The Work that Reconnects Part I

Dear Moonscriber,

Happy Full Moon! I'm too excited about my new Joanna Macy-related work to wait until I get to the end of the workshop description to tell you all about it! :) So, if you've felt overwhelmed by the amount of information I've put in the last couple of MoonLetters, and perhaps the ones to come..., then please see the re-vamped My Moonster for something new! :)

Meanwhile...
Joanna Macy led a workshop for climate change activists May 10-11, 2005 in Oxford. Here begins a series of MoonLetters introducing you to the concepts she taught us. In the last two MoonLetters I described her public talks on The Great Turning and Climate Change. You'll recognize some aspects from those talks in the workshop teachings.

Part I: The Spiral Sequence

ONE
The spiral of reconnection begins with gratitutude. This is the primal response from which all spiritual traditions flow. It's the primal WOW. The ignition switch of the psyche. It brings presence.

The greatest gift we can give the world at this time is our full presence. But this is blocked in 10,000 ways – fearfulness, self-loathing, multi-million dollar industries devoted to keeping us from being full present, devoted to distracting us.

We must unblock this feedback loop. Gratitude allows us to organize and create, and allows synergies to happen. Gratitude does not depend on external circumstances.

It is politically subversive to believe in yourself, to believe in our own love for life.

TWO
Following gratitude, following this "being present", we then become aware of the grief, fear and confusion within us, in a planet undergoing destruction as ours is at this moment.

These feelings come from our profound interconnectedness that is deep ecology – our radical interdependence in the living body of Earth. Our world is traumatized and we feel this trauma since we are cells in the body. Don't pathologize this, but instead recognize it as the most natural phenomena that is happening in our body.

This is honoring our pain for the world. One of our greatest obstacles is fear of pain. But pain comes from being alive. When we move through the pain, then we truly experience our interconnectedness with each other and all of life.

THREE
So pain has turned into an ability to see the world with new eyes. Pain is living proof of our interbeing. We learn new paradigms from science and from the quiet voices of the indigenous.

FOUR
And now we are prepared to go forth. 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.

We now apply this to our own lives.

****

This four-step (spiral) sequence served as the framework for the two-day workshop. Next week, on the last quarter of the Moon, we'll look at the morning we spent in Gratitude.

peace&love
heather