Joanna Macy: a personal tribute from Rupert Read

By Rupert Read, originally published by Resilience.org

It is with profound sadness but also with great love and joyful memory that I mark here the passing of my teacher Joanna Rogers Macy, who departed this Earth on July 19, 2025, at the age of 96. An unparalleled eco-philosopher, Buddhist scholar, systems theorist, and activist, Joanna dedicated her life to illuminating the interconnectedness of all life and empowering individuals and groups to confront the ecological and social crises of our time with courage and compassion. Her legacy, most notably through “The Work That Reconnects,” will continue to inspire and guide countless people, including myself, in the ongoing ‘Great Turning’ which she agitated tirelessly for.

Born on May 2, 1929, Joanna’s intellectual journey was deeply informed by her studies in Buddhism, particularly the concept of interdependent co-arising (it is not as widely known as it should be that she helped Thich Nhat Hanh, also my late teacher, to settle on the concept of ‘inter-being’), and general systems theory. This unique synthesis formed the bedrock of her groundbreaking work, which sought to address the psychological and spiritual dimensions of environmental despair. She helped me and countless others understand that our pain for the world, far from being a sign of weakness, is a natural expression of our profound connection to life itself.

From the late 1970s, Joanna developed what became known as “Despair and Empowerment Work,” later evolving into “The Work That Reconnects.” This experiential group process, often facilitated through workshops, guides participants through a spiral of four stages: Coming from Gratitude, Honoring Our Pain for the World, Seeing with New/Ancient Eyes, and Going Forth. These practices enable people to move through their grief, fear, and paralysis, transforming these difficult emotions into a sense of renewed vitality, clarity, and a commitment to action for a life-sustaining society. Her vision of “The Great Turning” posited a necessary shift from an industrial growth society towards one that cherishes life, driven by three mutually reinforcing dimensions: slowing the damage, analyzing and transforming foundational structures, and a fundamental shift in worldview and values.

I count myself among those deeply influenced by Joanna Macy’s transformative insights. As an eco-philosopher, activist, and co-editor (with Jem Bendell) of the book Deep Adaptation: Navigating the Realities of Climate Chaos, I have often openly acknowledged Joanna as one of my principal spiritual teachers. Her profound impact on my philosophical and spiritual development cannot, I hope, be overstated. I have often said that a lot of the thinking in my own work, particularly concerning ecological grief and non-dual spirituality, is directly due to the influence of Joanna Macy. Her integration of Buddhist principles and ecological thought provided a crucial framework for my exploration of how to respond to the immense challenges of climate decline and ecosystems breakdown. This is why it was a delight that Joanna’s own work, including crucially the chapter “The Great Turning: Reconnecting through Collapse,” was featured in the “Deep Adaptation” volume that as mentioned above I co-edited, underscoring our shared intellectual ground and commitment to facing difficult truths with a view towards meaningful action. (Those interested in diving deeper might also wish to watch this brace of videos that she and I made, four years ago.)

In recent years, I started to develop the concept of “the great sorrow” as a counterpart to hers of “the great turning”. The Great Sorrow is that the Great Turning is not really on balance happening, or, more precisely, that, insofar as it is happening (and there are of course some ‘hopeful signs’), that it is clearly not happening ‘fast enough’.

The Great Sorrow is that it is no longer possible to uphold many of the hopes we had [So we now need more Radical Hope, in Jonathan Lear’s sense; that is what ‘active hope’ has now become…]. That much is dying and will be destroyed in the course of the now-inevitable ending/transformation of this civilisation.

The Great Sorrow is of course part of the route to the possibility even now of a/the Great Turning. The best chance of turning the tide such that we get as much Great Turning as we can happening is to acknowledge and enter fully into the Great Sorrow. The very realisation that the Great Turning is not really happening (enough) — expressed as this Great Sorrow, this deep awakening into honesty about how our predicament now is considerably worse than it was 10 or even 5 years ago — is the only remaining possibility for a Great Turning — or, as meaningful a Turning as it is now credible to aspire to — to occur.

Joanna and I never quite saw eye to eye on this point. Today is not the time to try to arbitrate that dispute. Instead, I want to emphasise that, for many of us who found profound inspiration in her work, and sought to develop it either strictly along her lines or in our own ways, that work was an absolute beacon of active hope, not as a naive optimism, but as a conscious choice to engage with the world’s suffering and respond with fierce love and determination. Her work really did reconnect us: with the world, with each other, with ourselves. Her teachings emphasized the power of collective wisdom and the inherent capacity within each person to contribute to the healing of our world. She leaves behind a vibrant global network of facilitators and practitioners who continue to carry forward the Work That Reconnects, ensuring her profound wisdom and empowering methodologies endure. Joanna Macy’s life was a testament to the power of interconnectedness and interconnectingness, inspiring us all to find our place, our work to do, and to act with a wild love for the Earth.

The last time I spent with her was at her house a few years ago. She was pretty frail, but she cooked me dinner.

It was one of the most amazing evenings of my life.

It is hard to describe; it was if as if Joanna had a halo about her. She had a numinous presence to her. Already close to passing. Alive every second.

How did she keep going, all those many years? She gave a brilliant clue in an interview where she remarked that, as things collapse, she kept going so that when things get even harder, “when things fall apart, we won’t turn on each other”.

Such wise words.

Like many others, I’ll miss her more than words can say.