If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear. People who can open to the web of life that called us into being
Joanna MacyRead
The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you're worrying about whether you're hopeful, or hopeless, or pessimistic, or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you're showing up, that you're here and that you're finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Being fully present in the moment is the greatest gift, as it allows for deeper love and connection with the world.
In this quote, Joanna Macy emphasizes the importance of presence in our lives. Rather than getting caught up in our emotions or foreboding thoughts about hope or despair, it is essential to focus on the act of showing up and engaging with the world around us. This attentive presence is crucial for fostering love, collaboration, and ultimately healing in our communities and the world. Our capacity to love and connect can ignite innovative solutions and collective action for change.
Themes
PresenceLoveHealingMindfulnessConnection
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about mental health at a community gathering.
More from Joanna Macy
All quotes →To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe -- to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it -- is a wonder beyond words.
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It is good to realize that falling apart is not such a bad thing. Indeed, it is as essential to evolutionary and psychological transformation as the cracking of outgrown shells.
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Confirming an intuitive sense I've always felt for the interconnectedness of all things, this doctrine has provided me ways to understand the intricate web of co-arising that links one being with all other beings, and to apprehend the reciprocities between thought and action, self and universe.
Joanna MacyRead
Out of this darkness a new world can arise, not to be constructed by our minds so much as to emerge from our dreams. Even though we cannot see clearly how it's going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination. We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts.
Joanna MacyRead
It’s walking the razor’s edge of the sacred moment where you don’t know, you can’t count on, and comfort yourself with any sure hope. All you can know is your allegiance to life and your intention to serve it in this moment that we are given. In that sense, this radical uncertainty liberates your creativity and courage.
Joanna MacyRead
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