We Are The Great Turning Joanna Macy & Jessica Serrante

This episode explores the powerful role of Eros (sensual love) and Thanatos (death) in fueling our connection to the world as we contribute to the Great Turning. Joanna and Jess discuss how we might learn to see our world as our lover (and as our self), the gifts of cultivating a sensual connection with the world, and how facing mortality can make the gift of being alive feel even more precious. They also reflect on the closeness of Joanna’s own death, which Joanna sees as "going home" to rejoin the cycle of life.



In this episode:



Using our love and awareness of impermanence as fuel for activism

Discovering ways to truly feel interconnected with all life through sensual presence

Reflections on mortality and our place in the cycle of life



We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

This bonus episode will support you to take the main insights from Episode 7: “We Are a Part of a River of Time” deeper into your life. 



Jess will guide you through an adaptation of the Work That Reconnects exercise called “The Seventh Generation,” which she talks about in Episode 7. We recommend listening to the episode before doing this bonus. In this exercise, you will be invited to use your imagination and do some creative, guided role-playing with a friend, where one of you will speak as yourself, and the other will speak as a future being. 



For this exercise, you’ll need a friend and a place that is quiet enough for you to sit face-to-face and talk freely.  



We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.



 

Jess and Joanna explore the third phase of the spiral: Seeing with New Eyes. In this part of the spiral, the fog of our pain begins to lift off, and what comes in its place is a feeling of greater connection and belonging. Jess and Joanna talk about Deep Time, a way of understanding ourselves as a part of a long lineage of human and planetary history, and how our imaginations are an essential tool for “plugging back in” to the great web of life we’re a part of. 



In this episode:



Discovering ways to truly feel our interconnection with all life, and how that profound reconnection transforms us

Deep Time—slowing down and discovering a broader sense of ourselves in the world

“Plugging in” to our part in the web of life to fuel our own work for the Great Turning

Bonus Exercise: The Seventh Generation—connecting with those who came before and those who will come after us



We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

When it comes to the state of our world, the concept of hope can feel elusive. Joanna teaches Jess that the future may be uncertain, but that means that there’s still room for something beautiful to happen. This episode offers insights into embracing uncertainty, cultivating joyousness, and understanding the intricate interplay between hope, courage, and action.



In this episode:



“Active hope” is about acting in service of the future we hope for

Whenever Jess asks about hope, Joanna talks instead about courage 

When hope eludes us, courage and our devotion to life remain steadfast



We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

This bonus episode will support you to take the main insights from Episode 4: There is No Future if We Go Numb and Episode 5: This Pain Is Not for Nothing, deeper into your life. 



Both of these episodes are about the second phase in the Spiral of the Work That Reconnects, Honoring Our Pain for the World. This bonus is a recording of Joanna leading a meditation called Breathing Through, recorded at a retreat in 2006. In it, she’ll guide you to create space to acknowledge and honor the pain for the world that you carry without numbing or getting overwhelmed. All you’ll need for this bonus exercise is a place where you can close your eyes and relax.  



We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.



 

Now we get to what may be the toughest part of reckoning with our planet’s situation: dealing with numbness, grief, and despair. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the many crises around us, and natural to want to numb ourselves to the pain. 



Joanna and Jess speak with great vulnerability and candor about what it takes to navigate our darkest feelings—and the strength and beauty that can be found when we honor our pain. 



Trigger Warning: In this episode, we discuss suicide.



In this episode:



When it feels like our pain could swallow us whole, it helps to remember that all feelings come and go

Desperation can take us to dark places, but we are more than our despair

Numbness—Jess opens up about her familiar tactic for escaping pain

Our pain becomes sacred when we allow it to deepen our connection with the world

Bonus Exercise: Breathing Through



We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.