Dr. Joanna Macy is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology; she has been a visionary force in environmental activism for over five decades. Her groundbreaking work, The Work That Reconnects, draws from spiritual traditions, general systems theory, and deep ecology to inspire a transition to sustainable human culture.

The central purpose of the Work that Reconnects is to help people uncover and experience their innate connections with each other and with the systemic, selfhealing powers in the web of life, so that they may be enlivened and motivated to play their part in creating a sustainable civilization. This is the aim of the Work That Reconnects: help us take part in the epochal shift from the industrial growth society to a lifesustaining civilization. This Great Turning is happening now on many fronts. In order to do this, we pursue these contributing goals:

• to provide people the opportunity to experience and share with others their innermost responses to the present condition of our world
• to reframe their pain for the world as evidence of their interconnectedness in the web of life, and hence of their power to take part in its healing
• to provide people with conceptsfrom systems science, deep ecology, or spiritual traditionswhich illumine this power, along with exercises which reveal its play in their own lives
• to provide methods by which people can experience their interdependence with, their responsibility
• to, and the inspiration they can draw from past and future generations, and other lifeforms
• to enable people to embrace the Great Turning as a challenge which they are fully capable of meeting in a variety of ways, and as a privilege in which they can take joy
• to bring people into mutual support and collaboration in working for the world