An excellent soul handed away 3:35 PM Saturday afternoon. It was my privilege to name Joanna Macy a pal and co-worker.
I owe her a lot. She first launched me to Thich Nhat Hanh by inviting me to attend a chat he gave to a big gathering in Berkeley. Years later, she assisted in bringing him, together with 40 of his nuns and monks, to talk at our College of Creation Spirituality.
She helped introduce me to the items of Buddhism and we frequently taught collectively (typically on the Buddha Nature and the Cosmic Christ), or led retreats collectively whether or not at UCS in Oakland or in Munich, Germany or in Findhorn, Scotland. There we performed a retreat throughout Easter Week that included a really poignant Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. We and the contributors created the Stations on the sand dunes with wind howling round us. She additionally joined our school in a week-long creation spirituality convention in Australia. One in every of her talks is printed within the guide, Creation Spirituality & The Dreamtime.*
I got here up with the time period deep ecumenism from what she taught me about deep ecology. We shared the deepest of values relating to peace and justice, saving the earth, animal rights, ladies’s rights—in brief, creation spirituality. I wrote about her the morning she died (within the DM we are going to publish Tuesday) about an intervention of hers at a convention on the Way forward for Mom Earth that was sponsored by the Sierra Membership.
I keep in mind the primary time I visited her in her dwelling close to the rose backyard in Berkeley. There have been notes on her porch addressed to the wasps who had made themselves at dwelling there. She was begging them to go away and the way she didn’t need to destroy their nests. She was incarnating her Buddhist classes to respect all beings. I don’t recall if her pleas had been answered or not.
I met Daniel Ellsberg at a dinner at Joanna’s dwelling. She, like Knowledge, was a pal of prophets.
Joanna was a religious large. The true factor. Her 90th celebration was an occasion etched on my reminiscence without end. So lively and promise, so many caring folks in attendance, and under no circumstances directed to the previous.
Her ritual, The Council of All Beings, that she and John Seed created in reminiscence of the species going extinct was actual, deeply transferring and participatory.
Her household invited me to her bedside per week in the past to present her a blessing together with folks singer Jennifer Berezan, a graduate of our ICCS grasp’s program, who was amongst her favourite artists. Jennifer sang her tune, “Praises.” We prolonged our blessings when she was asleep and he or she wakened on the exact second that I ended my prayer and her first phrases had been, “Thanks.”
Her household urged us to present our blessings once more after she was acutely aware. Throughout Jennifer’s tune, Joanna danced together with her arms nearly directing the music. With a giant smile on her face, she repeated that it was her favourite tune. She referred to as me to herself for a giant hug.
In my blessing I requested that the Buddha and Dalai Lamas of the previous and Jesus and Hildegard, Francis of Assisi and Meister Eckhart, greet her of their mild. After I talked about Hildegard, she nearly jumped up and shouted—in response, I used to be moved so as to add, “Hildegard, a lion.”
Each Joanna and Hildegard had been lionesses for the reality and for Mom Earth. Each had been warriors and prophets with lion hearts.
Joanna mixed a fierce dedication to programs idea and science, plus Buddhist practices and teachings and gifted writings and concepts that touched 1000’s of individuals of all religious traditions. Who can’t be woke up by a guide titled Pondering Like A Mountain?
She urged all to withstand despair and I usually cite her educating that “when your coronary heart breaks, the entire universe can pour by.” She urged us to place our power into gratitude, face harm head on, and stay artistic and combat the nice combat.
Thanks, Joanna. Thanks on your praises for the world and your onerous work on behalf of Mom Earth. For the real help you lent your pals, household and colleagues from a deep and passionate coronary heart that was each Buddha-like and Christ-like.
* See Catherine Hammond, ed., Creation Spirituality & The Dreamtime: Matthew Fox, Joanna Macy, Veronica Brady, Kevin Treston, Elizabeth Cain, Eddie Kneebone (Newtown NSW2024: Millennium Books), 1991.
See Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Publish-denominational Priest, pp. 2f., 157, 160, 352.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Presents for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Rev. Matthew Fox and Lama Tsomo, The Lotus & The Rose: A Dialog Between Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity.
And Fox, One River, Many Wells: Knowledge Springing from World Religion Traditions.
And Fox, Authentic Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
To learn the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click on HERE.
Banner Picture: The dunes on the seaside at Findhorn, Scotland. Photograph by valenta. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
How has Joanna Macy affected your life and religious journey instantly or not directly?
Beneficial Studying
Confessions: The Making of a Publish-Denominational Priest (Revised/Up to date Version)
Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his private, mental, and religious journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. 5 new chapters on this revised and up to date version carry added perspective in mild of the writer’s continued journey, and his reflections on the present modifications going down in church, society and the atmosphere.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible religious revolutionary enlivens the thoughts and emboldens the center — should studying for anybody interested by braveness, creativity, and the way forward for faith.”
—Joanna Macy, writer of World as Lover, World as Self
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Presents for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the therapeutic and liberation present in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of each spiritual and political persuasion to unite in a brand new imaginative and prescient by which we be taught to honor the earth and the individuals who inhabit it because the reward of a superb and simply Creator.
“A watershed theological work that gives a typical floor for spiritual seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Apply.
“I’m studying Liberating Presents for the Folks of the Earth by Matt Fox. He’s one which fills my coronary heart and thoughts for brand spanking new life regardless of a lot that’s violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
The Lotus & The Rose: A Dialog Between Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity
How can we transfer away from “us vs. them” considering as our environment really feel extra divided and polarized than ever? Co-authors Matthew Fox and Lama Tsomo talk about how Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Christianity reply this query from distinctive factors of view, with many commonalities and sensible instruments to interrupt down the limitations between us.
“The Lotus and the Rose is a rare instance of what can occur when religious leaders from totally different traditions open up and communicate from the center.” — Paul Chaffee, The Interfaith Observer.
One River, Many Wells: Knowledge Springing from World Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all of the world traditions for his or her knowledge and their inspiration in a piece that’s excess of a listing of theological place papers however a brand new technique to pray—to meditate in a worldwide religious context on the knowledge all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes which can be foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all of the world religious traditions provide knowledge about every.“Studying One River, Many Wells is like getting into the wealthy silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you learn this textual content, you mirror, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Actually no phrases can absolutely categorical my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to up to date spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit
Authentic Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out an entire new route for Christianity—a route that’s in actual fact very historic and really grounded in Jewish considering (the truth that Jesus was a Jew is usually uncared for by Christian theology): the 4 Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an prolonged and deeply developed approach.
“Authentic Blessing makes out there to the Christian world and to the human neighborhood a radical remedy for all darkish and derogatory views of the pure world wherever these could have originated.” –Thomas Berry, writer, The Dream of the Earth; The Nice Work; co-author, The Universe Story
