E240 – Born For These Times // A Tribute To Joanna Macy - all that we are (fka the future is beautiful)

“The most radical thing any of us can do right now is to be fully present to what is.” Joanna Macy

E240 – Born For These Times // A Tribute To Joanna Macy

Listen to the conversation: If you love the show, you can subscribe through iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify and listen offline on your favourite device. Podcasts are great for long drives and commuting!

About this episode:

In this deeply special episode, we honour the extraordinary life and legacy of Joanna Macy PHD, visionary teacher, spiritual elder, systems thinker, and sacred activist, whose work has profoundly shaped the heart of All That We Are.

Known for The Great Turning, The Work That Reconnects, and Active Hope, Joanna gave us language and permission to meet this moment fully. To face the grief, uncertainty, and unraveling of our world not with numbness, but with courage, community, and fierce devotional love.

Joanna left her body on Saturday 19th July 2025, in her ninety-sixth year. Her spirit, teachings, and the deep soulprint of her work continue to move through so many of us and the guests, listeners, and circles that shape this podcast.

This tribute brings Joanna’s own tender and galvanising voice as she shares The Five Gifts of Uncertainty and we gather a constellation of stories and reflections from a few of the many who’ve been deeply touched by her work.

Featuring All That We Are guests and friends; Will Scott, Nina Simons, Tibet Sprague, Louis Weinstock, Jewels Wingfield and Phoebe Tickell. As well as Devon based artist Holly Ebony, with her song Born For These Times.

Thank you to our friends at Bioneers and Deep Adaptation Forum for the clips of Joanna Macy from:

The Hidden Promise of Our Dark Age: Discovering Our Wisdom, Strength and Beauty in the Midst of Crisis (Bioneers, August 2018)
Deep Adaptation Forum Q&A with Jem Bendell (June 2019)

Together, we weave a tapestry of respect, love, and courage. An invitation to revisit or begin to explore the teachings that Joanna has to offer.

“The old fears have to come apart. The armor has to be taken off so that the soft, sensitive skin and fingertips so that the vulnerable parts, eyes and lips and ears, can grow, so that we can grow in connection.” Joanna Macy

Joanna Macy Ph.D, author & teacher, was a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaved her scholarship with learnings from six decades of activism. Her wide-ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and postmodern science. The many dimensions of this work are explored in her thirteen books, which include three volumes of poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke with translation and commentary. As the root teacher of The Work That Reconnects, Joanna has created a ground-breaking framework for personal and social change, as well as a powerful workshop methodology for its application. Based in Berkeley, California, close to her children and grandchildren, Joanna has spent many years in other lands and cultures, viewing movements for social change and exploring their roots in religious thought and practice. Since the early 1980’s her travel was governed by invitations to teach the group work that she and a growing number of colleagues were developing. Many thousands of people around the world have participated in Joanna’s workshops and trainings. These methods, incorporated in the Work That Reconnects, have been adopted and adapted yet more widely in classrooms, community centers, and grassroots organizing.

Will Scott (he/him) is a co-founder and lead facilitator at the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education in Sonoma County CA, on Southern Pomo Territory. Weaving Earth is a pioneering organization in the area of holistic education, working at the crossroads of social and environmental systems change through restoring, remembering and cultivating an embodied awareness of our interrelationship with people and planet. You hear Will in E73 – Will Scott on Wildfires, Relational Education and Nature Connection // Weaving Earth: Ecological, Social and Personal Systems Change

Nina Simons is an award winning social entrepreneur and visionary thinker. In 1990, she co-founded Bioneers with her husband and partner, Kenny Ausubel and is now Chief Relationship Strategist. As cofounder, she created the Everywoman’s Leadership program, and has helped to lead years of identifying, gathering and disseminating breakthrough innovations that reveal a positive and life-honoring future that’s within our grasp. Nina has been a returning guest on our podcast, you can hear her in E81 – Nina Simons on Leadership, Diversity and Restoring the Feminine // Nature, Culture and the Sacred: Listening for Leadership , E100 – Feminine Leadership, Resilience and Life’s Joy with Nina Simons, Stephanie Mines and Zerbanoo Gifford // Dancing Our Lives Into A Global Renaissance & E162 – Amisha Ghadiali and Nina Simons on Leadership, Community and Reciprocity

Tibet Sprague is a communitarian technologist, working for a world where all beings can thrive. As a core steward of the Terran Collective his mission is to amplify cooperation among those working to heal and regenerate our communities and our planet. Terran’s primary project right now is Hylo – the social coordination platform for a thriving planet – where Tibet leads the software engineering team. He also stewards the Collaborative Tech Alliance, which is currently launching a 2 month Collabathon to catalyze interoperability across humane social platforms.

Louis Weinstock is a Transpersonal Child Psychotherapist and Social Entrepreneur. He helps people find a light in the darkness, especially in grief, in the shadow, in the things that are unseen, unheard, unspoken. For over 20 years, he has expertly guided children and grown-ups through some of the toughest challenges life can throw at us – loss, trauma, divorce, burnout and breakdowns. He is also co-founder of Apart of Me, a multi-award-winning charity that helps young people transform their grief into compassion. Find Louis in E180 – Louis Weinstock on Attention Economy, Children’s Mental Health And Grief // Windows Of Tolerance

Jewels Wingfield, a catalyst, educator and healer. She lives and works in the middle of the Ancient 200,000 acre Forest of Dean, UK. Jewels is founder and director of ‘Living Love’ and the creator of ‘EarthHeart’, where she connects us with her unique methodology to catalyse humanities evolution reminding us of the interconnectedness of life. Listen to her in full in E167 – Jewels Wingfield on Community, Reciprocity and Nature Connection // Circles Of Belonging

Phoebe Tickell is a scientist, systems thinker, and founder of Moral Imaginations, an activist design lab dedicated to catalysing just, regenerative futures by igniting humankind’s moral imagination. Phoebe was mentored by Joanna Macy between 2020-2025 after meeting her at her 10 Day Intensive in California in 2016, and started Moral Imaginations with Joanna’s help, guidance and input. Moral Imaginations’ methodologies awaken collective agency through imagination, ethics, and governance innovation. Hear more about her in E62 – Phoebe Tickell on Systems change, Courage, and Apocalypse // Striving to be Consistent in an Inconsistent World

Holly Ebony is a contemporary folk singer-songwriter, known for her agile, evocative voice, poetic lyricism and heartfelt live presence.Her 2023 album, ‘Born For These Times’ has been described as;”Esoteric, elusive, steeped in the poetic. A truly intoxicating debut.”

For insights into Joanna’s work, visit joannamacy.net & workthatreconnects.org

To connect or work with Amisha, visit amisha.co.uk