With deep gratitude and sorrow, we honor the life and legacy of Joanna Macy, PhD—environmental activist, scholar, teacher, and beloved friend—who passed away peacefully on July 19, 2025.
Joanna aligned with the Garrison Institute in our shared mission of cultivating contemplative wisdom, environmental well-being, and systemic social change. She integrated Buddhist insights and practices with systems thinking such as the pioneering methodology of the Work That Reconnects, which offers a simple, powerful approach to facilitating reconnection that has grown into an international network of practitioners and facilitators.
She also contributed a profound voice in the global movement for ecological awareness and planetary consciousness. Joanna’s teachings have shaped generations of changemakers—and inspired a more relational, compassionate way of living on Earth.
In her 2021 virtual forum with Jonathan F. P. Rose as part of our Pathways to Planetary Health series, Joanna reminded us of our essential interconnection:
“I have been helping people find ways that they belong here, because that’s your source—the source of who you are is this larger body. My work is to help you see that the world is not a larger body—it is our larger body.”
Joanna provided both a clear-eyed view of planetary crisis and a hopeful invitation to serve life in daily ways. Her message was not one of naïve optimism—but of courageous love.
“Even if we fail, and we can’t lower the greenhouse gas emissions and the predicted scenario unfolds… we will, in our efforts, in our teamwork, in the love that has guided us, have reached dimensions of collective intelligence and love that will have made it all worthwhile. Because we belong to each other. We have been given a beautiful task—even if we fail, we can love this task because it brings us together.”
May we continue the Great Turning that Joanna so faithfully named — with fierce care, brave imagination, and a wild love for the world.
Photograph by Brooke Porter
