Entering the Bardo: Honoring the Eco-Legacy of Joanna Macy

Joanna Macy, 1929-2025

Joanna Macy, beloved eco-philosopher, Buddhist Scholar, and visionary author of World as Lover, World as Self, Active Hope: The Work That Reconnects, Coming Back to Life, A Wild Love for the World, and many others, died peacefully July 19, 2025. Her work spans six decades, and her legacy has shaped generations of environmental advocates, eco-spiritual leaders, artists, poets, ethicists, and activists. She taught us not to look away, not to run from our grief, our pain of the loss of our precious home planet and countless extinct species, all our relations. She taught us to grieve with integrity, and to connect with all those who mourn and who embody active hope. She modeled for us a "Great Embrace," even as we experience the "Great Turning," shifting from ego- to eco-centrism. She gave us lessons in humility, in laughter, and in hope. Above all, she loved and was loved. She has entered a new realm of Enlightenment and peace.

Natural Bardo - In-Between Space

Here's a riveting meditation from Joanna's work on navigating change using the analogy of a bardo - a Tibetan Buddhist concept of a gap between worlds, a liminal space, where transition is possible.

We are in a space without a map. With the likelihood of economic collapse and climate catastrophe looming, it feels like we are on shifting ground, where old habits and old scenarios no longer apply. In Tibetan Buddhism, such a space or gap between known worlds is called a bardo. It is frightening. It is also a place of potential transformation.

As you enter the bardo, there facing you is the Buddha Akshobhya. His element is Water. He is holding a mirror, for his gift is Mirror Wisdom, reflecting everything just as it is. And the teaching of Akshobhya’s mirror is this: Do not look away. Do not avert your gaze. Do not turn aside. This teaching clearly calls for radical attention and total acceptance.

For the last forty years, I’ve been growing a form of experiential group work called the Work That Reconnects. It is a framework for personal and social change in the face of overwhelming crises—a way of transforming despair and apathy into collaborative action. Like the Mirror Wisdom of Akshobhya, the Work That Reconnects helps people tell the truth about what they see and feel is happening to our world. It also helps them find the motivation, tools, and resources for taking part in our collective self-healing.

(Joanna Macy, Prologue to the 30th Anniversary edition of World As Lover, World As Self)

Glimmers of Hope

At this calamitous time in our planet's unraveling, we are entering the bardo. Unprecedented biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse due to human causes in the context of the Sixth Mass Extinction is giving rise to widespread Solastalgia, our own epidemic of grief, anxiety and loss of our beloved common home. We must not look away, nor can we ignore our dual role as perpetrators and potential healers in this context of sadness and pain. As we look into the mirror for self-reflection and accountability, we also notice the pain yes, the loss. We see our role in perpetuating the causes of Earth's degradation. And we are coming alive to our own potency as healers in our planetary evolution.

"Now the ears of my ears awake and Now the eyes of my eyes are opened" (from e e cummings, "I Thank Thee, God for Most This Amazing")

We are experiencing new glimmers of Active Hope. Individuals who love creation are waking to a renewed sense of purpose and empowerment, using biomimicry - imitating Nature - to solve life's seemingly intractable challenges. We are investing in Green Social Prescribing to mitigate human health and wellness crises through Nature immersion and holistic healing. We are finding ways to make COP initiatives priorities in regional and local settings. We are challenging abuses of our planet in court, defending the rights of Nature and the rights of humans most adversely affected by climate injustice. We are learning Earth's languages, listening intently, and seeing with Beginner's Eye. We are becoming as our creature-kin have modeled for us - alert, listening, paying attention. We are becoming fully present, a sacramental tincture for Earth's wounds.

Organizations around the world are forming coalitions and networks, communities of mutual protection and generative practices for cultivating healthy Earth. We are doing this together, our Moonshot for Active Hope. And we humans, though we have caused irreversible damage, are not alone. We are surrounded by all our relations. Water, soil, air, arbor elders, plant-kin, creature-kin, and human-kin are joining together to become more fully a thriving, sustainable biosphere for the good of the whole. This phenomenon is our Great Turning, galvanizing our seemingly insignificant efforts to "reduce, reuse, recycle," or "think globally, act locally," or "live simply and simply live," or "connect, connect, connect," and making us stronger, passionately co-creative, and resilient.

Our bardo is a transformational cocoon birthing dawn from night. What better way to honor the legacy of Joanna and all who love Earth than to rouse from our slumber and alight in the dawn of Active Hope? We are emerging anew, poised to reclaim holy darkness and begin again.

"Moon and Water" by Mary Oliver

I wake and spend

the last hours of darkness

with no one but the moon.

She listens to my complaints

like the good companion she is

and comforts me surely with her light.

But she, like everyone, has her own life.

So finally I understand that she has turned away,

is no longer listening.

She wants me to refold myself into my own life.

And, bending close,

as we all dream of doing,

she rows with her white arms through the dark water

which she adores.