Grief and Gratitude: Honoring Joanna Macy’s Legacy

I’m looking out the window onto W. Mountain Street, idly watching people pass on their way to the library, as I struggle to find words for what’s in my heart. Someone dear to me—and to countless others—has departed.

Known as the “Great Lady of Deep Ecology,” Joanna Macy passed away on Saturday, July 19th. She lived a marvelous long life and was well-loved by her family and countless people around the world. She was an extraordinary mentor: her authenticity brings a smile, even through tears.

Like many who mourn her passing, I feel both grief and gratitude—grief at losing her embodied presence, and gratitude that her life’s work will continue to ripple outward for generations to come.

I first read Joanna’s work in Thinking Like a Mountain, a classic of the sustainability movement. Later, her scholarship in Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems became central to my own work—a guiding light as I explored the intersection of technological systems and human virtues, resulting in my early work in digital altruism, cyber-kindness, and collaborative heroism. Many years later, Macy’s masterful guide, The Work That Reconnects, became foundational to my exploration of human rewilding.

One of the things I loved most about Joanna was the way she brought grief more fully into the ecological conversation. She taught that by turning away from grief, we risk turning away from life itself. This insight lies at the heart of what I mean when I speak of rewilding ourselves.

Taking its cue from ecological rewilding, human rewilding is about restoring our relationships with nature and natural systems in order to heal ourselves and our world. To begin the restoration work, we must look closely at the denatured places within ourselves and our societies—doing so means looking grief squarely in the eyes.

We live in cultures that teach us to fear death, to push through grief, to “move on.” But this disconnection from natural cycles dulls our senses and hardens our hearts. It becomes easier to ignore suffering—whether from war, hunger, or the silent suffering of animals—because we have forgotten how to feel.

“The refusal to feel takes a heavy toll. Not only is there an impoverishment of our emotional and sensory life, flowers are dimmer and less fragrant, our loves less ecstatic, but this psychic numbing also impedes our capacity to process and respond to information. The energy expended in pushing down despair is diverted from more creative uses, depleting the resilience and imagination needed for fresh visions and strategies.” – Joanna Macy

For me, exploring human rewilding is a way of honoring and carrying Joanna’s work forward. Her soul pollen lingers in all she created—her books, her teachings, her interviews—and in all of us who were touched by her presence.

If you are new to Joanna’s work, I encourage you to read Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects (co-authored with Molly Brown) and Active Hope (co-authored with Chris Johnstone). Joanna’s teachings remind us that even in our grief, we are alive, connected, and capable of tending to both our inner landscapes and the outer world with courage and love.