For peace, justice, and life on Earth, fresh ways of seeing arise, and ancient ways return.

This web site opens doors to the new bodies of thought, time-tested spiritual practices, and pioneering group methods, that I find to be powerful inspirations to understanding and action. I share these resources in service to the revolution of our time: the "Great Turning" from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization.

In these pages you'll find key aspects of my work:

its sources in Buddhist teachings, living systems theory, and deep ecology;

its experiential methods for group learning, known as the Work that Reconnects, including despair work, deep ecology work, and deep time work;

information about workshops and trainings;

empowering ideas, such as Nuclear Guardianship and Judi Bari's Revolutionary Ecology;

and practices for inspiration and renewal, such as the Council of All Beings and the Elm Dance.

Partake and use for the healing of our world!

October 31, 2001

Dear People,

When 9/11 riveted our lives, I assumed at first that mine would go on as before. There were immediate gatherings, of course, vigils for peace instead of vengeance, and visits on Fridays to a mosque for solidarity with local Muslims. But soon I wondered how to proceed as I'd planned with a teaching trip to Germany: With my country going to war, dare I travel so far from my family? Dare I presume to teach about deep ecology and justice, as my government bombed civilians in Afghanistan, and my own heart with shame?

I am glad I went. The journey taught me a lot about the Great Turning.

I stopped in New York en route. Standing with those most affected by the tragedy, I learned that the grief that united them was not a call for retaliation. I went to pray at Ground Zero, where beyond the barricade the mountain of rubble still burned, then at Union Square, its expanse transformed into one vast altar for the dead, with flowers, candles, models of the Twin Towers, pictures of faces, names, prayers, drawings, scrawled messages. "Our grief is not a cry for war;" and "Do not dishonor the dead by bombing the innocent." I felt as if I'd entered some inner heart of the world, where the greatest loss ignites the deepest wisdom, and horror melts into compassion.

In Germany the next three weeks, giving workshops near Frankfurt and then in Freiburg in the Black Forest, I discovered that this inner heart is truly global. Burdened as I was by a sense of shame over American militarism, I had not expected my country's shock and grief to be so totally, compassionately shared by people half a world away, whose souls still bear the scars of war. The tears that came, as sorrow was spoken, had no nationality, nor did the resolve to walk new paths for a just peace.

As my German colleagues and I worked together, we found, once again, that the Great Turning provides a good conceptual framework for seeing the opportunities present now and guidance for the way ahead. An antidote to panic and paralysis, it lifted our sights, cleared our vision, ignited our energy and will. It was particularly helpful to discern the three dimensions of the Great Turning, as they continue to unfold even in the present crisis.

The first dimension, resistance to violence stemming from the industrial growth society, was most visible in mass demonstrations against the war. At the time of my workshops in Germany, scores of thousands of marchers in Berlin, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, protested the Schroeder administration's support for the bombing of Afghanistan. Along with quieter vigils for peace in uncounted small towns, these rallies occurred in spite of the media's enthusiastic alignment with President Bush as "the leader of the free world"--with dissenting voices reprimanded, and little if any coverage given to peace sentiments in the U.S. As I had experienced at home, many small acts of friendship and protection were being extended to local Arabs and Muslims; and ordinary folks were finding ways to raise money for deliveries of food and medicines inside Afghanistan, through such agencies as Doctors Without Borders.

Creation of alternative structures is the second dimension of the Great Turning: new ways of meeting our needs for food, housing, health, and a safe environment. Given Germany's achievements in composting and fossil-free energy, I was not surprised to see the elegant, ubiquitous measures for recycling, and the high blades of windmills turning above the plains of Schleswig Holstein--but still they made my heart sing. In Freiburg, I saw how an old French military base, established after the second World War, has been converted to a lively housing complex for five thousand people, soon to number 7,500. Vauban, as it's named, features single and multiple dwellings with the latest in passive solar and photovoltaic energy, car-free enclaves with fanciful gardens and playgrounds, and toilets that generate gas for cooking. North of there, in central Germany, a young biologist wades through streams counting the endangered freshwater mussel. I learned how his passion for the fate of this lowly creature is contagious: local schools are creating curricula around its preservation (great for teaching everything from math to writing, ecology, social studies); local townspeople and farmers, learning how and why their freshwater supply is disappearing, are taking measures to protect it.

The third dimension of the Great Turning is the shift in consciousness that is required for a life-sustaining civilization. Unless deeply grounded in our radical interdependence in the sacred web of life, all our protests, all our new approaches and technologies, will avail us nothing. This tidal change of spirit may not be featured in the news, but it sweeps in on us now in countless ways. I sensed it in the Sufi dance we offered before the Freiburg cathedral and in the faces of the dozens of passersby who joined us. I feel it in the courage of all who are searching their own souls and culture to plumb the roots of terrorism. I see it in journals like Tikkun, YES!, Resurgence, New Internationalist, EarthLight, and Richard Heinberg's MuseLetter, which, in their depth and breadth of vision, seem to become as necessary to me as oxygen.

September 23, 2001

Dear People,

The tragedy of September 11 brings grief beyond the telling--an anguish compounded now by fear, as war is proclaimed and its grim machinery set in motion. With the suddenness of a door banging shut, our lives, our country, and our world seem irreversibly changed. Yet, even in the darkness, lights glimmer, as if from unsuspected openings, beckoning us in new directions. Do you glimpse them? Despite my rage and despair, these shining possibilities make my heart leap with gratitude to be alive at this time.

My thankfulness list includes:

Now in the darkness upon us--both terrorist attacks and a vain military response costing millions more innocent lives and destroying entire ecosystems, while curtailing human rights--the lights I see glimmering are not only such blessings as those listed above (and we each can make our own list). New directions for our work can be glimpsed as well.

Let me try to convey...

The heart of the work is local: not massive demonstrations and protests (which can be labeled extremist and violently squashed), so much as groups of folks in every locality, linked in what I call "rough weather networks." Here resilience and trust are nurtured, and people watch out for each other. Inspiration is drawn from Latin American base communities and the Sarvodaya Movement's organizing methods in Sri Lankan villages, as well as from Virginia Hines' early model of SPINS (segmented poly-centric integrated networks).

Each local group is a node in the net (like the holographic image of Indra's Net, in Mahayana Buddhism). The goals and the glue that hold it together, in mutual trust, are not solely political, for the node addresses social and spiritual needs as well. The group may initially form to take action on a particular local issue, or to practice the Work That Reconnects, or to follow a study circle curriculum on corporate rule. But as it matures, its life includes and interweaves all of these elements: political, cognitive, and spiritual; together they provide its cohesion and lasting power. And for each of the elements, the resources are at hand. No mammoth new organization or funding is required. All that is needed is a shared hunger--and perhaps that is precisely the gift we'll find in this dark time.

Yours, in gladness for our common work,

Joanna

August 15, 2001

Dear People,

A major event of the summer for me was a 2-day conference put on earlier this month by the Institute for Deep Ecology in collaboration with a number of activist organizations (see http://www.deep-ecology.org/ for details). It was held at the Presidio, an old army base overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, and its theme was: "The Military and the Planet." What I learned and experienced there was both so appalling (which didn't surprise me) and so unexpectedly moving in the glimpses it gave of the Great Turning, that I want to share my experience of this event with you.

The form itself was a brilliant, refreshing departure from the usual conference format, where people sit in rows to face the speakers and look at the backs of others' heads. Instead we sat in concentric rings surrounding a small central circle with an altar in the middle; here the presenters held conversation with each other, using a portable mike as a talking stick. After the midmorning break, everyone, in small groups of four, had a chance to express their views and feelings about the issues raised. Then the circles re-formed for the final hour, and now two chairs were added at the center, so that anyone who wished could join the presenters for a few minutes at a time to take the "talking stick" and voice their questions or views. I hope this structure, devised by Doug Mosel and used in last year's IDE gathering, catches on. Participative and enlivening, it has worked so far with numbers up to 120, and may well do so with larger numbers.

And speaking of structure, the theme we were addressing, and the information we were receiving, were much easier to take in because we had created sacred space. The burning of sage and calling in the four directions at the outset of each day, as well as frequent evocation of the ancestors and future generations, gave us in a sense of interconnectedness through time and of purpose in this moment of our history.

Wonderful for me were the voices we heard. Many were young and many were people of color, latinos, African Americans, Native Americans. I can still hear Mario describing military recruiting drives in high schools; Sandra telling of the "drug wars" supporting U.S. corporations in her native Colombia; Zulma of Puerto Rico quietly reporting on depleted uranium strewn across inhabited Vieques by U.S. manoeuvers and artillery practice; Jejuana speaking of the warfare in both the schools and the gangs in her hometown of Watts. Though the vistas they opened were devastating, they inspired me deeply with the work they do, their energy, their intelligence, their clear understanding of what our military programs are costing our people and our planet.

Equally inspiring was the use of art by this new generation of activists. Rap, music, dance, drama, drumming, street theatre with giant puppets. Each midday our conference spilled out onto the grass of the Presidio, where young people from Art and Revolution and Youth for Environmental Sanity treated us to performances they'd prepared. Now the grim facts of militarization and economic globalization were cast into forms that let us laugh as well as weep--and set us to clapping and dancing our resolve to take charge of our lives, restore our world.

On the third day I led a workshop entitled "Earth Warriors," the first of a two-part series to be concluded in December. Here we drew on The Work That Reconnects to build spiritual practices for holding the information we had received, for working with fear, and for sustaining commitment to work for Earth and its beings. Such inner resources seemed more important than ever, if we are to deal with all we had been learning about in the conference--from advances in biological warfare to nuclear weapons in space, to mammal-killing sonar programs in the seas. I felt honored to be among so many strong warriors in training.

Yours as ever, in solidarity and peace,

Joanna

July 2001

Dear People,

I return from Assisi exhilarated by our third biannual deep ecology week with St. Francis, and would love to convey its flavor. I say "with" not "about," because that joyous patron saint of ecology became a vibrant presence to the 34 of us, living together within the walls of the old city and sometimes meeting as well in the olive groves above his beloved San Damiano chapel.

First of all, il Poverello (as he was known in the Assisi of his time) sang a lot, and we did too--starting each morning with a contemporary Italian setting of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, and seasoning our days with other life-celebratory songs in German, English, and Swahili too. My co-teacher and songleader Stephan Noethen, a German Gestalt therapist and deep ecologist, drew on his years as a Franciscan seminarian to recount chapters from Francesco's life in perspectives as fresh as today's news. Indeed each day's first session began with two 5-minute newscasts: one (by my husband Fran Macy) on current global events and the other (delivered in same radio-journalist fashion by Stephan's wife Xeto) offering news from eight centuries ago. E.g. "Rome, 1198, Pope Innocent III announces a new and fourth crusade to the Holy Land. Rome, 1199, to assist in military costs, the Supreme Pontiff levies the first papal income taxes."

The effect--and our intent throughout-- was to juxtapose our time with that of Francis. We came to see one epoch as a mirror of the other, in terms of such issues as the legitimization of war, the generation of poverty, the growth of a money economy and centralized power. And Francis's responses to these challenges--his radical rejection of property and wealth, his repeated refusal to establish a hierarchical order, his respect for women, his befriending of the outcast, the kinship he claimed with all life-forms--took on fresh relevance for us. Devoting half of each session to our own situation in 2001, contemplating our roles in the Great Turning of our own era, and using methods from the Work That Reconnects, we let this relevance became personally meaningful, even liberating. As Stephan put it, we were not only discovering the historical Francis, but an "inner Francis," to be found perhaps within each one of us.

It refreshes me, as always, to see the natural significance of spirituality for social change. This time I come back from Assisi with something more. It is Francis's tender, near-ecstatic love for life itself, for the incredible beauty and mystery of all its manifestations. He has opened my senses, peeled my eyes; I stop still and look, each thing, as if his own singing heart were mine as well. Il Povorello's buoyant gratitude for the gift of life sustained him through hardship, illness, overwhelming obstacles. In these hard times we all are facing, can I, can we, know that too?

In this spirit, I wish you a wonderful summer (and for those of you in the South a richly productive winter!).

Joanna