The refusal to feel takes a heavy toll. Not only is there an impoverishment of our emotional and sensory life, flowers are dimmer and less fragrant, our loves less ecstaticรข but this psychic numbing also impedes our capacity to process and respond to information. The energy expended in pushing down despair is diverted from more creative uses, depleting the resilience and imagination needed for fresh visions and strategies.
Joanna MacyThe wave of the future is on the local level. Don't waste your heart and mind trying to pull down what is already destroying itself. But come into where you're almost below the radar and reorganize life. We want communities where we live and work and fight for the future.
Joanna MacyQualities like love and compassion are not just abstract virtues that are the property of saints and adepts. Anyone can develop these qualities in themselves by doing spiritual practices. As the Buddha said, Come and see.
Joanna MacyThe most radical thing any of us can do at this time is to be fully present to what is happening in the world.
Joanna MacyThis is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So donโt be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings.
Joanna MacyThe central purpose of the Work that Reconnects is to help people uncover and experience their innate connections with each other and with the systemic, self-healing powers of the web of life, so that they may be enlivened and motivated to play their part in creating a sustainable civilization.
Joanna Macy