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
We are our world knowing itself. We can relinquish our separateness. We can come home again - and participate in our world in a richer, more responsible and poignantly beautiful way than before, in our infancy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes our connection to the world and the importance of embracing this connection for a more meaningful existence.
Joanna Macy's quote suggests that we are deeply intertwined with the world around us, and through awareness and connection, we can overcome feelings of separateness. By engaging with the world more fully, we can experience life in a more profound and beautiful manner, rebuilding our relationship with ourselves and our environment.
Themes
ConnectionWorldResponsibilityParticipationBeauty
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental awareness, one might use this quote to highlight our collective responsibility toward the planet.
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.
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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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