SPIRITED BOOK CLUB DISCUSSes ‘Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience and Creative Power’ by Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone
Active Hope is about finding, and offering, our best response when facing concerns about our world situation.
Book Overview
The challenges we face can be difficult even to think about.
Climate change, the depletion of oil, economic upheaval, and mass extinction together create a planetary emergency of overwhelming proportions.
Active Hope shows us how to strengthen our capacity to face this crisis 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.
At the heart of this book is the idea that Active Hope is something we do rather than have. It involves being clear what we hope for and then playing our role in the process of moving that way. The journey of finding, and offering, our unique contribution to the Great Turning helps us to discover new strengths, open to a wider network of allies and experience a deepening of our aliveness. When our responses are guided by the intention to act for the healing of our world, the mess we’re in not only becomes easier to face, our lives also become more meaningful and satisfying.
The revised tenth anniversary edition is published on 14 June 2022 in the US, and 15 July 2022 in many other countries.
Download a taster of the book, including the introduction and first two chapters.
Contents
Part One: The Great Turning
CHAPTER 1: Three Stories of Our Time,
CHAPTER 2: Trusting the Spiral
CHAPTER 3: Coming from Gratitude,
CHAPTER 4: Honoring Our Pain for the World
Part Two: Seeing with New Eyes
CHAPTER 5: A Wider Sense of Self,
CHAPTER 6: A Different Kind of Power,
CHAPTER 7: A Richer Experience of Community,
CHAPTER 8: A Larger View of Time
Part Three: Going Forth
CHAPTER 9: Catching an Inspiring Vision,
CHAPTER 10: Daring to Believe It Is Possible,
CHAPTER 11: Building Support around You,
CHAPTER 12: Maintaining Energy and Enthusiasm,
CHAPTER 13: Strengthened by Uncertainty
Reviews for ‘Active Hope’
“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
“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
“I liked the book because it helped me learn ways of holding space for the pain of seeing the world in it’s current state, and also holding space for hope and action and togetherness. It helped me understand that no action is too small and it’s never too late to start, and that what I can bring is unique and adds up to an effort that’s greater than me, but that I play part of. The book is full of wisdom, many great questions and a lot of practical tools for exploring and applying the teachings..” —Veronica S., Amazon reader
“This is a surprisingly good book. I read this for a book club monthly reading and was hesitant initially because it seemed to me to be another superficial book telling us how much Human Beings have ruined our planet and environment. How wrong I was! This book … has some of that in the pages, but it addresses the problem in a unique way and perspective that is truly hopeful. There are multiple questions the book asks the reader to stop and contemplate … designed to get us to think deeply about why we believe the things we believe in, how those beliefs can and do affect the way we see the world and how we can practically make real change.” —Lucas, Amazon reader
“This is a practical guide to take aligned action for a better world in every way. The book has a beautiful environmental lens but is full of rich practices and ideas that shifted my mindset to show up better. Instead of paying attention to what is going on and wanting to give up , or ignoring it completely – we are presented with another way forward!.” —Erin, Amazon reader
CLUB DISCUSSION dates
BOOK CLUB meets Thursday, October 23 @ 3:00 – 4:00 pm AZ (PDT)
++Book discussion facilitated by Sheri Brown
About the authors
Ecophilosopher Joanna Macy, PhD, 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. As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, she created a groundbreaking theoretical framework for personal and social change, as well as a powerful workshop methodology for its application.
Her wide-ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and contemporary science. The many dimensions of this work are explored in her books and DVD.
Joanna Macy died peacefully in her Berkeley home on July 19 from complications after a fall. She was 96 years old.
Read more about Joanna Macy. To see more publications and learn about her work, go to https://www.joannamacy.net/main.
Chris Johnstone is a medical doctor, author, trainer and coach who worked for nearly twenty years as an addictions specialist in the UK National Health Service. A former Senior Teaching Fellow at Bristol University Medical School, he trains health professionals in behavioral medicine and gives courses exploring the psychological dimensions of planetary crisis.
Chris is known for his work pioneering the role of resilience training in promoting positive mental health, developing self-help resources and setting up the Bristol Happiness Lectures. He is author of Seven Ways to Build Resilience (Robinson, UK, 2019), and runs online trainings for resilience, wellbeing and active hope at CollegeOfWellbeing.com
Chris has been a trainer in the Work That Reconnects for more than three decades, working with Joanna on many occasions and running facilitator trainings in the United Kingdom. He has been active in the Transition movement since its very beginnings and contributed to a chapter on the psychology of change in The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins.
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