Saturday, the eve of St. Francis of Assisi’s Feast Day, a full home of enthusiastic individuals gathered at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco to have a good time the extraordinary life and work of Joanna Macy.
Not all the 1200 current have been native. In entrance of me there have been two Catholic sisters, one from Toronto and one from BC, Canada, who had flown in only for the event. The night started with a greeting from the dean of the Cathedral, Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Younger, and a welcome from Joanna’s second son, Jack, and her daughter, Peggy.
Anne Symens-Bucher, who was Joanna’s government assistant for over 20 years, and oversees Canticle Farm, which is an intentional group in Oakland that was expensive to Joanna, gave an outline of the night that was primarily based on the “Spiral of the Work That Reconnects,” which is Joanna’s method of naming our religious journey.
The night adopted that format, which parallels completely the journey of the 4 Paths of Creation Spirituality. Joanna names them this fashion: Coming From Gratitude; Honoring Our Ache for the World; Seeing with New & Historic Eyes; and Going Forth.
It’s not exhausting to acknowledge on this spiral the spirals of the Through Positiva, Negativa, Creativa, and Transformativa in creation spirituality.
The night included poems from Rilke that Joanna had translated from German and a composer pal put to music. There was poetry from Drew Dellinger and Thich Nhat Hanh, Marge Piercy’s Kaddish, and a brief eulogy from Anne’s husband, Terry, on Mary Magdalene encountering the risen Christ, and “5 Vows” that Joanna had created.
I couldn’t assist however bear in mind the particular instances Joanna and I shared in that Cathedral, similar to a Cosmic Mass celebrated on Pleasure Sunday with the theme of “The Return of the Divine Female.” Joanna was the “trainer” (our time period for “preacher”) at that Mass. About 600 individuals attended, and the sound engineer advised me afterwards, I’ve been working the sound for occasions within the Cathedral for the previous eight years, and with none doubt this was essentially the most energetic occasion I’ve ever witnessed at Grace Cathedral.
Joanna was the emcee at Grace Cathedral on the launching of my and Bishop Marc Andrus’s e book, Stations of the Cosmic Christ. The unique sixteen Stations that make up the e book have been created by artists M.C. Richards (her seven “I’m” tablets hung at St. John the Divine Cathedral for 3 years) and Javier Ullrrich Garcia’s 9 tablets depicting Cosmic Christ occasions in Jesus’ life have been on show. On the quilt of the e book is Joanna’s assertion: “This e book is revolutionary. It celebrates the sacred on the coronary heart of the universe.”
Among the many many items Joanna gave to the world have been her beneficiant readings and feedback on the writings of others, together with myself. She commented on my autobiography: The unfolding story of this irrepressible religious revolutionary enlivens the thoughts and emboldens the center—should studying for anybody focused on braveness, creativity, and the way forward for faith.
Over time we led quite a few workshops and retreats collectively at La Casa de Maria Retreat Middle in Santa Barbara; throughout Holy Week in Findhorn, Scotland when she and her husband Fran returned from a go to to Chernobyl; in Munich, Germany; on the College of Creation Spirituality in Oakland the place we taught on “The Buddha Nature and the Cosmic Christ”; with Andrew Harvey, in a collection of “The Christ Path”; and at Inexperienced Gulch Zen Middle the place we dialogued a number of days after her husband died.
Joanna exited a fundamentalist model of Christianity when she was in faculty and years later found Buddhism and married it to scientific programs idea and deep ecology. With that, she had an enormous story to inform the world—a narrative about “the “Nice Turning”—a alternative to decide on a life-sustaining society and consciously act like caring ancestors towards future generations.
One story advised Friday evening was that Joanna appreciated cathedrals as a result of they have been proof that earlier generations poured themselves into tasks for future generations to get pleasure from, understanding that such tasks wouldn’t be accomplished of their lifetime.
An amazing lesson to meditate on at Grace Cathedral or anywhere in 2025.
Banner Picture: The spiral of The Work That Reconnects. Picture gifted by artist Dori Midnight to Joanna Macy, used with permission. From Joanna Macy’s web site.
Queries for Contemplation
What do you be taught from the life and story, and religious and ecological witness of Joanna Macy?
Beneficial Studying
Stations of the Cosmic Christ (by Matthew Fox and Bishop Mark Andrus)
Unique Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Confessions: The Making of a Submit-denominational Priest
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Imaginative and prescient For a New Era (by Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox)
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Imaginative and prescient of Love and Motion (by Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson and Jen Listug)
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Consciousness with Social Justice
The Lotus & The Rose: A Dialog Between Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity (by Rev. Matthew Fox and Lama Tsomo)
One River, Many Wells: Knowledge Springing from World Faiths
