Empathy

In her popular new Exchange book, The Goodness of Rain:  Developing an Ecological Identity in Young Children, Ann Pelo talks about empathy from an ecological point of view:

"Empathy is cornerstone to an ecological identity.  Empathy turns us toward the living world with imagination and curiosity, with courage enough to let go of our habitual and easy understandings, with willingness to experience the vulnerability of disequilibrium.  Empathy sizes us in right proportion to others, not more-than or better-than, or worthier-than, but connected by the shared capacity for joy and suffering.

"Empathy asks that we consider the well-being of other creatures when we act.  The etymology of 'empathy' is instructive; it comes from the Greek empatheia: 'affection, passion, partiality. Empathy braided into an ecological identity asks that we act with partiality for the Earth and its beyond-human beings — with partiality for the worm on the sidewalk."

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