This Global Read with Joanna Macy: A Wild Love for the World: was held on July 15, 2020.
Watch a recording of the program here
Being fully present to fear, to gratitude, to all that is—this is the practice of mutual belonging. As living members of the living body of Earth, we are grounded in that kind of belonging. Even when faced with cataclysmic changes, nothing can ever separate us from Earth. We are already home.
~ Joanna Macy
Joanna Macy PhD, teacher and author, is a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology, her scholarship is informed by six decades of committed activism.
As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, Macy has created a ground-breaking framework for personal and social change that brings a new way of seeing the world as our larger body, freeing us from the assumptions and attitudes that now threaten the continuity of life on Earth.
The many dimensions of this work are explored in her thirteen books, including World as Lover, World as Self; Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory; Widening Circles, A Memoir; Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy (with Chris Johnstone); Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects (with Molly Young Brown); and four books of translations of poetry and prose by Rainer Maria Rilke (with Anita Barrows).
About the Author
Joanna Macy received a BA from Wellesley College in 1950 and a PhD in Religion from Syracuse University in 1978. She continues to write and teach in Berkeley, California, with two new books in press, including A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Times (ed. Stephanie Kaza). Macy most recently served as an adjunct professor at Starr King School of Ministry, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and has received honorary degrees from New College of California, Starr King School of Ministry, California Institute of Integral Studies, and Alice Lloyd College. In 2013, she was honored with the first Bioneers Lifetime Contribution Award.
To learn more, visit Joanna Macy’s website.
About the Host
Nnaumrata Singh, Spiritual Eco Feminism Writer, Advocate of Compassion, Social Change Catalyst, Conscious Living Coach, Workshop Leader, Circle Convenor, Systems Science Researcher, Nnaumrata holds the vision to awaken the feminine spirit for a planetary transformation of consciousness.
Her tryst with Buddhism took her on a journey away from her corporate tenure in 2012, and she founded Life Beyond Motherhood, an organisation focused on coaching women leaders for leading a happier and fulfilled life.
Through her fellowship experience with change.org, Nnaumrata made her mark by way of her winning campaign that required Amazon and Flipkart to reduce the plastics in their packaging by 50 per cent. This experience of activism along with various self-initiated projects focused on sustainable living, from waste segregation to the set up of organic farmers in her community in India, led to the birth of Zemyna Foundation, an organisation focused on engaging children, youth and women in environment related projects informed by systems thinking.
Nnaumrata has presented at various national and international forums, including the Parliament of World Religions at Toronto (Nov 2018), the Climate Change and Consciousness Conference at Scotland (April 2019), the Mind and Life's Summer Research Institute at New York (June 2019) and at the Elevating Consciousness through Meditation conference at IIM Bengaluru in India (August 2019), where she presented her paper on Happiness Circles. Based on the principles of deep listening and gathering in a community, this initiative is grounded in mindfulness and compassion practices and has been featured by Life Positive magazine’s recent Anniversary edition, spotlighting Nnaumrata as one of the 14 faces driving social change in India.
An avid writer, Nnaumrata has published various blogs, poetry, articles and newspaper columns. She is the author of The Possibility of Balance, a guide book for working mothers that aims to help women create and sustain a balanced life. She is a contributing author to the book The Fifth Revolution and a facilitator for the Charter for Compassion’s upcoming course on Reimagining Our Future.
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This read will be free or by donation, to participants thanks to the generosity of our sponsor:
Mary Beth Nienhaus is a woman of faith, decorated golf professional, former teacher and coach, a volunteer, and philanthropist. She has volunteered as a worker on mission trips both locally and internationally. Mary Beth is also aware of environmental issues and has planted over 1000 trees in her lifetime. She plans to plant more trees as part of our Compassion Tree Project.
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