Coming Back to Life, Third Edition: The Evolving Guide to the Work That Reconnects

Front Cover
New Society Publishers, Jan 28, 2025 - Nature - 384 pages

A timeless manual for transforming despair into active hope

In the face of overwhelming interconnected social and ecological crises, the Work That Reconnects has inspired and empowered hundreds of thousands of people to transform despair and apathy into constructive, collaborative action. Coming Back to Life, Third Edition is the essential guide to using the Work in group settings, facilitating the creation of a life-sustaining and equitable human culture.

This fully revised 25th anniversary edition further illuminates and deepens the extraordinary practice of the Work, with a particular emphasis on inclusivity and addressing wide-spread systemic racism and injustice. Authors Joanna Macy and Molly Brown:

  • Completely expand and update the context, foundations, and core concepts of the Work, from Business as Usual to the Great Unraveling, to the Great Turning
  • Illustrate its central framework—a spiral journey through gratitude, honoring our pain for the world, seeing with new eyes, and going forth
  • Outline powerful perspectives, teachings, exercises, and rituals, evoking the interconnectedness of all life and awakening a desire to contribute to the Great Turning
  • Offer specific guidance for anti-oppressive and trauma-informed facilitation of the Work That Reconnects.

Grief, anger, and fear are natural responses to the harsh realities of our time. By honoring these feelings through the revolutionary practices of the Work That Reconnects, space is created for compassion and forgiveness, along with the courage to take creative action on behalf of life.

About the author (2025)

Joanna Macy is an eco-philosopher, activist, and scholar of Buddhism, systems theory, and deep ecology. A respected voice for over sixty years in movements for global peace and social and environmental justice, she has developed a large international following. Her wide-ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the resonance between Buddhist thought and postmodern science. As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, Joanna has created a ground-breaking framework for personal and social change, as well as a powerful methodology for its application. Many thousands of people around the world have participated in her workshops and trainings, and her methods have been adopted and adapted widely in classrooms, community centers, and grassroots organizing. Joanna is the author of thirteen books including two earlier editions of Coming Back to Life and her memoir, Widening Circles . She lives in Berkley, CA.

Molly Young Brown, M.A., M.Div. is a facilitator, teacher, life coach, and writer who draws on the Work That Reconnects, ecopsychology and psychosynthesis to support people struggling with feelings of despair and helplessness in the face of political, social, and environmental crises. A close colleague of Joanna Macy's for several decades, she is a founding Weaver of the Work That Reconnects Network, editor of its Deep Times journal, and co-director of the Spiral Journey Facilitator Development Program in the Work That Reconnects. She offers mentoring to individuals and speaks and conducts workshops internationally, all rooted in an understanding of the interconnectedness of all life. Molly is the author of seven books including the two earlier editions of Coming Back to Life , as well as Growing Whole: Self-realization for the Great Turning . She lives in Mt. Shasta, CA.

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