Episode details

As Joanna Macy approaches the end of a long life dedicated to healing our imperiled planet, she begins the conversation with Jessica Serrante, her student and dear friend, “standing afresh with what it’s like to live on Earth at this moment.” As we look into the face of the climate crisis, injustice, and war, difficult feelings arise; all are welcomed.

You are invited to join them at Joanna’s kitchen table, and invited into a deeper sense of your belonging and love for our world.

In this episode:

  • How to connect with the great possibilities that still exist for us even in these precarious times Joanna reflects on her awakening of environmental consciousness
  • Jess reflects on how meeting Joanna changed her life
  • Love, laughter, heartbreak, and the Work That Reconnects
  • Bonus Exercise: “Open Sentences”—a practice for partners

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

Resources

Links, prompts and exercises to further your inquiry.

The WAGT Toolkit

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Learn more about how to start one here.

Meet Your Hosts

Joanna and Jess

Joanna Macy, PhD, is a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking, and deep ecology who has been working for peace, justice, and the preservation of life on Earth for seven decades. She is the creator of The Work That Reconnects, a globally celebrated framework of practices that has helped leaders and activists for decades to serve the healing of our world in a more powerful and effective way. Joanna is 95 and lives in Berkeley, California.

Jessica Serrante is a coach, facilitator and trainer who has been supporting activists in the climate movement since 2007. She has served on staff at organizations like Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network and worked with groups like Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion. Her first encounter with Joanna’s work a decade ago changed her life, transformed her burnout, and led to a deep, abiding friendship. Jess is 35 and lives in Oakland, California.

Also By Author

Ep 3 Bonus: Lovingkindness Meditation

This bonus episode will support you to take the main insights from Episode 3, “We Begin with Gratitude,” deeper into your life. 

In Episode 3, we talked about how in the Work That Reconnects we always start with gratitude, because it gives us the strength to speak the truth and act in service of life.

Lovingkindness meditation is a simple and powerful way to feel and express our gratitude and love for our world. 

All you need to do this bonus exercise is a quiet place where you can meditate. We hope you’ll do this exercise with someone else, so that you can talk together about your experience after you finish.

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

 

Ep 3: We Begin with Gratitude

When things are at their darkest, what is it that “allows you to see promise and allows you to see beauty?” Joanna begins her exploration of some of the most difficult emotions and circumstances we face in a surprising place: with gratitude. This episode introduces the concept of the spiral, the basic structure of the Work That Reconnects. 

In this episode:

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com

Ep 2 Bonus: Envisioning the Great Turning

This bonus episode will support you to take the main insights from Episode 2, “The Three Stories of Our Time,” deeper into your life. 

In Episode 2, we talked about the three stories of our time: Business as Usual, the Great Unraveling, and the Great Turning. All three stories are true, and we can choose to give ourselves to the Great Turning—to building a more just and life-sustaining society. 

We need inspiring visions for the kind of world we want to live in that can motivate us, move us to action, and so that we know what it looks like to succeed. So, in this bonus episode, we’re going to envision, in detail, what the world might be like if the Great Turning really were the predominant story of our time.

All you need is a quiet place where you can sit and close your eyes. We hope you’ll do this exercise with someone else, so that you can talk together about your experience after you finish. It might also help to have something to write with and on. 

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com

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