Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World

A creative, imaginative and very practical book concerned to respond, individually and especially in group contexts, to the environmental perceptions that wilol give new life to Earth and we Earthlings

As a collective, we are finally ready to read Macy's work. In this state of Blessed Unrest we are getting more aware of our own grief around the world we have created around the global industrial complex, Macy and Brown remind us of our authentic selves, and provide a road map for creating relationship strong enough to undo and generate life. Through the piece we (re)member that we are what we've been waiting for.

This is a great book written by a wise elder. While my sentiments are in agreement with the basic concepts of interconnection Macy writes so eloquently about, I am not sure that environmental policies may be achieved without polarization and confrontation of the forces of corporate hegemony. This is my only disagreement with the author. Is consensus really possible given the layers of entrenched elites running the global show? The practices within the book are meaningful for reconnecting to the wider imprint of nature. I found some to be in confluence with practices Ive learned elsewhere with indigenous peoples and another one of my mentors, the naturalist, Tom Brown.

Without having to consult a post-modern dictionary, Joanna Macy and co-author, Molly Young Brown give inspiring and heartfelt explanations and examples of their lifework: dealing with the roots of conscious and unconscious pain that we all feel with regards to ourselves, while bringing home the concept of our connectedness to this world. They point out the fallacy of basic assumptions that we can fix whatever problems we create (the fix-it mentality), as well as dealing with resulting issues of burn-out and stress by alternatively doing the "work that reconnects". The dynamic model set forth in this book recognizes the role of community and encourages us out of an antagonistic "us" versus "them" concept which tends to lead us towards short-term NIMBY (not in my backyard) solutions. In the preface to the book, Joanna Macy writes, "THIS IS A GUIDEBOOK. It maps ways into the vitality and determination we each possess to take part in the healing of our world."