On Saturday, there was a beautiful gathering in celebration of the life of Joanna Macy. About 1,000 people participated live by Zoom and another 2,000 registered to tune in later.
In today’s video, I share some of the marvelous stories told by some of the persons invited to speak, including two of her children (I was honored to be among them).
For this DM, I would like to share a special letter that Joanna sent me about 10 years ago, which was her response to my book Original Blessing. She told me she had written this response 20 years previously (the book came out in 1983).
In my talk on Saturday, I talked about how “deep ecumenism” was so much a part of Joanna’s mindset, and also how I came up with that language from meeting her and hearing about “deep ecology.” (See my Cosmic Christ book.) And how Joanna incarnated deep ecumenism including science.
The document that Joanna excitedly mailed to me is very much a document in deep ecumenism. She wrote:
Original Blessing is a revolutionary event in the spiritual life of our people. It takes our habitual religious notions and turns them over, turns them around. Like a revolving wheel, it sweeps us back to the past and then up and over into the future—back to recapture treasures of forgotten wisdom, forward to fresh insights and creativity. This revolutionary event can be dated ten year ago, with the publication of Original Blessing, or dated now, or tomorrow, for it keeps on happening each day with each fresh encounter with what Matthew Fox is saying. Once set in motion, the wheel keeps turning.
The image of wheel comes naturally to me, for it is central to the Buddhist tradition, my spiritual path. It symbolizes the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha about the dynamic interdependence of all things. When the Buddha gave his teachings, say the scriptures, he “turned the wheel of the Dharma.” And his followers today keep the wheel in motion, like Tibetan folk reaching out to spin their temple’s prayer wheels as they pass by.
OB reminds me of the Dharma wheel because it brings a similar shift of focus—a radical shift from substance to process. The Buddha shocked ancient India by refusing to acknowledge an immutable god, a divinity aloof from the world. He focused instead on the presence of mind in every action, every breath. His teachings did not call people to seek a supernatural haven for the sinful, suffering self, but to recognize their interdependence with this imperfect world and to follow a magga or path where the self dissolves into aware and compassionate intention.
The spirituality of OB has the same kind of revolutionary thrust. It delivers us from theological hair splitting and from preoccupation with our separate selves, however sinful or noble we may deem them, and summons us into an invigorating flow of spirit-experience. It suggests that we are not entities to be perfected so much as processes to be valued and enlivened. As Buckminster Fuller exclaimed, “I seem to be a verb!” As verbs we want trajectories, ways to go, paths for exploring and unfolding.
Consonant with science and crisis.
In OB I find myself again as verb, as a going on the path—and the path is multiple, complete in its fourfold multiplicity. In celebration and gratitude, I recall elements of each as I have lived them with Matthew Fox.
In her cover letter she drew a happy face and asked: “How do you like being compared to the Buddha?” I think I responded that I’ve been called a lot worse things.
I concluded my talk with a Buddhist-inspired prayer:
May all creatures be happy.
May all creatures be saved.
May all creatures be acknowledged as original blessings.
May we all be grateful for our existence. And act like it.
Amen.
See Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, pp. 228-244.
And Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing From Global Faiths.
And Fox, The Lotus & The Rose: A Conversation Between Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity.
And Fox and Bishop Mark Andrus, Stations of the Cosmic Christ.
And Fox, Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint For Our Times.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: “A Gathering to Honor Joanna Macy.” Collage created by the Macy family for the online event held on August 23, 2025. Used with the family’s permission.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you also seem to be a verb? And on a path that is focused on process and on exploring and unfolding and consonant with science and crisis?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
“This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
The Lotus & The Rose: A Conversation Between Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity
How can we move away from “us vs. them” thinking as our surroundings feel more divided and polarized than ever? Co-authors Matthew Fox and Lama Tsomo discuss how Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Christianity answer this question from unique points of view, with many commonalities and practical tools to break down the barriers between us.
“The Lotus and the Rose is an extraordinary example of what can happen when spiritual leaders from different traditions open up and speak from the heart.” — Paul Chaffee, The Interfaith Observer.
Stations of the Cosmic Christ
By Matthew Fox and Bishop Marc Andrus.
This is a book of meditations on the Cosmic Christ, accompanying the images of 16 wonderful clay tablets by Javier Ullrrich Lemus and M.C. Richards. Together, these images and meditations go far beyond the traditional Stations of the Cross to inspire a spirit awakening and understanding of the cosmic Christ Consciousness, Buddha consciousness, and consciousness of the image of God in all beings, so needed in our times.
“A divinely inspired book that must be read by every human being devoted to spiritual and global survival. It is cosmically brilliant.” — Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century
Matthew Fox writes in Hildegard of Bingen about this amazing woman and what we can learn from her.
In an era when women were marginalized, Hildegard was an outspoken, controversial figure. Yet so visionary was her insight that she was sought out by kings, popes, abbots, and bishops for advice.
“This book gives strong, sterling, and unvarnished evidence that everything – everything – we ourselves become will affect what women after us may also become….This is a truly marvelous, useful, profound, and creative book.” ~~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism.
6 thoughts on “Joanna Macy on Original Blessing: A Practice in Deep Ecumenism”
Joanna Macy wrote, “He (the Buddha) focused instead on the presence of mind in every action, every breath. His teachings did not call people to seek a supernatural haven for the sinful, suffering self, but to recognize their interdependence with this imperfect world and to follow a magga or path where the self dissolves into aware and compassionate intention. May all of us (including today’s political MAGAs) follow the magga with “aware and compassionate intention”. In so doing, how can we NOT explore and unfold into a greater understanding between all areas that include and intermingle science, spirituality, history, literature, etc. I found today’s DM to be particularly inspiring.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful letter from Joanna, Matthew. She so eloquently described up the life-changing power of “Original Blessing”, which changed my life forever when I found it in a random pile of free books at my local library. “It suggests that we are not entities to be perfected so much as processes to be valued and enlivened.” Amen.
Yes, my personal mystical spiritual path, as I described it in the DM on ecstasy last Saturday, is Being Open to the Sacredness of the Eternal Present Moment — LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS… COMPASSIONATE COSMIC CHRIST~BUDDHA CONSCIOUSNESS….
Thank you for the lovely stories about Joanna Macy. As a mother, I resonate with so much of what people said about her; and I find it encouraging to continue my enjoyment of life. I have been living in such darkness due to the state of the world. This morning, I decided to begin my day with gratitude for all that we still have and felt much relief. I then decided to consult my Celestial Wisdom Cards and go the card “Enthusiasm,” so everything seems to be working together to raise my spirits and remind me to, like Joanna, love life and be a spirit of friendliness, gratitude, and encouragement to all life forms; and also to return to an earlier spirit of myself—to have fun alone, with others, and with all the flora and fauna around me in my life as a verb. Thank you, Matthew, for this lovely tribute.
Thank you for sharing about Joanna. What a gift she was to us all. I bought Original Blessing not too long after it came out as a resource for a Spiritual Autobiography women’s group. That was also the time of the Jesus Seminar and the writings of Marcus Borg and others, who gave fresh insights into what Christianity was meant to be. I was stunned by your book, in a good way, since for the first time for all of us we could get rid of the whole notion of original sin. My church tradition of Congregational/UCC did not spend a lot of time on original sin, but it was there in the whole culture. So, I am most grateful, and thank you again for that splendid book, which I return to from time to time.
This entire Daily Meditation and tribute to Joanna Macy is wonderful. I would have loved knowing a person like her with such a sense of seriousness & humor, and love for life. And I agree with the thoughts about deep ecumenism and spirituality……I’m glad we have the opportunity to be turned up side down and all around…..this is as it should be in my opinion because our world is so vast, spacious, and boundless. We tend to get attached and stuck in our comfort zones of understanding which need to be stirred up, repeatedly. Thank you for your reflections, Matthew.