An introduction to The Work That Reconnects.
Welcome to this podcast called Readings and Practices from the Book Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Leung Brown.
I am Joanna Tompkins and I would like to introduce this book to you by taking the liberty to summarize some of its contents and reproduce other parts of it.
I have been deeply transformed by The Work That Reconnects and I am honored to be one of its facilitators.
We are a growing group of activists who use the spiral work to help people reconnect with their grief and move forth with active hope.
I hope you will feel inspired to read the book and to study the work further.
I have no doubt that it will support you on your journey as well as those around you.
We all hope that it will in turn support our greater body,
Mother Earth.
This is Gaia speaking.
Thanks for listening.
Joanna Macy and The History of The Work That Reconnects.
This group work arose in North America in the late 70s during a time of escalating concerns about nuclear weapons and nuclear power.
Joanna Macy and her colleagues observed that when people share with others their feelings of fear,
Anguish or despair,
Their power to act for change is released.
Rapidly the efforts of these people and many others synergize to develop a model that used counseling methods,
Spiritual principles,
Ritual and myth,
Laughter and tears,
Reverence and irreverence to help individuals break out of the numbness of despair and denial.
In the mid 80s,
Participants began calling it deep ecology work and by then the work was spreading around the world with workshops often taking the form of so-called councils of all beings.
The book Coming Back to Life co-authored by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown,
Which was updated in 2014,
Provides an up-to-date description of the theory behind the work and some 60 of its exercises.
From this book onwards,
The group work came to be called The Work That Reconnects.
Joanna Macy has created a groundbreaking theoretical framework for personal and social change as well as a powerful workshop methodology for its application.
This work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the industrial growth society,
The cultivation of ecological awareness and it enables a fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and contemporary science.
It helps people transform despair and apathy in the face of overwhelming social and ecological change.
In the next episodes,
I will introduce the framework as it is explained in the book Coming Back to Life and we will practice together with some of its exercises.
I hope you enjoy learning more about this work and feel inspired to apply it to your life.
Before ending this introductory episode,
I would like to read to you the core assumptions of the Work That Reconnects,
Which are at the base of all the teachings.
1.
Our Earth is alive.
It is our body.
2.
Our true nature is far more ancient and encompassing than the separate self designed by habit and Western society.
3.
The planet,
As a living system,
Can know and see itself through us,
Behold its own majesty,
Tell us its own stories and also respond to its own suffering.
4.
Our experience of moral pain for our world springs from our interconnectedness with all beings,
Including beings of all human natures,
From which also arise our powers to act on their behalf.
5.
Unblocking occurs when our pain for the world is not only intellectually validated but also experienced and expressed.
6.
When we reconnect with life,
By willingly enduring our pain for it,
The mind retrieves natural clarity.
7.
The experience of reconnection with the Earth community,
Human and other than human,
Arouses desire to act on its behalf.
