Joanna Macy facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Joanna Rogers Macy
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| Born | 2 May 1929 |
| Occupation | Author, Buddhist scholar, environmental activist |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse | Fran Macy (died 2009) |
Joanna Rogers Macy, born on May 2, 1929, is an amazing environmental activist, a talented author, and a deep thinker about Buddhism. She also studies how different parts of the world connect, a field called general systems theory, and a way of thinking about nature called deep ecology. She has written twelve books that share her ideas.
She was married to the late Francis Underhill Macy. He was also an activist and an expert on Russia. He started an organization called the Center for Safe Energy.
Contents
Joanna Macy's Life Story
Early Years and Learning
Joanna Macy says that a poet and activist named Muriel Rukeyser inspired her to become a writer. When Joanna was in high school in New York City, she skipped school one day. She took a train from Long Island to Manhattan to hear Muriel Rukeyser read her poems.
The hall was already full when Joanna arrived. But Muriel Rukeyser saw her and invited her to come onto the stage. Joanna got to sit at the poet's feet during the reading!
Joanna Macy finished college at Wellesley College in 1950. Later, in 1978, she earned her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Syracuse University. For her advanced studies, she worked with a mentor named Ervin László. She focused on how systems thinking (looking at how things connect) and a Buddhist idea called mutual causality are similar. This Buddhist idea is about how everything depends on everything else.
Her Important Work
Joanna Macy speaks around the world about important topics. She talks about stopping nuclear weapons, working for peace, fighting for fairness, and protecting the environment.
She is very well-known for her book, Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World. She also helped start the Great Turning idea. This idea is about changing society from one that focuses on endless industrial growth. Instead, she wants to create a more sustainable way of living.
Joanna Macy has created a special way of thinking about how people and society can change. She also developed workshops to help people put these ideas into practice. Her work combines ideas about feelings, spiritual thoughts from Buddhism, and modern science.
People Who Inspired Her
Joanna Macy first learned about Buddhism in 1965. At that time, she was working with people from Tibet who had to leave their homes. She met several important Buddhist teachers in northern India.
Her own spiritual practices come from the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. She learned from teachers like Nyanaponika Thera in Sri Lanka, Munindraji in West Bengal, and Dhiravamsa in Thailand.
Many thinkers influenced Joanna Macy's ideas about living systems. Ervin Laszlo taught her about systems theory through his books. He also helped her with her Ph.D. paper. Gregory Bateson also shaped her thoughts with his book, Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Other important thinkers included Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Arthur Koestler, and Hazel Henderson.
She learned about how living things work from Tyrone Cashman. She learned about how economies work from Kenneth Boulding. Donella Meadows taught her about how fast-growing systems can affect the planet. And Elisabet Sahtouris shared more about how systems organize themselves as they evolve.
What Joanna Macy Does
Joanna Macy travels a lot, giving talks, workshops, and training sessions around the world. Her work was first called "Despair and Empowerment Work." It became part of the deep ecology movement after she learned about the ideas of Arne Naess and John Seed.
However, because of some disagreements in the academic world, she now calls her work "the Work that Reconnects."
After her husband, Francis Underhill Macy, passed away in 2009, she moved to Berkeley, California. She lives close to her children and grandchildren. She has also taught at several graduate schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. These include the Starr King School for the Ministry and California Institute of Integral Studies, where she still teaches today.
See also
- David Korten, who worked with Joanna Macy on the Great Turning Initiative.
