Courage for the Road

In this compendium of her essential teachings, renowned environmentalist Joanna Macy bestows a parting message of fierce love and resounding hope.

“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.”—Joanna Macy

A globally beloved writer and scholar, deep ecologist, Buddhist philosopher, and a foremother of modern environmentalism, Joanna Macy spent her life teaching us how to actively take part in the healing transformation our world desperately needs. Here, in a collection of her most vital teachings, she shows us how to meet this era of planetary crisis with boundless courage and deep compassion.

Organized around Macy’s core ideas—The Great Turning, systems thinking, deep time, and heart of practice—Courage for the Road distills a lifetime of teachings on concepts like the ecological self, active hope, and working directly with despair. With wisdom borne of decades facing nuclear threats, habitat destruction, and climate crisis, Macy imparts both unflinching honesty about the challenges we face and an unwavering belief in our capacity for transformation. We are living through what she describes as a “birthing time as well as a dying time,” and she shows us how to face it head-on by reconnecting with our innate sense of belonging and interbeing, finding gratitude in the face of despair, and transforming our fear into meaningful action. This book is a parting gift: for both weathered climate activists and a new generation of environmental defenders, these are words to turn to again and again on the long road ahead.