In this interview, Buddhist eco-philosopher and author Joanna Macy discusses her life and work. From her anti-nuclear activism in the late 60’s to her work with deep ecology, Joanna expresses the need to live within an ethic of care for the earth.
I feel such awe that at this very time that we’re landing ourselves in such a pickle as humans on this planet, or as life on this planet, that there’ve been two great rivers in the human journey, spirituality and science—and in our early days, they were interwoven, but they’ve been hideously separated over the last centuries, and we’ve been torn apart by that—and now, in our time, they’re flowing together, and the promise of that is huge. In every major religion there’re these voices, but it’s coming so strong from the indigenous ones—[saying] that the earth is alive, and the earth is sacred. That follows, because if the earth is all we have, then we’re totally dependent on [it], and then that is sacred to us; and [it follows] that we wake up in this time to the sacred that we’re living within and nourished by, the sacred living body of earth and its intelligence, her/his intelligence. And not only that, but I feel that in this time, the dangers we face are creating a huge evolutionary pressure on us to wake up to our true nature. We gotta wake up to that or we’re toast, bigtime.
I have had huge respect for Joanna Macy for decades now, since I read World As Lover, World As Self, in the early 90s. I had the privelege of meeting her when she came to the UK to tour with her translations of Rainer Maria Rilke. And then I attended a transformative 6-day workshop that she led around 2002.
I found her book Widening Circles to be a beautiful and inspiring read. The scale and breadth of her vision and her work continues to guide me in my own quiet way, as a Buddhist and ecologist, struggling to face the pain of the world.
Thank you, Joanna.. I love to hear your voice again. Your mind, consciousness and grounded wisdom is as sharp as ever – the Mother of the Greening of the Self.