The Great Turning

Dear Moonscriber,

Hello! And a special hello to all the new moonscribers (19) since my hiatus began last month! There are now 178 of you! :)

And Happy New Moon, of course. This month, my 'new beginning' involves the inspirational Joanna Macy. Previous MoonLetters have tempted you with quotations and exercises from her book (Coming Back to Life) and website. I am happy to announce that last night I was privileged to hear her speak in person, and will do so again tomorrow night, followed by two days with her in a workshop! So you can bet there'll be lots of material for upcoming MoonLetters!

Joanna Macy believes there is enormous evolutionary pressure for us to make the shift from what she calls the Industrial Growth Society to an Ecological or Life-Sustaining Society. And there are three areas where we can see this happening:

1. Activism that tries to slow down the destruction of society (First Aid). This would include things like the Endangered Species Act, Kyoto, sitting in a tree that may be chopped down, etc. This does save lives and it does save (some) species. But it's very exhausting. "So many defeats: and you still have to keep raising money." It's very tempting to withdraw from this.

2. Ingenuity and social creativity. New Gaian structures. Agricultural and technical innovation. New projects, items, etc that are sustainable.

3. Shifts of consciousness. New perceptions of the nature of reality. Science has the lead role here with systems theories and the new physics. Also: Indigenous wisdom. Goddess spirituality.

This is an incredible time to be alive, even though our hearts break when we see the destruction, the suffering, the injustice...

Now here are Joanna's Five Guidelines for Taking Part in the "Great Turning":

1. Gratitude. Give thanks for this precious life. We are such miracles. Indulge in the primary WOW of being alive. Gratitude doesn't depend on external circumstances. Joanna read Drew Dellinger's poem, "Love Letter to the Milky Way":

I want to tell you about love.
There are approximately one trillion galaxies
I want to tell you about
In the milky way there are about a hundred billion stars
I want to tell you
Love is the breath of the cosmos
I want to write a love letter to the milky way
Everything is an expression of the galaxy
My thirty trillion cells, the four noble truths, the eightfold path,
The five precepts, the seven energy centres of the body,
Everything is the milky way including my lover, and every kiss of every lover who's ever lived.
The deep sky, the ubiquity of spirit, the DNA of dreams, the interlocking patterns of the cosmic constellations,
cosmos and justice are synonymous with beauty
But parts of the milky way don't give off light
Sometimes it feels I've got ground zero in my heart
the dark sun bleeds shadows
The dark sun leaves shadows on everything
The forecast calls for scattered to broken skies.
If there wasn't so much love there wouldn't be so much pain
It's like love is the nervous system of the universe, bringing us joy and sorrow
I inherit the voice of the milky way in my dreams, the entire galaxy revolves around a single drop of wine
Your skin, the texture of the cosmos
The religion beyond religion
I want to know you like the wind knows the canyons
Or the rain knows the rivulets
Lightning is continuously striking in a hundred places every moment
The universe spills through our dreams
The future belongs to the most compelling story
Even the word love is not adequate to define the force that wove the fabric of space time
If we could sense everything at once,
like Krishna entering history with all the memory of his past incarnations,
Then I could tell you about love.

2. Don't be afraid of the dark. In the dark are embryonic stirrings. Don't be afraid of the dark: we know how to make fire. Don't be afraid of losing hope. Don't be too dependent on hope. It takes a lot of energy to keep making sure we've got the "right level of hope". Just like for everything else, you won't know what the results will be. Joanna read Rilke's last sonnet to Orpheus.

3. Dare to vision. Use the most atrophied part of our bodies: our imagination. It is the dreaming of a life-sustaining society that gives us the capacity for the work. And be sure to do it with others. Joanna read Wendell Berry's "Work Song: A Vision".

4. Link arms with others. Step out with others. Do Not Try To Do It Alone. A power comes from being in relationship. Discover what happens when you work together: don't wait until you've got your own blueprint. We should use our ignorance to ask the questions that the experts won't. Form study action groups. The Buddha said: Go forth and go forth together. Go forth on your journey for the benefit of many, for the happiness of many, out of compassion for the world.

5. Act your age. Your true age, that is. You can go back 4.5 million years or even to the birth of the atoms in your body. When you step out and take action in the Great Turning, know you are doing it out of the vast authority of your true age. The Earth age. Rest into that. Joanna read Thich Nhat Hanh's "The Old Mendicant".

She ended as follows:

A Thousand Years of Healing by Sue Silvermarie

With this turning we put a broken age to rest.
We who are alive at such a cusp
now usher ina thousand years of healing.
From whence my hope, I cannot say,
But it grows in the cells of my skin,
my envelope of mysteries.
In this sheath so akin to the surface of earth
I sense the faint song.
Beneath the wail and dissonance
this singing rises. Winged ones
and four-leggeds,
grasses and mountains and each tree,
all the swimming creatures.
Even we, wary two-leggeds,
hum, and call, and create
the changes. We remake our relations, mend
our minds, convert our minds to the earth.
We practice blending our voices,
living with the vision
of the Great Magic we move within.
We beginthe new habit, getting up glad
for a thousand years of healing.

And then finally: Diane Di Prima's "Life Chant", which brought me to tears. (The audience said "May it continue" in unison.)

cacophony of small birds at dawn
may it continue
sticky monkey flowers on bare brown hills
may it continue
bitter taste of early miner's lettuce
may it continue
music on city streets in the summer nights
may it continue
kids laughing on roofs on stoops on the beach in the snow
may it continue
triumphal shout of the newborn
may it continue
deep silence of great rainforests
may it continue
fine austerity of jungle peoples
may it continue
rolling fuck of great whales in turquoise ocean
may it continue
clumsy splash of pelican in smooth bays
may it continue
astonished human eyeball squinting thru aeons at astonished nebulae who squint back
may it continue
clean snow on the mountain
may it continue
fierce eyes, clear of light of the aged
may it continue
rite of birth and of naming
may it continue
rite of instruction
may it continue
rite of passage
may it continue
love in the morning, love in the noon sun
love in the evening among crickets
may it continue
long tales by fire, by window, in fog, in dusk on the mesa
may it continue
the night music
may it continue
grunt of mating hippo, giraffe, foreplay for snow leapord
screeching of cats on the backyard fence
may it continue

without police
may it continue
without prisons
may it continue
without hospitals, death medicine: flu and flu vaccine
may it continue
without madhouses, marriage, highschools that are prisons
may it continue
without empire
may it continue
in sisterhood
may it continue
thru the wars to come
may it continue
in brotherhood
may it continue
tho the earth seem lost
may it continue
thru exile and silence
may it continue
with cunning and love
may it continue
a woman continues
may it continue
a breath continues
may it continue
as stars continue
may it continue

may the wind deal kindly with us
may the fire remember our names
may springs flow, rian fall again
may the land grow green, may it swallow our mistakes

we begin the work
may it continue
the great transmutation
may it continue
a new heaven and a new earth
may it continue
may it continue

*****

Yes, I'm ready for more Macy tomorrow and Tuesday and Wednesday! Will report back to you next week!!
May you continue.

peace&love
heather

Comments

[Linda Buzzell-Saltzman]

Thank you so much, Heather, for this information on Joanna Macy's wise advice about how to live and thrive in the era of The Great Turning. So profound.

Namaste.