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On Being with Krista Tippett

Joanna Macy, In Memoriam — Beauty and Wisdom and Courage (and Rilke) to Sustain Us

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Society, Spirituality, Society & Culture, Sociology, Culture, Science, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Social Sciences, On Being, Arts

4.710.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This rich, gorgeous conversation will fill your soul. The singular and beloved Joanna Macy died at home at the age of 96 on July 20, 2025. She has left an immense legacy of beauty and wisdom and courage to sustain us. A Buddhist teacher, ecological philosopher, and Rilke translator, she taught and embodied a wild love for the world. What follows is the second and final conversation Krista had with Joanna, together with Joanna’s friend, psychologist and fellow Rilke translator Anita Barrows, in 2021. Joanna and Anita had just published a new translation of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. At the turn of the last tumultuous century, Rilke was prescient in realizing that the world as he’d known it was passing away. Joanna’s adventurous life and vision took shape in the crucibles of the history that then unfolded. Relistening to her now is to experience a way of standing before the great, unfolding dramas of our time — ecological, political, intimate. We stand before the possibilities of what Joanna called “A Great Unraveling” or “A Great Turning” towards life-generating human society. All of this and so much more comes through in the riches of this life-giving conversation. Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be on our mailing list for all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Quiet, friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you.

0:13.8

Let this darkness be a bell tower, and you the bell, and as you you ring what batters you becomes your strength move back and forth

0:29.7

into the change what's it like this intensity of pain if If the drink is bitter,

0:39.4

turn yourself to wine.

0:42.4

In this

0:44.0

uncontainable night,

0:47.1

be the mystery

0:48.5

at the crossroads of your senses.

0:51.7

The meaning

0:52.8

discovered there.

0:56.0

And if the world shall cease to hear you,

1:00.5

say to the silent earth, I flow.

1:05.3

And to the rushing water speak, I am.

1:09.5

I am. For many years, when I have found myself feeling unmoored by life and this world, I have listened to

1:24.0

this poem by Reiner Maria Rilke.

1:26.7

It's read by Joanna Macy, who also translated it and brought it to life afresh for our century.

1:34.8

Joanna has now left this world, but this beloved Buddhist teacher and ecological philosopher and activist has left an immense legacy of beauty and wisdom and courage to sustain

1:48.0

us. What follows is the second conversation I had with her, together with her friend, the

1:54.4

psychologist and fellow Rilka translator, Anita Barrows, which we recorded amidst pandemic and lockdown in 2021.

2:04.6

Rilke sought the shape of meaning in a now-vanished Central Europe at the turn of the 20th century.

2:11.7

He was prescient that the world as he'd known it was passing away.

2:17.1

Joanna Macy's adventurous life and vision took shape in crucibles of the history that later unfolded,

...

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