Dear Friends,
Joanna Macy, The beloved Root Teacher of the Work That Reconnects, is living her Dying Process, right now, with all the Presence and Love for All Life that she brought to her Living Process.
(Photo caption: My way of honoring Joanna Macy during this time of her passage through the portal…)
The Work That Reconnects completely and totally changed my life when I discovered it in late 2015. When I began reading Macy’s 1991 book “World As Lover, World As Self,” it felt as though she was writing about me, and I remember feeling seen and understood for the first time in my life!
Among the passages that reflected the very depths of my soul were these:
“At the prospect of the extinction of a civilization, feelings of grief and horror are natural. We tend to hide them, though, from ourselves and each other… the sensations can be intense and physical…mine were sudden and wrenching. I would be at my desk, alone in my study translating a Buddhist text, and the next moment I would find myself on the floor, curled like a fetus and shaking.”
“In our culture the acknowledgment of despair for the future is a kind of social taboo and those who break it are considered ‘crazy,’ or at least ‘depressed and depressing.’…To feel despair in such a cultural setting brings a sense of isolation… The distance between our inklings of apocalypse and the tenor of business-as-usual is so great… as to seem to border on madness…”
Joanna Macy and all who contributed to the development of the Work That Reconnects over the last 46 years made our despair for what Humans are doing to the Earth, each other, and All Life be what connects us to each other, and a legitimate conversation to have socially and culturally.
The Queer Despair and Resilience Circle that I’ve just launched is an outgrowth of my own facilitation of this beautiful work since I had the deep privilege of attending a 10 day workshop with Macy in September of 2016.
The Work That Reconnects is an incredible gift that Joanna Macy contributed to this magnificent and ailing World- this World As Lover, World As Self.
Blessings and Courage,
Betti