Naturalistic Paganism
Joanna Macy lived a powerful life that touched and inspired millions of us. While her life has ended as all our lives will end, her legacy lives on in us and others, and a celebration of her life will be held (with online availability) this coming Tuesday, August 5th (two times, 7 am PDT and 5 pm PDT). Here’s the link to the celebration of life information.
As the many accolades for Joanna pour in, The Work That Reconnects has listed some of them, in addition to Joanna’s resources and an overview of her impact throughout her life. Here’s a start, but I encourage you to check out all their information at their full site for Joanna Macy.
While her life has ended as all our lives will end, her legacy lives on in us and others, and a celebration of her life will be held (with online availability) this coming Tuesday, August 5th (two times, 7 am PDT and 5 pm PDT). Here’s the link to the celebration of life information.
From the Work That Reconnects Network Site:
The Work That Reconnects Network is offering two gatherings – Tuesday, August 5 at 7AM PDT and Tuesday, August 5 at 5PM PDT – to honour this profound transition with a global, online connection space — a celebration of life that brings together the wider Work That Reconnects community, and all others who feel called to join. This will be a time to mourn, remember, and celebrate together. Our intention is that this shared space brings comfort, connection, and meaning to all who gather.
Joanna Rogers Macy leaves a legacy that will long continue to inform and energize both the work of healing the world from the frenzy of industrialized capitalism, and the complementary movements to come home to the true nature of our being. For, as she would say, we are embedded in the web of life.
If you are looking for ways to feel connected to Joanna’s legacy, we recommend the following resources:
About Joanna Macy, Root Teacher: including a list of books she’s authored and co-authored
We Are the Great Turning Podcast featuring Joanna Macy (produced by Jess Serrante via Sounds True in 2024)
Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower, by Rainer Maria Rilke – translated and read by Joanna Macy (On Being)
A Wild Love for the World (On Being)
The Great Turning film with Joanna Macy
Joanna Macy on the Shambhala Warrior Prophecy (produced by Chris Landry in 2016)
Treasuring Your Emotional Connection to the Wold with Joanna Macy (produced by Vicki Robin via Resilience in 2022)
Climate Crisis as a Spiritual Path (produced by Old Dog Documentaries)
Obituaries and Tribute Articles Honoring Joanna Macy
- New York Times – July 23, 2025
- Tricycle – July 20, 2025
- Rebecca Solnit – July 21, 2025
- Berkeleyside – July 21, 2025
- Buddhistdoor Global – July 21, 2025
- Celebrating One Incredible Family – July 22, 2025
- Drew Dellinger – July 22, 2025
- Georgia Interfaith Power and Light – July 21, 2025
Of those, I’d like to highlight the one by my friend Drew Dellinger. Here’s an excerpt.
I have never forgotten the eco-satori that flashed through my bodymind at that moment—when Joanna stood silhouetted by the radiant Earth and told me, that is what you look like from space.
The Apollo missions as selfie-stick.
The “Blue Marble” as the ultimate group portrait.
“All our triumphs, and all our tragedies,” she continued. “All our individual gifts, and failures, flickering there. Reflected there.”
I realized in an instant that I scarcely understood what Earth was. That I could hardly begin to fathom what Earth means.
Like the first rush of an oncoming psychedelic, I shivered at the insight that humanity—like all beings—is a function of the Earth. An expression of, a mode of, a dream of the Earth. That the planet is the ultimate expression of sacredness. (Of course!) And creativity. And mystery.
“If I could have only known then,” Macy mused, recalling her childhood experience of church-going, “that I would walk into a space like this.”
“And then I knew coming in here this was a homecoming…”—she let her words bubble up until they overspilled precise coherence like a poem:
“… such as you don’t know there can be a homecoming like this, because you didn’t know it before, but you know it should have been there, you know?”
Letting out a short laugh, she continued, “And you come back. And you come back because it was more than when you were there before, and you know that’s when we’re heading…”
She was nearly chanting now.
“And you know it’s a coming home
that we’re all building together,
because this coming home—we didn’t know that we are our planet,
and we’re going to survive if we can!Out of the love that’s in our hearts.
Out of the grief that’s in our hearts.
Out of the caring that’s there!”This was Deep Ecology approaching religious fervor.
Starstuff, Contemplating: We are assemblages of ancient atoms forged in stars – atoms organized by history to the point of consciousness, now able to contemplate this sacred Universe of which we are a tiny, but wondrous, part.
Dr. Jon Cleland Host is a scientist who earned his PhD in materials science at Northwestern University & has conducted research at Hemlock Semiconductor and Dow Corning since 1997. He holds eight patents and has authored over three dozen internal scientific papers and eleven papers for peer-reviewed scientific journals, including the journal Nature. He has taught classes on biology, math, chemistry, physics and general science at Delta College and Saginaw Valley State University. Jon grew up near Pontiac, and has been building a reality-based spirituality for over 30 years, first as a Catholic and now as a Unitarian Universalist, including collaborating with Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow to spread the awe and wonder of the Great Story of our Universe (see www.thegreatstory.org, and the blog at evolutionarytimes.org). Jon and his wife have four sons, whom they embrace within a Universe-centered, Pagan, family spirituality. He currently moderates the yahoo group Naturalistic Paganism.
Naturalistic Paganism 