September 30-October 2, 2005 ( )
(These are two different workshops. Please see the paragraph before the biography.)
There are powers for healing our world that arise directly from the lifegenerating relationships with Earth, for we are intrinsic parts of the living body of Earth, like neurons in a vast mind. All lifeforms sustain each other in an interdependent web we call deep ecology. Identifying ourselves as planetary beings clarifies and dignifies our conflicts. To heal our world, we need to experience it afresh, as a living system in which all beings are connected and interdependent — a vision found in contemporary science and in every major spiritual tradition.
A silent revolution toward a lifesustaining civilization is under way. This “great turning” will touch all aspects of life. We all carry knowledge of immense suffering, yet our very pain for the world reveals our profound interconnectedness in the living body of Earth.
The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying our world — we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up. Joanna Macy proposes a radical shift in perspective: seeing the “world as lover,” a partner to whom we relinquish narrow concepts of self and in whom we discover our wider identity.
Joanna creates some of the finest interactive growth experiences on earth. We will use telling the truth, meditation, breath and body work, personal sharing, guided imagery, interactive exercises, improvisational role play, and deep time work. We will draw upon insights from systems theory, deep ecology, and movements for social change, as well as ancient, primarily Buddhist, teachings. We can transform pain and confusion into courage and creativity. We can clarify our individual gifts in creating a nonviolent, just, and lifesustaining civilization.
This workshop is for those who suspect that the accelerating destruction of ecological, social, political, and economic systems is at root a spiritual crisis. We can’t think our way out of this. Navigating in a global crisis is a spiritual adventure. If you love life and want your energy and creativity to be released for healing our world, come.
These are two different workshops, both of which will take place during the height of the spectacular change of the autumn leaves. The weekend retreat is for people who have not worked with Joanna before, or who haven’t for a while. The longer retreat, from Sunday evening until lunch on Friday, is for people who have studied with Joanna before and want the opportunity to go deeper. (Attendance at the weekend on the 30th-2nd counts as having studied with Joanna before.) The cost for the Sunday-Friday program is twice our program fee and twice our room and board fee. If you come to both programs, take 10% off your fees.
Joanna Macy is a scholar of Buddhism, General Systems Theory, deep ecology, and the Gaia hypothesis. Interweaving her scholarship and four decades of activism, she has created both a groundbreaking theoretical framework for a new paradigm of personal and social change, and a powerful workshop methodology for its application. Her highly original books include Despair and Empowerment in the Nuclear Age, Thinking Like a Mountain, World as Lover, World as Self, and Coming Back to Life. Over the past twenty years many thousands of people around the world have participated in Joanna’s workshops and trainings and her methods have been used in classrooms, churches, and grassroots organizing. Her work helps people transform despair and apathy into constructive, collaborative action. She teaches at the innovative Starr King School for the Ministry and the University of Creation Spirituality and Rowe is honored to welcome the return of this brilliant and passionate philosopher.