Joanna Macy is joining the ancestors
she taught me the depth of my care
Yesterday I visited the church of Älvdalen. The first witch trials in Sweden were held here in the 17th century, an event that initiated the mass hysteria of witch persecutions in Sweden. I was shown around by one of the descendants of these women, often wise healers, closely connected to nature, who did not bend to authority. The Great Turning from fear to cooperation with and reverence of nature and the feminine takes time and patience, but recently a monument was erected calling for peace over their memory.
In the church I lit a candle for Joanna Macy, one of my most important teachers. She has been around for almost a century and is now about to make the transition to join the ancestors. But Joanna, teaching us so much about Deep time, is one of those whose presence lives on, when the body does not.
The first time I met with Joanna she was not even in the room. I remember it vividly. It was 2009 and a Transition Launch course in Sala, Sweden. I didn’t know that I would experience great adventures with the people gathered in that circle, all but one total strangers. I remember a very new thought popped in my head: “these guys know the value of a root cellar”. Meeting them in Joanna’s Double circle (or Seventh Generation) exercise was profound. I also met myself there. Before that experience, I didn't know the depth of my care for the world and its inhabitants. That moment, my life shifted. I felt clearly that I wanted to commit my precious lifetime to participating in the Great Turning. It felt like an easy thing to do. This is the gift of Joannas Work that Reconnects: the felt sense that I belong, I care, I can choose to care even if the world around me doesn’t and this knowing dissolves the separation between me and the world.
One year later I travelled by train to Lindenberg, a small German town on the border to Switzerland for a deep dive in the Work that Reconnects. What stays with me most from these intense days is spending over an hour totally dissolved in tears over the state of the world, as witnessed in a huge circle of over 100 people in a Truth Mandala. Most of the truths were spoken in German (which I understand only in bits and pieces) but they still hit me. Joanna would say we can deal with the truth, because we are already experiencing it. Shutting it off doesn´t make it go away; it drains the energy we need so well for these times.
Coming from the environmental movement, which often clings to tiny strings of the most improbable hope for fear of distancing people, the notion that grief is welcome and something to honour was very liberating for me. Feelings of fear, despair or anger are not negative, and allowing them is not about surrendering or giving up. They are a true and necessary response in a time of unravelling, part of the immune system of the Earth. Keeping them away is neither useful nor innocent. It literally leads to a-pathy (away from pain) and this is the greatest danger, says Joanna: “of all the dangers we face, from climate chaos to nuclear war, none is so great as the deadening of our response.“ But when we take our pain seriously, when we speak it and share it, hold it and honour it, pain becomes an ally; even a source of power, a sign that we are a part of a living whole which is so much greater than ourselves. There is a lot to grieve in the times we share today. Holding space for grief is sacred work. It means holding space for love. We only grieve what we love, and through grief we can discover the depth of our love for the world.
It has happened a lot lately that people ask me how I can stay joyful being acutely aware of all the great crises unfolding. I think the main answer is this lesson from Joanna. The presence of pain does not diminish joy - quite the contrary. Allowing pain and grief widens the scope of lived experience; creates space for joy, beauty and awe. And “the heart that breaks can hold the whole universe”!
A deep faith and trust in humanity permeates Joanna’s work. This is something rare nowadays, when there is so much misanthropy, cynicism and hopelessness around. Humans, as self-reflexive beings, can choose life. We can choose to participate in the healing of our world, and doing that is to embark on a great adventure.
Last time I met Joanna was at Bioneers 2017. I filmed her reciting a poem from Rilkes Book of Hours: Go to the limits of your longing (which she has also translated, with Anita Barrows). The way Joanna recites it is so much her: the presence, the lightness, the depth, the moment of subtle situational silliness as she receives a prompt towards the end… She begins with changing the first word of the poem from the masculine “God” to the feminine “Earth”:
Looking back, I think I have lived according to this poem. It’s been wild. When you get accustomed to live at the limits of your longing, soon nothing less will make sense. Even when people condemn or chastise you for your choices.
The Work that Reconnects, as all spiritual practices, begins with gratitude. I am so grateful for meeting Joanna and for the opportunities to share the Work that Reconnects through Transition Sweden and the ecopsychology programme “Earth is the Home of the Soul” with Lodyn. As Joanna writes in Coming back to life: “we can see ourselves as part of a larger flow of giving and receiving throughout time. Receiving from the past, we can give to the future.”
Thank you so much for all that you have given, Joanna Macy. You chose life at every breath and your presence lives on. We will just keep going and not let ourselves lose you!
This is gorgeous and very moving, Pella. I have been feeling Joanna's slipping away this past week. Thank you. Adam
Beautiful. 🙏🏾❤️