“Restorative justice says ‘No, the offense affected a relationship’ and what you are seeking for is to restore the relationship, to heal the relationship.” –Desmond Tutu
“Crime is a violation of people and relationship. It creates obligations to make things right,. Justive involves the victim, the offender and the community in search for solutions which promote repair, reconciliation and reassurance.” –Howard Zehr
“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth,” –African proverb
Sia Henry is an attorney, a racial justice activist, and abolitionist who has spent a decade engaging in criminal legal system reform work. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Duke University. She is also an advocate for bringing the healing potential of psychedelics to communities of color.
Sia serves on the Board of Directors for Mount Tamalpais College (formerly the Prison University Project) at San Quentin State Prison. That is the country’s first, tuition-free and independently accredited college situated inside a prison. She also founded the Hood Exchange to introduce formerly incarcerated Black individuals to international travel throughout the African diaspora. In addition, Sia currently works with MAPS (the Multi-disciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) with the goal of ensuring Black, indigenous, and other communities of color have meaningful access to transformative healing opportunities.
I became aware of Sia and her work watching an interview she did with my good friend, Carla Detchon on her podcast, “Psychedelic Divas”. I was very moved to learn more of how she works so powerfully on social justice issues, as well as the more inner directed exploration of consciousness change. In our conversation, which includes her own personal story, Sia lays out the theory and practice of restorative justice and what is meant by “abolition” beyond any simplistic understandings. We then explore her personal, life-changing experience with psilocybin mushrooms and her current work with MAPS https://maps.org/ aiming to bring the healing potential of psychedelics more deeply into the Black community.
Especially given the reactionary currents in our society today, where people are encouraged to focus on themselves as separate individuals and justice has become synonymous with vengeance, Sia’s call to have us move towards community healing points us towards a vital reorienting of our attention.
Please check out more about this extraordinary woman and her work:
“The introduction of LSD and psychedelics into the culture produced a transformation of the entire culture, the consciousness of the culture.
“Due to a complex variety of social and historical reasons, a core feature of the Euro-American psyche is a dissociative split between spirit and nature.
“We are living in a very interesting time. Civilization that we call Western- techno-western civilization- is simultaneously becoming global and collapsing.” – Ralph Metzner
An afternoon of reflections on the life and work of pioneering visionary, psychologist, writer, and psychedelics researcher
Saturday, September 20, 2025, 1-5 p.m.
The Alembic – 2820 Seventh St, Berkeley, CA
Sponsored by City Lights Book Store, The Alembic, CIIS’ Center for Psychedelic-assisted Therapy, and the Green Earth Foundation.
1:00 pm: Opening
Cathy Coleman, author of Ralph Metzner, Explorer of Consciousness: The Life and Legacy of a Psychedelic Pioneer Introduction by Peter Maravelis (City Lights)
1:15 pm: Session One:
Ralph Metzner: A Man to Remember: Ralph as scholar, author, teacher, alchemist, healer, artist, friend
Alan Levin: 50 Years with Ralph as Teacher, Guide, and Friend Gail Colombo: Ralph as Reverend, Therapist, and Mentor Uwe Doerken: A Man to Remember Charles Grob: Travels with Ralph Cathy Coleman: The Sacred Hoop of Partnership
2:30 pm: Session Two: Ralph’s Cosmology
Roger Marsden: East-West Psychology Alan Levin: Ralph’s ideas on Agni Yoga, Shamanism, and Alchemy Michael Ziegler: Ralph’s Bardo: The Skillful Means of Sacralizing Psychedelics in Sessions Mark Kasprow: Ralph’s Wisdom about When to not Say Anything: The Skillful Non-use of Cosmology Silvia Nakkach: The Ideas at the Core
3:45 pm: Session Three: Ralph’s Legacy and Impact on the Future
Robin Carhart-Harris: Tribute to Ralph’s Legacy Janis Phelps: Potentials for Psychedelic-Assisted Connections to the Nature, Death, and One Another: The Profound Legacies of Ralph Metzner Valeria McCarroll, PhD: Ralph’s Legacy of Psychedelic Mysticism Gary Bravo: Birth of a Psychedelic Culture: Conversations about Leary, the Harvard Experiments, Millbrook and the Sixties Jamy Faust: The Cave of the Heart __________________
Gary Bravo, MD, is a psychiatrist in Sonoma County with a long-standing interest in psychedelics, meditation, and altered states. He is co-author, along with Ralph Metzner and Ram Dass, of Birth of a Psychedelic Culture.
Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD, is a British-born psychopharmacologist who is Ralph Metzner Distinguished Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. Previously, he founded and was Head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College, London. Noted for brain imaging studies of psychedelic and psychoactive drugs and their therapeutic use, in 2020 The Times named him one of the world’s top 31 medical scientists.
Cathy Coleman, PhD, was Ralph Metzner’s wife of 31 years. She is a certified consulting astrologer, and works for the CIIS psychedelic certificate program. She served as a senior administrator and former dean of students at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), president of Kepler College, and director IONS’ EarthRise Retreat Center.
Gail Colombo is a practitioner of Metzner Alchemical Divination, produces Flower Essences, and works with frequencies.
Uwe Doerken is a business executive, management consultant, and entrepreneur, who lives part-time mostly in Germany and Greece. He served as chairman and CEO of DHL Worldwide Express and on the board of Green Earth Foundation.
Jamy Faust, MA, is a practitioner and teacher of Metzner Alchemical Divination methods, psychotherapist, family constellation facilitator, energy healer, and author located in Boston. She is currently completing Becoming Shamanka: Walking the Path of Psychedelic Medicine, a book co-authored with her husband, Peter Faust, on Ralph’s alchemical divination methods and processes.
Charles Grob, MD is a Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine. He has conducted clinical research over the last three decades with psilocybin, ayahuasca and MDMA and has published widely in the professional literature on psychedelics and edited three books, Hallucinogens: A Reader (2002, Tarcher/Putnam), Higher Wisdom: Eminent Elders Explore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics (2005, with Roger Walsh Suny Press), and Medical Hallucinogens (2021, with Jim Grigsby, Guilford Press).
Mark Kasprow, MD is a psychiatrist practicing in Santa Cruz. His work is anchored in the understanding that for each of us, our true guide in life is our consciousness. He is presently working on a book about his journey with psychedelics and the role they played in recovering from a brain injury.
Alan Levin, LMFT, is a psychotherapist, meditation teacher, and author in the Lower Hudson Valley, New York. Alan joined Ralph in the study and practice of Agni Yoga with the School of Actualism, and assisted in many of Ralph’s ceremonial retreats.
Peter Maravelis is the Event Director at City Lights Booksellers and Publishers. For over two decades he has curated events bringing about the intersection of the literary world with that of the arts, philosophy, and the sciences. He has produced special programming that explores the cutting edge of ideas, opening discussion between leaders in different fields and the public. He is editor of both San Francisco Noir and San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics.
Roger Marsden, PHD, earned his doctorate at CIIS, with Ralph being a major professor and mentor. He is a retired mental health clinician.
Valeria McCarroll, PhD, LMFT, is a psychedelic educator, writer, and speaker. Formally trained as a guide in expanded states of consciousness, she teaches critical courses on psychedelic humanities to students at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Valeria’s background includes licensure as a marriage and family therapist, a doctorate in psychology, a certificate in psychedelic therapies and research, as well as thousands of hours of study and practice in a variety of therapeutic and spiritual traditions. She has a forthcoming book on the seat of the psychedelic guide. Her interests lie at the intersection of nondual wisdom traditions, somatics, psychedelics, and social and transformative justice. She lives in Northern California.
Silvia Nakkach Knapp, MA, MMT, is a Grammy-nominated composer, interdisciplinary vocal artist, educator, and founding director of the International Vox Mundi School of Sound and originator of the Yoga of the Voice training certificate. With a background as a clinical psychologist, she integrates her expertise as an author, Hindustani raga musician, and immersive soundscape designer. She serves on the faculty of CIIS, contributing to East West Psychology, Asian Contemplative and Transcultural Studies (ACTS), and mentors trainees at the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research. For many years, Silvia worked at Claudio Naranjo’s Sat Institute and collaborated with Ralph, combining teaching and innovative musical projects. www.voxmundiproject.com.
Janis Phelps, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and a leader in the field of psychedelic therapy training as the Director of the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies Center. In the role of the Center’s founder and with influences from Dr. Ralph Metzner as friend, colleague, and teacher, Janis developed and launched the first university accredited training program for psychedelic therapy and research. As a board member of the Heffter Research Institute and the Holos Institute, Janis is passionate about supporting humans in the need for rapid growth of their capacity for embodied compassion and altruism for each other and all species on our planet. Climate change and the imperative of sustainability and biodiversity keep her life goals aligned and alert.
Michael Ziegler was ordained in the Jewish Neo-Chasidic lineage by Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi. He has been a pioneer in the development of spiritual and somatic programs. Michael has worked with the Green Earth Foundation in support of Ralph Metzner’s legacy. He created a master class for psychedelic guides at theguidingpresence.com, which includes many recordings of Ralph in sessions discussing psychedelic use. ___________________
Ralph Metzner, PhD was a recognized pioneer in psychological, philosophical and cross-cultural studies of consciousness and its transformations. He attended The Queen’s College, Oxford, where he obtained a BA in philosophy and psychology. Subsequently, he obtained his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Harvard University and held a post-doctoral NIMH fellowship in pharmacology at the Harvard Medical School. While at Harvard he collaborated with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert in classic studies of psychedelics in the 1960s, co-authored The Psychedelic Experience and was editor of The Psychedelic Review. He was a psychotherapist in private practice in the SF Bay Area and Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he taught for 30 years. Author of over 100 scientific papers and scholarly essays, he was the editor of and contributor to two collections of essays on the pharmacology, anthropology and phenomenology of ayahuasca (The Ayahuasca Experience, 2006) and of psilocybin mushrooms (Sacred Mushroom of Visions, 2004). His conversational memoir of the Harvard projects in the early 1960s, Birth of a Psychedelic Culture with Ram Dass and Gary Bravo, was published in 2010. He compiled and edited a collection of essays and experiences with the empathogen MDMA, entitled Through the Gateway of the Heart (1985, 2012).
His books on the psychology and philosophy of transformation include Maps of Consciousness (1971), The Unfolding Self (1998), The Well of Remembrance (1994) and Green Psychology (1999). He was president and co-founder of the Green Earth Foundation, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to healing and harmonizing the relations between humanity and the Earth (www.greenearthfound.org). The Green Earth Foundation has published his writings devoted to psychoactive/psychedelic drugs: The Toad and the Jaguar – A Field Report of Underground Research on a Visionary Medicine (2013), and Allies for Awakening – Guidelines for productive and safe experiences with entheogens (2015). His most recent books, published in 2017 are Ecology of Consciousness – The Alchemy of Personal, Collective and Planetary Transformation (Reveal Press, 2017), and Overtones and Undercurrents – Spirituality, Reincarnation and Ancestor Influence in Entheogenic Psychotherapy (Park Street Press, 2017). Alchemical Musings was published posthumously in 2020.
My recent conversation with Dr. David Ragland, writer, scholar and activist, couldn’t be more timely in the midst of the current relentless roll-back, under the Trump Administration, of policies and programs that were aimed at racial healing. David is a co-founder, along with Congresswoman Cori Bush, of the Truth Telling Project, where he serves as director for Culture, Organizing and Reparations. He is a passionate advocate for the healing of America through programs that expose and acknowledge the history and present experiences of racism, promote reparations for the injustices, and educate so as there will be no repeat of the abuses.
David was moved to create the Truth Telling Project after the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, where he witnessed the exclusion of the voices of the victims from public discourse. Yet, while far from a fan of Trump, David sees the problems we face in America as bi-partisan and present throughout the history of our country, with police abuse and mass incarceration being essentially an extension of slavery.
I think most people are very naive about the idea of reparations, seeing it merely as giving money to Black Americans who are the descendants of slaves. David sheds light for us around reparations as a multi-dimensional, educational, healing and spiritual initiative, as well as having grounded economic aspects.
In our conversation, David talks about the influence of his family on his own development. His father was a sharecropper who had to escape from Tennessee under the threat of forced labor. His mother’s lineage includes ancestors from Cameroon who had a warrior tradition that resisted colonization. He describes his mother as a continuing inspiration, among other things having maintained a garden in Missouri that supplied food for her own family and other folks in the community . Now, in addition to his work with the Truth Telling Project, David is a founder and member of a the Kibilio community in Massachusetts, a Queer, Black-Led Intentional community focused on healing, reparations and regenerative farming.
I hope you get as much from hearing David as I did in my conversation with him. If you find it of value, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and check out some of the other podcasts. And please take some time to explore the Truth Telling Project and David’s work through the links below.
Often seen as conflicting, the focus of attention outwardly on changing the world, and the focus inwardly on ones state of mind, are increasingly understood to be necessary complements to each other.
Outward: On June 14th, the same day that President Trump organized a military parade in Washington D.C., Indivisible and allied organizations mounted the ‘No Kings” protests that brought over five million people out into the streets in over 2100 cities and communities. This was not the first or last event the group organized, with local chapters holding weekly vigils and events at congressional offices of those supporting the MAGA drive towards autocracy.
Perhaps you’re one of the hundreds of thousands already involved. But if not, check out their national website https://indivisible.org/. If you put in your zip code you will be directed to local Indivisible groups, I found over a dozen within a 20 mile radius of my home. Their mission is clear, “We fight on, together. Our democracy is under threat. But we will not yield to fascism. We will stand together and we’ll fight back in defense of our rights, our communities, and our values. Join us.” Now they are launching “One Million Rising”—a national effort to train one million people in the strategic logic and practice of non-cooperation, as well as the basics of community organizing and campaign design.
If you are finding yourself afraid, wondering if there is anything effective you can do, it seems they are offering a hand to hold and suggestions and support in taking action, getting involved. Of course there are hundreds of other groups working similarly and in parallel ways. At least local to me, Indivisible has stood out. And we do need to stand OUT.
Inward: Wisdom or spiritual traditions, have long emphasized the need to look inside and face our own darkness if we are to engage in any activity that aims to effectively help others or the world. Taking time to be with our emotional reactions, to name and acknowledge them, and to find inner sources of healing and balancing are essential not only for our own mental health, but for being an effective agent of change.
States of consciousness are essentially part of the invisible universe in which we live. They are the source, or what is behind behaviors, our own and those of our perceived enemies. Understanding that allows us a greater sense of empathy and gives us a better handle on how the changes we seek can be brought about. Martin Luther King, Jr., taught, “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Not easy. Can we take the time, after being revved up into rage or hate from hearing the latest rant on TikTok or MSNBC, to re-center in love and compassion? To maintain that, (or at least aim to), while at a vigil or rally or march?
Invisible are the dark impulses that reside in our hearts and minds. That is until we shine the light of awareness on them and do what it takes to free ourselves of their influence. That takes time. It takes a willingness to let go of the struggle for a bit and open to the deepest sources of wisdom and kindness that are our true nature. For those who are open to it, there are forces beyond the conceptual and material reality, beyond the kind of mind that creates the suffering in the first place. These are available to us through deep meditation or prayer. They are a part of the worldview of all indigenous societies and all the world’s religious traditions. Invisible to those of us raised in Western Civilization’s materialist mindset. Invisible until we bring the light of awareness to it.
Onward: Unless we acknowledge our own part in the causes of suffering that we see in the world and do the inner work to heal, we will be lost in mind circles of blame and rage and despair. Unless we take part in actions that challenge the causes of suffering in the world, systems that promote greed and separateness and fear, we will find ourselves isolated and depressed.
For millennia, humans have learned ways to live in balance, and passed these teachings along through the generations. Let’s face it; humans can be so beautiful, creative, loving, and brilliant. Yet we as a species have collectively found ourselves so distant from our own wisdom teachings that we are on the edge of destroying ourselves and most other forms of life on Mother Earth. I’m not alone in thinking that only through a shift in consciousness manifesting in compassionate action, spread through the collective of humanity, will we navigate towards survival and a better world.
“The common denominator between all my cartoons is rebellion against blind conformity.” –Khalil Bendib
It was my pleasure to have a conversation with my friend, Khalil Bendib: artist, sculptor, author, political cartoonist and radio host. The recorded YouTube of the conversation can be seen here:
Khalil and I met as participants in a dialogue group in Berkeley that included, Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians and I learned to deeply respect his candor, sense of humor and intelligent take on the nuanced reality in which we live.
Khalil Bendib is an Algerian, born in Paris during the Algerian Revolution. In our conversation he shared his feeling that he carries the trauma of the Algerian people from his time in the womb forward. He describes his parents’ escape from almost certain execution by the French forces as the first imprint of his understanding and empathy for all oppressed people.
Khalil is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Zahra’s Paradise, which was published in 16 languages and nominated for two Eisner Awards. He has lived in Berkeley, CA since the 1980s. He worked as a political cartoonist at the San Bernardino County Sun for eight years, leaving that to work independently. He now distributes his cartoons to 1700 independent publications nationwide and co-hosts a weekly one-hour show, Voices of the Middle East and North Africa, on Pacifica station KPFA. His first book, Mission Accomplished: Wicked Cartoons by America’s Most Wanted Political Cartoonist, was published in 2007.
He has since published books of political cartoons as well as a graphic novel, Verax: The True History of Whistleblowers, Drone Warfare, and Mass Surveillance: A Graphic Novel, (with Pratap Chatteerjee). His sculptures have become public monuments in Los Angeles, upstate N.Y., and San Francisco. They have been exhibited and collected on five continents and grace numerous businesses, homes and gardens in the United States and abroad.
Khalil shares the role of his parents in shaping the development of his empathy and open hearted approach to people. In our far ranging discussion, we talk about the emotional impact of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, the distorted views about race, ethnic identity and the Arab people in particular.
For more information about Khalil’s work, see Links:
“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.”
“Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world.”
“In the past, changing the self and changing the world were often regarded as separate endeavors and viewed in either-or terms. But in the story of the Great Turning, they are recognized as mutually reinforcing and essential to one another.” ― Joanna Macy
I don’t know how familiar you are with Joanna Macy and her work. I did not know her personally, but learned a great deal from her nonetheless through hearing her speak and her writings.
She was a tireless, compassionate advocate for a spiritual and activist life, especially as it concerns the ecological world in which we live. I feel moved to simply pass along one of the tributes to this beautiful, heroic human being.
“No voice has been as clear or as compelling as Joanna Macy’s in the intersection that lies between Buddhist practice and ecological movements,” said Tricycle Editor-in-Chief James Shaheen in introducing a podcast with Macy, a renowned deep ecologist and dharma elder who was famously “in love with the world” and a beacon of hope for the despairing. A teacher, author, scholar, and engaged Buddhist whose advocacy for the environment and social change spanned seven decades, Joanna Macy died on July 19 in Berkeley, California, her home for many years. She was 96 years old.
An intellectual whirlwind and polymath, she left a far-reaching legacy that includes not only her ground-breaking integration of general systems theory and buddhadharma but also community organizing, anti-nuclear and environmental activism, and translations of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry, much of it chronicled in two memoirs: World as Lover, World as Self and Widening Circles. Macy was widely respected for her roll-up-the-sleeves leadership in grassroots efforts to address the social and environmental crises of our day. Through books, talks, workshops, and trainings, she helped thousands overcome fear and apathy in the face of uncertainty and respond to societal upheaval with constructive, collaborative action. A longtime Buddhist practitioner, she brought a dharma-inflected sensibility to her life’s work, embodying a compassionate interpersonal ethic akin to her friend Thich Nhat Hanh’s interbeing.
A centerpiece of Macy’s efforts in recent decades was The Work That Reconnects, “a process that helps us build motivation, creativity, courage, and solidarity for the transition to a sustainable human culture.” She was the founder and root teacher of the initiative, originally known as Despair and Empowerment Work. A methodology for healing individuals and societies, the Work has been adopted and adapted by schools, church groups, community organizers, and others worldwide.
Regarded as one of the foremost systems thinkers of her time, Macy received a doctorate from Syracuse University in 1978. Her thesis, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory, caused a stir in the religion department, where Huston Smith was her advisor. But her explication of mutual causality, linking codependent arising with systems thinking, struck a chord with many Buddhists, both scholars and practitioners. “Despite her philosophical acumen, she realized early that it’s not enough to present such key teachings conceptually,” professor and Zen teacher David Loy wrote in an article for Tricycle. “Her genius has been the ability to design transformative practices and workshops that enable participants to go beyond an intellectual understanding to an empowering embodiment.”
Little in Joanna Macy’s early years predicted the direction her life would take or the impact she would have in developing what she called “the ecological self.” There were hints, however, that her path would not be a conventional one. Born Joanna Rogers on May 2, 1929, she grew up in New York City. But as she wrote in Widening Circles, as a child she found the city “hideously confining” and sought solace in nature during summers on her grandfather’s Western New York farm. In an interview on NPR she told On Beinghost Krista Tippett, “Being in the fields, the woods, around the barns gave me a sense the world was very big and wise and intelligent.”
To survive a troubled homelife, Macy developed resourcefulness and independence that later served her well. A top student at Lycée Français, she earned a scholarship to Wellesley, where she majored in religious history, intending to become a missionary. But a crisis of faith in her senior year led her to abandon Christianity, and she went on to study international affairs in France on a Fulbright scholarship. Like many graduates of Ivy League and Seven Sisters colleges at the height of the Cold War, she was recruited by the CIA, but her intelligence career was brief. In 1953, she left the Agency to marry Francis (Fran) Underhill Macy, an international organizer. He died in 2009.
The Macys moved to Germany, where Fran worked for Radio Liberty, while Joanna mastered German. She chose Heinrich Harrer’s Seven Years in Tibet as her text at interpreters’ school and developed a passion for the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. One poem in particular “immediately rearranged in the furniture of my mind,” she told Tippett. It gave her a sense the world was sacred and, later, the title for her second memoir.
I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it.
I have been circling around God, that primordial tower. I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: Am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?
The Macys returned to the US in 1960 when Fran joined Voice of America. By then the mother of three, Joanna was hired by the State Department to help settle African diplomats assigned to Washington, DC. It was a harbinger of the cross-cultural currents in her career from then on.
She was already in her mid-30s in 1965 when she first encountered Buddhism, but it became a defining force in her life. While her husband was overseeing Peace Corps volunteers in India, Joanna assisted Freda Bedi, a British transplant recruited by Prime Minister Nehru to resettle Tibetan Buddhist refugees fleeing the Chinese occupation. Among them were lamas whose monastic education had been cut short. Dugu Choegyal Rinpoche, a young tulku who was a student of the Drukpa Kagyu master Khamtrul Rinpoche, became a close and lifelong friend. “The company of these Tibetans filled me with a kind of wild gladness,” Joanna wrote in Widening Circles. “I felt increasingly drawn to the religion—or whatever it was—that had shaped their minds.” Meeting the Tibetans was a turning point, and years later she was among the first few Westerners allowed to enter Tibet after the Chinese takeover.
Returning to DC in 1969, she was soon involved in civil rights and anti-Vietnam war efforts and began Buddhist studies at George Washington University. In 1972, she transferred to Syracuse University, when her husband again relocated for work. Two years later, when Freda Bedi—by then Sister Karma Khechog Palmo, the first Westerner to take vows as a Tibetan Buddhist nun—accompanied the 16th Karmapa to America, Joanna took refuge with her. Macy’s subsequent teachers were Theravadans, including Anagarika Munindra.
In the late 70s, Macy further expanded her commitment to social change by training with famed community organizer A.T. Ariyaratne, head of Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya, a Buddhist-inspired self-help movement in Sri Lanka. On her return to the US, she began offering workshops on Despair and Empowerment in the Nuclear Age, even taking them to the Soviet Union after the Chernobyl disaster.
Work with activists like Ariyaratne drew Macy more deeply into the integration of Buddhist practice and environmental activism. Her book Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings, co-authored with John Seed, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess, was a seminal work in deep ecology, a perspective that eschews an anthropocentric view of life in favor of one that considers all parts of the ecosystem equally important to the functioning of the earth.
In the 1980s, Macy extended her concern to safe energy and containment of radioactive materials. In A Wild Love for the World, a tribute to Joanna published in the decade before her death, environmentalist and Zen Buddhist Stephanie Kaza wrote, “For Macy, deep time arises from gazing fiercely at the implications of nuclear waste—a legacy for thousands of years to come.”
Her concern about nuclear contamination allied Macy with Naropa, the Buddhist university founded by Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder, Colorado, where faculty and students had demonstrated at a nuclear weapons plant nearby. Joanna taught in Naropa’s master’s program in environmental leadership, and in recognition of her contribution, the university established the Joanna Macy Center in 2015.
Macy’s seventeen books and countless publications, written alone or in collaboration, reflect her wide-ranging interests, from environmental and social activism to Buddhism to Rilke’s poetry, which she translated for three volumes. Her “wild love” for the world, indeed for all of life is a central theme throughout.
“The present moment, brief as it is, is our gift, our choice point.”
Well into her 90s, she was still advocating for the world—and the dharma. A focus of her teaching in the last decade of her life was what she called “the Great Turning,” the necessity for a shift from an industrial-based society to a life-sustaining one. Participating virtually in Tricycle’s Buddhism and Ecology Summit in April 2022 from her home in Berkeley, California, Macy was characteristically upbeat but realistic in her talk, “The Dharma and Destiny of a Planet People.” In facing the “terrible situation for our planet” today, she said, “I think it’s very important to feel baffled and overwhelmed.” Instead of despairing, she urged approaching the crisis as a “birthing time as well as a dying time. Forces and capacities are ready to birth inside each one of us if we keep our spunk and courage.”
Calling the current crisis “this positive disintegration that’s happening” in conversation with James Shaheen, she framed it as an opportunity to move away from destructive hyperinvidualism “and come back together into a deep belonging that is intrinsic.” Though Shaheen said he found the phrase “positive disintegration” inspiring, he still wondered if there was cause for hope. “In the buddhadharma there’s no word for hope,” Macy countered. “because hope takes us out of the present moment. The present moment, brief as it is, is our gift, our choice point.”
Hospitalized in February 2023, her breath just a whisper, Macy suggested to a visitor, “Let’s look out on those beautiful redwood trees. They feel as though they are hugging me from both sides.”
She rallied then and, undaunted, carried on. “The world is spacious and alive now, and even sacred,” she said. “I am so grateful to be here and to be of service.”
Witty, opinionated, and loyal, Joanna Macy was a much-admired mentor and treasured friend. Her death leaves a yawning gap in the circle of activists and Buddhists working for ecological and social change. But her foresight and pragmatic thinking will live on in a vast network of students, colleagues, and collaborators pledged to building a life-sustaining world through personal and societal transformation.Joan Duncan Oliver is a Tricycle contributing editor and the author most recently of Buddhism: An Introduction to the Buddha’s Life, Teachings, and Practices (the Essential Wisdom Library).
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” –Martin Luther King, Jr
“Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”
–By Omer Bartov, Dr. Bartov is a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. (From a NYT op-ed)
I confess that I altered the above quote. The last sentence, calling out genocide, was actually the first sentence in the original text. I changed it hoping some folks would not stop reading before knowing the author’s background. Such is the problem with discussing Israel/Palestine. To speak out, to share the truth of what is happening right before our eyes, is to be dismissed, means losing friends, colleagues, clients, customers, jobs, opportunities. Have you felt it?
I know that I’ve hesitated and held myself back. I understand that, especially for some Jewish people, it is painful to hear strong criticisms of Israel. And that pain leads to anger and rejection. Yet, when I weigh all that against the pain of my Palestinian friends – friends who are daily losing relatives and watching the destruction of Gaza and what is left of their land in the West Bank – I know I must speak out. And I encourage others, Jews and non-Jews to speak out. The silence is killing people.
Israel is on course to literally ethnically cleanse all of what’s left of the land of the Palestinian people. And in the course of that, to kill a very large number of them. We, especially those of us of Jewish heritage, must speak out. Every day, close to one hundred Palestinians are killed as they attempt to get to food and water and shelter or under attack from settlers under the watch of Israeli soldiers.
I continue be amazed at how folks who are progressive on everything – for the environment, for immigrants and refugees, for LGBTQ rights, for economic and racial justice – turn a blind eye to what most legal experts now call genocide, GENOCIDE!, happening right now with the support of our government. Yet I understand it. I get the emails from groups like AIPAC that turn reality on its head and continue to assert that the IDF is the most moral military in the world and it’s all the fault of Hamas. I know the teachings, from early childhood, that Israel and the Jewish people are one. I know how criticisms of zionism are felt in the gut and heart, no matter what the eyes would reveal. It’s unfortunate that those heart/gut feelings can’t hear the cries of Palestinian babies.
Perhaps the most toxic part of all this is the equating of criticism of Israel or Zionism with antisemitism. The presence of large numbers of Jews fighting for Palestinian freedom or declaring themselves non or anti-zionist, seems to be changing this somewhat. But it’s this accusation that silences people.
There are, of course, the arguments. It’s all the fault of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran. Or, the Palestinians have never accepted peace, they’ve always sabotaged peace efforts. These arguments are refuted by scholarly sources within and outside Israel itself. There are so many good sources of information, but here are several to consider:
Just Vision: https://justvision.org/ Just Vision fills a media gap on Israel-Palestine through independent storytelling and strategic audience engagement.
Peter Beinart: https://peterbeinart.substack.com/ One of the best sources on the middle east with interviews with Israeli, Palestinian and other experts.
Or read: A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Ilan Pappe, Israeli historian (written after Oct.7)
Or if you are ready to speak out and take action, join Jewish Voice For Peace: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org (you don’t have to be Jewish).
One final thought. It’s not just Netanyahu. When he goes, any replacement for him will continue the Occupation and the suppression of Palestinian life. Only outside pressure will change the course. And that’s us, the United States. U.S. politicians, except for a brave few, both Democratic and Republican, are way behind the shifting views of the American public. We can make a difference. Let your congresspeople know, at every opportunity, to stop military aid to Israel and demand an end to the Occupation as part of any future agreements. And don’t be afraid. Speak out. Lives depend on it.
Thank you for considering this.
For peace and justice,
~Alan www.CrossingTheBoundary.org
P.S. I just received this note from my friend, Nada Khader, about a fundraising drive: a Virtual auction to support doctors, humanitarian activists, and families on the frontlines in Gaza – those risking everything to save lives and survive.Here’s the note from Nada with something very practical you can do to help.
Gaza Aid Collective‘s virtual auction is open until July 31st! The auction is benefitting a few families, including my friend Enshrah Munifi and her parents, for whom I fundraise year-round.
We have a seriously impressive range of items and services to bid on.
Interested in a South Africa safari trip? Giclée art prints? A personalized yoga class? Job coaching? Handmade ceramics and jewelry? Books signed by authors? We have all that and more!
In case you missed it, a few weeks back I wrote a blog post about my conversation with Jim Fadiman, the father of modern microdosing. At the time, his book had not been released, so I wanted to be sure to call your attention to it.
(Please note: for this and other books suggested here, I understand if you’d rather not order from Amazon. Please simply use the titles and order from the bookseller of your choice).
Here’s the link to his book, Microdosing for Health, Healing, and Enhanced Performance. If you are curious, wanting to start, or already attempting microdosing on your own, you will benefit from learning more from the wealth of knowledge Jim has gained through his research.
If you haven’t seen or heard our conversation, here’s the links again:
I had the great pleasure to speak with my friend, Tomás, and discuss some of the wide range of issues he’s been involved with. Tom is one of the most real people I know. He shares about his extraordinary life experiences, his stumbles and awakenings, with humility, candor and humor, and opens to a deep channel of wisdom for us all.
In our conversation, he shares what he has learned from his work with the dying, his journeys on deep vision quests in nature, and what carefully guided psychedelic experiences offer for transforming individuals and our culture. Having apprenticed for eleven years with Huichol shaman and studied with numerous indigenous elders, he shares his thoughts on the issue of cultural appropriation and the importance of reciprocity. Finally, I asked Tomás to offer his thoughts on dealing with the machinations of our current President and his minions.
Tom is a true pioneer: he builds bridges between cultures, integrates ancient wisdom traditions with modern psychology and science, and brings forward how shamanic and nature-based principles can help us address the challenges of our times and return to sacred living. He has served as a transpersonal psychologist, ceremonial elder, rite of passage and vision-fast leader, sacred storyteller, musician, and author. Tom completed an eleven-year apprenticeship with Huichol shamans in Mexico and has written extensively about Huichol shamanism, cosmology and the use of peyote as a sacrament in their religious practice.
It was my great pleasure to have a conversation with Dr. Jim Fadiman. Jim is a delightful gentleman, an elder wiseman with a great sense of humor. Here’s a very concise bit of information about his life:
Jim Fadiman has been at the forefront of the exploration of consciousness since he was introduced to psychedelics by his former Harvard undergraduate advisor, Richard Alpert (aka, Ram Dass) in 1961. He went on to introduce a good number of folks to LSD and psilocybin, some who became counter-culture heroes in the Sixties, such as Stewart Brand who later developed the iconic Whole Earth Catalog.
While he grew up in a Jewish-atheist family, his psychedelic experiences turned him towards a spiritual path. Along the way he studied with Idris Shah, a Sufi mystic, and co-authored the book Essential Sufism with Robert Frager. Jim was an early pioneer in establishing transpersonal psychology, considered the fourth branch of psychology, directly integrating psychology with spirituality. He was the president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology and along with Frager, founded the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Menlo Park (now known as Sofia University).
In the pre-prohibition days, Jim was one of the researchers working with psychedelics to enhance creativity, solve problems, and develop higher awareness of self and the world. Those programs were halted by the war on drugs in 1966. During that time, he bridged the more academic and research study of psychedelics while maintaining relationships with the counter-culture. He was a friend of Ken Kesey and wrote about the hippie scene in The Other Side of Haight- a Novel.
In our conversation, Jim shares about his early family life as well as his trajectory through many projects and activities until the present. Of his present focus, he might say that the universe has a sense of humor. After all his involvement with deep spiritual, transformative work with moderate to high dose psychedelics, he is now the most well known spokesperson for microdosing, the use of tiny, sub-perceptible doses of psychedelics to enhance people’s functioning in profoundly varied ways.
When I asked him if he was comfortable with being called “the father of microdosing,” he said he preferred the term “modern microdosing.” That’s because his research has led him to recognize that indigenous people have used micro-levels of various plant medicines for thousands of years. This surprised me as these are the substances which many of us know to be used only in larger doses and exclusively in sacred ceremonies.
It would be an understatement to say he has become enthusiastic about the potentials of microdosing. Along with colleagues, he has set up a citizen science reporting network from which he receives thousands of accounts from people who are microdosing. He speaks of athletes improving their performance, students doing better on tests, people being lifted from chronic intractable depression, sleeping better, dropping additive patterns, even very unexplainable resolving of long-term medical conditions.
Now in his 86th year, he remains active and has been instrumental in the establishment of the “microdosing institute” which educates and offers counseling or coaching for people seeking the benefits of microdosing. A wealth of information, including several videos of Jim speaking are featured on the website.
I hope you take some time to watch or listen to my conversation with this remarkable man.
