An Interview with Deep Ecologist Joanna Macy on "Coming Back from Activist Burnout"

I thought this was fitting for the Listen To Your Own Pulse: Tools for Balance and Self-care group!

From Yoga+Joyful Living Magazine:

Coming Back from Activist Burnout
After so many setbacks, how can eco-activists find the heart to carry on? Here, Yoga+ asks scholar and activist Joanna Macy about courage and the value of “deep ecology.”
By Contributing Editor Kelpie Wilson

Article at
http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/YogaPlus/Article.aspx?id=2805

If you haven't read Joanna Macy's work, I highly recommend it. Here's a book review I wrote for Think Girl (www.thinkgirl.net):

World As Lover, World As Self - Joanna Macy
World as Lover, World as Self is a uniquely large scale meditation on social justice and ecology. This newly revised and entirely relevant book may inspire activists of all causes and backgrounds. Buddhist philosophies inform Macy’s work, which realistically depicts the world’s devastations. At the same time, it promotes philosophical approaches to despair, shares heartening poems, and guides readers through meditation exercises. For example, she does not shy away from discussing death; she situates us as ancestors who must act on behalf of future generations.

Since I slowed down and immersed myself in this book, I have found my own thinking to be more holistic. I have been mulling over the intersections of feminist, anti-racist, anti-poverty, environmental, and holistic health movements. As she writes, “we can take on isolated causes and fight for them with courage and devotion…we tend to fall into the same short-term thinking that has entrapped our political economy…What a difference it makes to view our efforts as part of a vaster enterprise.” –Review by Julie Fiandt