In loving memory of Joanna Macy
Image credit: Brooke Porter
Over the last two weeks, we bore witness as our beloved Joanna Macy slowly let go of her earthly body. On Saturday, she joined the ancestors on 19 July at 3:56PM Pacific Time.
It’s difficult to find the words to express my deep and profound gratitude for her activism, her ministry and her legacy.
I came across Joanna Macy’s work at a retreat in Devon for burnt-out activists. Several people had brought copies of the book she co-authored with Chris Johnstone, “Active Hope", for the collective library. The fact that there were several copies of the book made it stand out as a sacred text. When I read the subtitle – “How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy” – I knew I just had to read it.
So I drank it in like I was thirsty for life-giving water. And that is what it was for me – life-giving, quenching, refreshing, revitalising and rejuvenating.
Through that book, I encountered The Work That Reconnects, her sacred offering to the world. It lit a fire in me that I didn’t know was there. It awakened within me the desire to be part of the Great Turning - the cultural, economic, political, spiritual and philosophical shift from the mindset of extraction and ecocide that is at the root of our industrial growth society, to an Earth-honouring, life-sustaining commitment to healing and regeneration.
As a result, I created POC In Nature, and became an accidental environmentalist. I know I'm not alone in having this experience with Joanna Macy’s work.
The Work That Reconnects calls us to begin with gratitude and remember.
It call us to remember and grieve for our ancestral wisdom that was erased by colonialism. It calls us remember our deep reverence and grief for the Earth. And it calls us to remember the interconnected web of life we are all part of, an orientation towards life that is encoded within our ancestral DNA.
I carry this Joanna Macy’s grateful and remembering spirit in my work. Her offerings are a thread that runs through my training, facilitation and coaching, enabling me to create space for clients and communities I work with to touch their grief, experience tenderness, model courageous transparency and activate collective healing.
Her work models how to build beloved community rooted in shared vision and purpose, and how to practice compassionate accountability with ourselves, each other and the Earth.
Over the past 2 weeks, there has been an outpouring of grief, love, reverence and gratitude from the Work That Reconnects community and beyond, as we collectively witnessed the transition of our beloved teacher.
Even in her dying, Joanna Macy modelled grace, creativity, humour, presence, love, and deep compassion. She showed us how to love this world and each other fiercely. She showed us how to practice the truth of impermanence and pass the baton to the generations that come after us.
When someone of stature, power and greatness dies, many West Africans say that a great library has burned down.
And what a great library it was.
Joanna, you did well with the life you were given. Thank you for showing us how to live, how to be human, how to become good ancestors.
May we honour your legacy as we follow our individual and collective dharmas – each of us walking the trail you blazed back to the truth of who we really are: earthkeepers, bodhisattvas, nature saving herself, instrumental to the regenerative resourcing and healing justice for the Earth and all its beings.
My gratitude and grief is so profound that my English is finished. So I will I go back to the small, small Twi that remains on my tongue, and say:
Wayɛ adeɛ – You’ve done well
Meda wo ase paa – I thank you deeply
Gye wo ho me – Take your rest
Da yie – Sleep well.
Joanna, may you rest in peace, in power and in endless waves of possibility.
