How can grief heal the relationship between humans and the rest of nature?

I argue in this paper that grief has the power to radically improve the exploitative relationship between humans and non-human nature. I identify the root of this troublesome relationship in humans’ perceived sharp ontological distinction between themselves and non-human nature and locate this separation within a larger hegemonic conceptual framework of oppositional hierarchical binaries, extensively analysed by ecofeminists. In order to challenge this ecologically harmful illusion of separation we must reconceptualise the human and the natural, free from the distortions of the dualistic framework which define the human in opposition to the natural. I firstly demonstrate how ecological grief can remedy the anthropocentric exclusion of the non-human from the realm of moral significance, allowing for a re-evaluation of the natural. Then I show how grief can help to reconceptualise the human by forcing us to confront the reality of our vulnerability and mortality, two aspects of our existence which are denied or ignored by the hegemonic framework. This corrects the distorted dualistic view that humans are exempt from the vicissitudes of embodiment on earth and exempt from the consequences of the destruction and degradation of life supporting ecosystems. In reconceptualising the human and the natural through insights offered by grief, we can emphasise the commonality of all beings, engendering a sense of solidarity with other creatures with whom we share both the mortal condition and this planet, which is therefore conducive to an improved relationship with the non-human world.