The hour is striking so close above me,
so clear and sharp,
that all my senses ring with it.
I feel it now: there’s a power in me
to grasp and give shape to my world.
From Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows.
Many of us have been touched by the work and thought of Joanna Macy, who passed away on July 19th at the age of 96. From her first book, Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age (borrow it free online from the Internet Archive), which began to expose a broader audience to her work on despair and empowerment, to the ecological wisdom of Thinking Like a Mountain: Toward a Council of All Beings, to the growing network of practitioners in The Work That Reconnects, she helped countless individuals and groups wrestle with the grief and pain of witnessing harm to our planet and fellow beings, and use that to ground themselves in love for transformative action.
Those who would like to gather with others can join an international online celebration of life on August 5th.
The Work That Reconnects is also gathering an ever-growing number of tributes and reflections and inviting others to share their memories of Macy and her work.
Here is just a partial roundup of some of the many podcasts and interviews Macy participated in or hosted in recent years. Whether you’re new to Macy’s work or have been following it for decades, we trust you’ll find something that both moves and challenges you in many of these recordings:
- On Being with Krista Tippett from 2010.
- For the Wild podcast, recorded in 2015 and reshared in 2020. Macy speaks with activist and podcaster Ayana Young, and the two have a cross-generational conversation about the power of opening up to one’s deepest feelings of despair.
- Macy talks with collaborator Stephanie Kaza about her final book, A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time in a program at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
- The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living podcast, put on by Thich Nhất Hạnh’s Plum Village community, spoke with Macy in November of 2021 about the interconnections between Nhất Hạnh’s work and her own, in Special Edition: Joanna Macy’s Message of Hope.
- And of course, there is the We Are the Great Turning series, co-hosted by Macy herself with climate activist Jessica Serrante, put out in 2024.
