A little over fifteen years ago I spent the last week of 2009 with a group of about 30 others, being tutored by Joanna Macy in facilitation techniques for her pivotal “Work that Reconnects”. That time with Joanna was formative for me, and for the work I was to do in the years that followed. It led me to become more active in climate change work in the Salmon Arm area. I had just led a candlelight vigil on a cold snowy night on the eve of COP15 earlier in December, and after I returned from the training with Joanna, I went on to organize more events in Salmon Arm. In later years I also began a column for a monthly newspaper in the area. Her influence led me to live more intentionally.

Joanna died on July 19, 2025, at the age of 96. The world has lost a woman who needed multiple adjectives to describe her: she was a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. She was a writer with over a dozen books, a teacher, and an earth activist. She was also a poet and an eloquent translater of Rilke. She has inspired people around the world.

A couple of weeks ago when I learned that Joanna was nearing her end, through the Work that Reconnects Network, I followed her last days with much emotion on the website caringbridge.org. Joanna taught the world in her dying, as well as during her long life. Many have written about her gifts, and how she brought an insightful framework to environmental activism. Rebecca Solnit posted an eloquent reflection on her blog “Meditations in an Emergency” which you can find at https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/in-honor-of-joanna-macy-1929-2025/

I recall New Year’s Eve December 31, 2009, when I was with Joanna. Each participant took a “Fool’s Leap” into the next year, committing to some action that would be their own “going forth”, the last of four “stages” in the spiral of the work that reconnects.

My Fool’s Leap was to commit to writing the story of my challenges creating a lakeside environmental centre. It took many more years, but I did write that memoir, which became Twin Islands. Here’s the description — https://sarahweaver.ca/projects-and-books-2/

Music was an important part of our workshop, and we even had a song about the Fool’s Leap! You can find it at the wonderful rich website of “Songs for the Great Turning”, by Gretchen Sleicher, who was one of the participants at our workshop. See https://songsforthegreatturning.net/going-forth/fools-journey/

During our workshop, Joanna spoke of commitments that each participant could consider making. She called them “Five Vows”, and gave us each a laminated card with them printed onto it.

I vow to myself and to each of you:

• To commit myself daily to the healing of our world and the welfare of all beings.
• To live on Earth more lightly and less violently in the food, products, and energy I consume.
• To draw strength and guidance from the living Earth, the ancestors, the future beings, and my brothers and sisters of all species.
• To support each other in our work for the world and to ask for help when I feel the need.
• To pursue a daily spiritual practice that clarifies my mind, strengthens my heart, and supports me in observing these vows.

These vows have guided me in the years since, although I’ve had many deviations. I am grateful for my time with Joanna, and for her profound influence on my life. Her work lives on throughout the world.

For those unfamiliar with her work, I’ve included a summary of the Work that Reconnects below. These are my words, based on my understanding of her teachings.

Summary of The Work that Reconnects

We are living in an “Industrial Growth Society” (IGS) which is unsustainable because it demands resources be extracted from the earth at an unsustainable rate, and then results in the pollution of the earth from the waste products of the consumption of those resources. This IGS requires that people consume – and in order to consume more, requires that they be dissatisfied with what they have in life. Thus dissatisfaction is an essential element to the IGS, and advertising promotes dissatisfaction and a constant longing for more “stuff”.

The opposite of the IGS is what Joanna Macy termed the LSS – a Life Sustaining Society (LSS). She believed that we are currently in a transition or transformation from the IGS to LSS. This transformation is called the “Great Turning”.

Joanna Macy believed that in order for us to break free of the hold of the IGS we need to go through a spiral process. It’s a spiral because the process is never finished. She took people through this process in exercises which allowed them to voice their innermost feelings and thoughts in safe, non-judgmental settings.

The process starts with gratitude – gratitude for being alive, right now, for how we are living, right now. Gratitude, Joanna suggested, is a revolutionary act because the IGS wants us to be dissatisfied. Gratitude requires our presence in the current moment.

The second step in the spiral is honouring our pain for the world. She believed that deep down most people are very concerned about what is happening to our planet, and have a lot of pain and despair about the losses they see in their lives – the changes in water quality, the loss of spaces that were important to them as children, the widening gap between the world’s richest and poorest peoples, and the many peoples of the earth who lack even the most basic of necessities, and the injustices that are rampant everywhere. We experience pain, because of our love for the earth. Rather than trying to deny our pain, or avoid it, Joanna suggests embracing it.

The third step in the spiral is “seeing with new eyes”. There are two key aspects to this – seeing our world through the eyes of general systems theory, where everything is interconnected rather than separate. The old view saw nature as separate from us – and we still talk that way. EG “Let’s do our part for the environment”. General systems theory shows that we are the environment, the earth. The second key aspect of seeing with new eyes is what Joanna called “deep time” – making decisions, and taking thought, from the perspective of both our ancestors and future beings – so we bring their wisdom to bear on issues that we might be facing.

The final stage in the spiral is “going forth”. With our new shifts in perception, we go forward to take our part in the Great Turning. Joanna saw three types of actions, each dependent on the other two. Holding actions are stopping bulldozers clearcutting the forest, or changing legislation to stop some injustice from being wrought. Alternative structures are new ways of doing things – eg housing coops. Shifts in consciousness are new ways of thinking – eg new ways of thinking about relationships, about how we are part of the earth. Community, and working with others, are essential to “going forth”.

These four stages are the essence of the Work that Reconnects. We become reconnected to the earth, and to each other. The work is grounded in gratitude, and honouring our pain. It is never finished.

Joanna stressed that we do not know whether the Great Turning will succeed. We must live with uncertainty – and focus on the moment, living and giving our best in each moment.