I first encountered the work of Joanna Macy in the spring of 1992. I was leaving Pendle Hill, the Quaker retreat center in southern Pennsylvania and picked up the photocopied article with the interesting title as I was rushing out the door to catch a train to Philadelphia. On the train I read "Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age" and felt every cell in my body come alive with recognition of a profound truth.

 

In the article Macy wrote of the importance of acknowledging our despair for the current state of the world: the nuclear waste that will take thousands of years to decay, poverty, children forced into sex slavery and murder, the burning of the rain forests. Denying our grief, anger, fear, and numbness about these catastrophic states, Macy wrote, only pushes the problem away temporarily. But to confront these difficult feelings "overcomes patterns of violence and psychic numbering; it builds compassion, community and commitment to act."

 

Over the past nineteen years, I've read all of Macy's books: World as Lover, World as Self; Coming Back to Life; Widening Circles, and others. Her work was a major influence as I sought answers about how to be in relation to wounded places, how to reconnect them with the communities they're part of, how both to discover unexpected beauty there and give beauty back. When I found out that Joanna was going to be doing a week-long seminar at Rowe Center in western Massachusetts, I signed up immediately.

 

Now 82, Joanna still has a vigor, intelligence, sense of play, and attentiveness to each person that are immediately apparent. Her current focus is The Work That Reconnects, the goal of which is to "help people discover and experience their innate connections with each other and with the systemic, healing powers in the web of life, so that they may be empowered and motivated to play their part in creating a sustainable civilization." During the seminar much of the work we did together was experiential, but here are a few of the many remarks Joanna made that exemplify her philosophy of soulful activism:

 

"Gratitude is a politically subversive act. The industrial growth society is constantly telling us that we need more: more clothes, more technology, more money, more power. This attitude breeds dissatisfaction. To express gratitude, therefore, is to counter the prevailing trend."

 

"We do what we are called to do even though we have no guarantee that it will produce results." Many say it's almost certain that all our good work will not produce results. But we have to do it anyway, Macy says, "because it enlivens us and others."

 

"Despair for the world is appropriate. It opens us to greater compassion."

 

I am very disappointed that a sudden very painful knee injury forced me to leave the workshop three days early. But I am abundantly grateful to have met this great teacher and to have made connections with so many amazing people who are actively, passionately, and with eyes wide open trying to change the world.

 

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As she calmed the children, the 33-year-old teacher sang a song from the "Barney" show. When they raised their heads and showed signs of restlessness, she playfully asked them to roll over on their backs and open their mouths wide, so they could drink in the chocolate rain. (To see the video Rivera Alanis recorded on her mobile phone, click here.) The gunfire was precipitated by rivals in Mexico's drug war. Five people were killed.

Rivera Alanis is being hailed as a hero for her courage under fire and for not only protecting the children in her classroom, but in keeping their fear as much at bay as possible.

Many of us fear getting involved during danger or crisis. According to a 2005 article in the Washington Post Weekly (unfortunately not available on line) by David Brown, "Live by the Rules, Die by the Rules," "When the going gets tough, the tough get consent forms."
Writing specifically about the gridlock that blocked so many efforts to help after Hurricane Katrina, sometimes with fatal consequences, Brown suggests that there are two reasons why people fail to come to the aid of others, even though they knew it is the right thing to do. One is a fear of being sued. The second, perhaps even more insidious, is a fear of being judged, a concern they see in evidence with all the talking heads on television, vociferously and often viciously blaming others for society's problems.

Waiting for others to tell us what to do or to give us permission only perpetuates the crisis. No one ever said you have to be fearless in order to do what you know is right: only that you do it.

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That children don't play outside as much as they used to isn't news. In his book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv illustrates the gravity of the problem with a statement from a fourth-grader named Paul: "I like to play indoors better, 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are."

A recent Kaiser Family study shows that young people ages 8-18 spend more than seven and a half hours in front of their media each day.  

 

But my experience guiding my first-ever youth quest with Will Scott for the School of Lost Borders this summer proved that, even though there are many young people who are tuned out of the world around them, there are also those who care deeply about the environment, the evolving consciousness of members of their generation, the future of the planet, and their own responsibility and passion as leaders shaping that planet.

 

On our quest in the Inyo Mountains these seven young people, ranging in age from 18 to 23, chose to do a vision quest to mark their rite of passage from childhood into adulthood. They each had more personal intentions as well, which they stated as they stepped over the "threshold circle" and set out into the wilderness for their three-day fast and solo.  

 

The stories they told when they returned were extraordinary. They opened their senses to the natural world, had conversations with nature beings, did ceremony to say goodbye to old attitudes and to relationships that were no longer working, and danced under the stars. They survived fear, loneliness, regret, and boredom, and discovered joy, personal empowerment, sensuality, and spirituality. One young man, who, since childhood, had carefully mapped out his whole life so that he would be guaranteed to succeed, realized that he needed to "open my heart to the vast unknown." A young woman returned from her solo bearing a new name: Earth Warrior Woman. One morning during the solo, when we guides were checking the threshold circle created by the questers for their time out, we found a note from a young man who had insisted before the solo that he was not yet ready for adulthood. "I constructed a [ceremonial] death lodge," his note read. "I did battle in the night. I CLAIM MANHOOD!!!!"

 

These young people aren't pessimistic about the future either. As one young man remarked, "Yes, it's hard growing up, but I don't think it's any harder now than it's ever been. And there's so much going on in the world that we can be part of. It's a very exciting time."  

Will and I will be guiding the Youth Quest again next year July 14-24, 2012.   

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