B O O K · for our time
During this summer I looked for solace and found some in beautiful books; literature, cookbooks, philosophy. I’ll share a few of them here, perhaps you will appreciate them too.
A book I’m slowly taking in is ‘World as Lover, World as Self’ written by Joanna Macy*. Its title already so captivating; closing the gap of being separate from nature, from others. When I watch the horrors of our time… I feel despair. When I gaze nearby in nature… I feel hope and see countless lessons for us to (re)learn from nature’s intelligence. How can we respond to our times? I’m still in the midst of reading this powerful book, but her words are a balm to the soul and to the despair we can feel both alone and collectively. I particularly appreciate how she finds ways to come in to action, and work with the despair. Here are just a few snippets to ponder on, and perhaps spark curiosity for the book.
Joanna Macy writes: “There is so much to be done, and time is so short. We can proceed, of course, out of grim and angry desperation. But the tasks progress more easily and productively with a measure of thankfulness for life; it links us to our deeper powers and lets us rest in them. Many of us are braced, psychically and physically, against the signals of distress that continually barrage us in the news, on our streets, and in the wider world. As if to reduce their impact on us, we withdraw like a turtle into its shell. But we can choose to turn to the breath, the body, the senses, for they help us to open to wider currents of knowing and feeling.”
“Our responses to the state of things are conditioned by our relationship to the world, and this is seldom conscious; it is shaped by powerful archetypes. As we recognize these archetypes, we can be both liberated and emboldened to do what must be done.
[…]
World as battlefield
World as trap
World as lover
World as self
[…]
In this third view [world as lover], the world is experienced not as a stage set for our moral battles or a prison to escape from, but as an essential and life-giving partner.”
“There are hard things to face in our world right now, if we want to be of use. Gratitude, when it’s real, offers no blinders. In the face of devastation and tragedy it can ground us, especially when we are scared. It can hold us steady for the work to be done.”
*Joanna Macy was a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking, and deep ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with learnings from sixty years of activism and a ground-breaking framework for personal and social change.