The challenges we face can be difficult even to think about. Climate change, war, political polarization, economic upheaval, and the dying back of nature together create a planetary emergency of overwhelming proportions. This revised, tenth anniversary edition of Active Hope shows us how to strengthen our capacity to face these crises so that we can respond with unexpected resilience and creative power. Drawing on decades of teaching an empowerment approach known as the Work That Reconnects, the authors guide us through a transformational process informed by mythic journeys, modern psychology, spirituality, and holistic science. This process equips us with tools to face the mess we're in and play our role in the collective transition, or Great Turning, to a life-sustaining society.
Practical tools for coping with despair over climate change and environmental crisis from a legendary ecophilosopher and a sustainability activist
"Books about social and ecological change too often leave out a vital component: how do we change ourselves so that we are strong enough to fully contribute to this great shift? Active Hope fills this gap beautifully, guiding readers on a journey of gratitude, grief, interconnection, and, ultimately, transformation."
- Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything
"Renowned Earth elder Joanna Macy has long exemplified what it means to live a life of spiritual activism and courageous compassion. Here, with her colleague Chris Johnstone, she offers the essential guidebook for everyone awakening to both the perils and potentials of our planetary moment. In this clearly written and compelling manual of cultural transformation, Joanna and Chris guide us to find hope where we might least have thought to look - within our own hearts and souls, and in our interdependence with all life - and then to boldly act on that hope as visionary artisans of life-enhancing cultures. To the future beings of the twenty-second century, Active Hope might turn out to be the most important book written in the twenty-first."
- Bill Plotkin, author of Soulcraft and Nature and the Human Soul
"Hope without action is naive optimism. Action without hope can fail because it doesn't believe in its goals. Active Hope is a compassionate and wise guide to bringing these forces together to understand who we are, what we need, and what we are capable of. It is also a brilliant guide to navigating the relationship between how we imagine ourselves and the world and what we can do in it."
- Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me and Hope in the Dark
"This is a powerful book to read in these dark times. Written with wisdom and passion, it is about balanced compassion and hope, love and strength, and the will to make a difference. Active Hope is a brilliant guide to sanity and love."
- Roshi Joan Halifax, abbot of the Upaya Zen Center
"We belong to the Earth, and our precious living world is in crisis. More than any book I've read, Active Hope shows us the true dimensions of this crisis, and the way our heart and actions can be part of the Great Turning toward healing. Please read this book and share it with others - for your own awakening, for our children, and for our future."
- Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance
"Before turning these pages, I was experiencing the total darkness of a midnight depression. I felt incapable of thinking through, much less taking, a necessary step in my life. Then I opened to the pages of Joanna and Chris's exercise 'The Bodhisattva Perspective.' Within minutes, I saw an otherwise inconceivable hope in the interconnected life I had chosen. It was a simple miracle of transformed consciousness. Active Hope is not just a book but a gateway to transformation."
- James W. Douglass, author of JFKand the Unspeakable
"Given the state of the world, how do we find a truly sane, effective, and life-affirming response? Jo
