My Journey to Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects
My journey to The Work that Reconnects
From Rustling Leaves, my newsletter, 2/2/25:
Over thirty years ago, in a destiny dream: in a circle with others, I was giving voice to a tree and decrying human superiority. When I mentioned this powerful experience to a friend, she told me it sounded as if I was enacting a ritual which she had recently participated in with Joanna Macy. Within less than a year, I was given an opportunity to take a course with Joanna, where I was introduced to her unique interweaving of Deep Ecology, Systems Theory, and Engaged Buddhism. She invited us into intimacy with the more-than-human world while focusing on a ritual called Council of All Beings- which I recognized as being the circle in my dream. I was deeply impacted and wove some of her teachings into my BA degree in Mythopoetics and Sacred Ecology.
In the past few years, co-teaching courses in Eco-Spirituality, and Sacred Activism at Antioch University gave me a chance to return to Joanna’s work and bring her practices into the classroom. I was happy to see her work has flourished and expanded and is now called The Work that Reconnects. Indeed, the manual I had known decades ago, Coming Back to Life, co-authored with Molly Brown, has expanded to twice the size! I was moved by how deeply our students responded to the work.
In approaching my elder years, I am called to focus more and more on an eco-spiritual approach to climate despair and resourcing resilience in these urgent times.
In the fall of 2023, I attended a program given by The Work that Reconnects Network. (See my article in the Deep Times Journal: Reflections on the Gaian Gathering: Preparing for the Gaianthropocene)
Since September of 2024, I have been deeply immersed in takingThe Spiral Journey International Facilitator Development Training.It has been truly enriching to be one of only a handful of US citizens among participants from many continents. Besides being nourished by the course content, I am impressed by the way the course is structured and led. I look forward to facilliatating rituals, workshops and courses in the spring of 2025 and beyond. Please see my free offering on March 1st of Truth Mandala.