Work That Reconnects
The Work That Reconnects does exactly what it says! It's a body of work created by Joanna Macy in the form of workshops that can be adapted to infinite formats, lengths and audiences. The experience we have in these workshops reconnects us with ourselves, those we share this world with and the larger web of Life, extending far around us in space as well as backwards and forwards in time.
In France and Spain, we are fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in workshops and train to facilitate them, thanks to the partnership of Roseaux Dansants and Transalquimia, who both work very closely with Joanna Macy.
Farther afield, this web page gives other sources of training around the world.
Joanna Macy developed these extraordinary tools for personal and social transformation through integrating three sources of inspiration from her own experience: Buddhism, Systems Theory and Deep Ecology.
Our species faces the possibility of inducing our own extinction, in the wake of all the other extinctions we are contributing to through our capitalist industrial society's ravaging of the Earth. In the face of the social and ecological crises that can leave us feeling overhwelmed and powerless, the Work That Reconnects allows us to gain lucidity and free ourselves of the assumptions that threaten Life on Earth. We find the means to transform our despair into creative action, collaborating in a wider web of cooperation and thus contributing to what Joanna Macy calls the Great Turning, becoming guardians of our planet home.
In their book Active Hope, Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone describe three aspects of the Great Turning : Protecting Life, Creating Life-Sustaining Systems and Practices and Shifting Consciousness. These dimensions are complementary and all essential to the preservation of life. The process of Active Hope encourages us to find the part we each have to play in this Great Turning.
This page explains the differences between the first edition and latest edition of Active Hope, published in English in June 2022. Translations into other languages are for the moment based on the first edition.