Joanna Macy begins by telling us about the possibility of experiencing the earth as our larger body, as our mother, as our grandmother as our source of everything, and how this sometimes manifests very intimately and sometimes as being held by the earth itself.
Our conversation soon goes to Georgia in the former Soviet Union, and Joanna tells us about being stuck in an hotel room with a great big samovar emitting eucalyptus steam and a Russian orthodox religious man trying to guide her into being less of a monkey person and to rather become more of a kitten person - this was his metaphor for the great surrender that he think she needed in order to heal.
The topic of surrender brings us to Rilkes poetry and from there to covid, which Joanna also sees as part teacher to us all - teaching us to stop, to slow down and see the natural worlds beauty around us.
Joanna also shares how grateful she feels to be alive at this very time that is so precarious, how meaningful it feels, when every choice you make actually matters so greatly for the future of complex life on earth.
She also tells us that if we are going to save the planet, we need to do it with joy, wonder and gratitude, not by complaining. “We have to be glad to be here if we want to make any change for the better. Only the joy and gratitude can awaken the imagination to do this.” She says.
Joanna also takes great interest in my native Islands, The Faroe Islands, and in my childhood growing up there, and she tells us about her own childhood, both in Manhattan and on her grandfathers farm in upstate New York.
She said that on her grandfathers farm everything came alive, and how she discovered that all life had its own being and mystery.
We also speak about the late Norwegian philospher Arne Næs, who was a great inspiration to Joanna Macy with his deep ecology and his notion of the ecological self
We speak about working with despair and other difficult feelings about the devastation of the planet, and about how easy it is to just Numb out. Which is where The Work that Reconnects comes in. And she speaks about how we need to take this work beyond anthropocentrism by truly opening the heart and mind. And how in this spirit she, together with John Seed invented the Council of all Beings.
Joanna also tells us about her heartbreaking work at San Quentin prison. And we do ofcourse speak about her work with the Tibetan refugees and The Dalai Lama in India, and her time there with the peace core. And she tells us about the Khampagar monastery in Tibet and Tashi Jong monastery in Northern India.
She describes that what she saw in the Tibetan refugees in the sixties, was that they had a much vaster experience of self than she had seen before, and that that was the root to their happiness.
The tibetans taught her mindfulness practice, which she says has sreved her so well ever since. And she does tell us about the notion of no-self, of no separate self, but that we are more of a stream of experience, and how we can watch this process of being taking place. And she takes great joy in the buddhist teaching, that all we have to do, is just to see through the self. That is the greatest gift.
Joannas greatest message is for us to learn to open to everything, to the planet as our own larger body, and she says that life wants to live itself through us, taste itself through us. And she ends by telling us how much joy she takes in being breathed by mother earth, our larger body!
Joanna Macy’s website: www.joannamacy.net
My website: www.duritaholm.com