works as a UX Designer in the civic tech sector. Lydia is an active member of the Design Justice Network Communications Working Group, a collaborator on All Tech is Human's Guide to Responsible Tech, and co-author and editor of The Authoritative Guide to Designing Infographics. You can learn more at www.lydiahooper.com.