Editors' note: We have just learned of Joanna's Macy's death on July 19, 2025, after three weeks in Hospice. She was 96 years old.
The Buddhist journal Tricycle reports that when she was hospitalized in 2023, her breath "just a whisper," Macy told a visitor, “Let’s look out on those beautiful redwood trees. They feel as though they are hugging me from both sides. The world is spacious and alive now, and even sacred. I am so grateful to be here and to be of service.”
She will be greatly missed, and we can best honor her by carrying on in that same spirit of gratitude and service.
Eco-philosopher Joanna Macy was a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. A respected voice in the movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interwove her scholarship with five decades of activism.
Many thousands of people around the world participated in Joanna's workshops and trainings. As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, she created a ground-breaking theoretical framework for personal and social change, as well as a powerful workshop methodology for its application. It has been adopted and adapted widely in classrooms, churches, and grassroots organizing.
Her work helps people transform despair and apathy, in the face of overwhelming social and ecological crises, into constructive, collaborative action. It brings a new way of seeing the world, as our larger living body, freeing us from the assumptions and attitudes that now threaten the continuity of life on Earth.
Joanna traveled widely giving lectures, workshops, and trainings in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia. She lived in Berkeley, California, near her children and grandchildren until her passing on July 19, 2025.
Read For:
- Practices and prayers for the renewal of the planet
- Synthesis of science and spirituality
- Inspirational Earth wisdom
