Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World

Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World
by Joanna R. Macy, Molly Young Brown

Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World
List Price: $18.95
Our Price: $9.20
You Save: $9.75 (51%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $8.22 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Joanna R. Macy, Molly Young Brown
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1998-10-01
ISBN: 086571391X
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: New Society Publishers

Book Reviews of Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World

Book Review: Great book
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a great book written by a wise elder. While my sentiments are in agreement with the basic concepts of interconnection Macy writes so eloquently about, I am not sure that environmental policies may be achieved without polarization and confrontation of the forces of corporate hegemony. This is my only disagreement with the author. Is consensus really possible given the layers of entrenched elites running the global show?

The practices within the book are meaningful for reconnecting to the wider imprint of nature. I found some to be in confluence with practices Ive learned elsewhere with indigenous peoples and another one of my mentors, the naturalist, Tom Brown.

Summary of Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World

Many of us feel called to respond to the ecological destruction of our planet, yet we feel overwhelmed, immobilized, and unable to deal realistically with the threats to life on Earth. Noted spiritual and environmental thinkers Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown contend that this crippling response to world crisis is a psychological defense mechanism that has been endemic since the years of the Cold War arms race, when we had to adapt within a single generation to the horrific possibility of nuclear holocaust.

Since its publication in 1983, Joanna Macy's book, Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age has sold nearly 30,000 copies and has been the primary resource for groups of men and women confronting the challenging realities of our time without succumbing to paralysis or panic. Coming Back to Life provides a much needed update and expansion of this pioneering work. At the interface between spiritual breakthrough and social action, Coming Back to Life is eloquent and compelling as well as being an inspiring and practical guide. The first third of the book discusses with extraordinary insight the angst of our era, and the pain, fear, guilt and inaction it has engendered; it then points forward to the way out of apathy, tio "the work that reconnects". The rest of the book offers both personal counsel and easy-to-use methods for working with groups in a number of ways to profoundly affect peoples' outlook and ability to act in the world.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Mathew Fox
1. To Choose Life
2. The Greatest Danger: Apatheia, The Deadening of Mind & Heart
3. The Basic Miracle: Our True Nature & Power
4. The Work that Reconnects
5. Guiding Group Work
6. Affirmation: Coming from Gratitude
7. Despair Work: Owning & Honoring Our Pain for the World
8. The Shift: Seeing with New Eyes
9. Deep Time: Drawing on Past & Future Generations
10. The Council of All Beings: Rejoining the Natural World
11. Going Forth
12. Meditations for Coming Back to Life


Joanna Macy has developed an international following over the course of 40 years as a speaker and workshop leader on Buddhist philosophy and the deep ecology movement

General Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in The Bioneer Movement
Making the Gods Work for You: The Astrological Language of the Psyche ImageMaking the Gods Work for You: The Astrological Language of the Psyche
by Caroline Casey
Three Rivers Press; Published: 1999-08-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $87.99
Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence ImageNative Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence
by Gregory Cajete
Clear Light Books; Published: 1999-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops: $14.95
Clock Of The Long Now: Time And Responsibility: The Ideas Behind The World's Slowest Computer ImageClock Of The Long Now: Time And Responsibility: The Ideas Behind The World's Slowest Computer
by Stewart Brand
Basic Books; Published: 2000-04-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.95
Price in other shops: $14.00
Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice ImageGreen Chemistry: Theory and Practice
by Paul T. Anastas, John C. Warner
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2000-05-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $29.42
Price in other shops: $32.95
Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry ImageNot Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry
by Stacy Malkan
New Society Publishers; Published: 2007-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.53
Price in other shops: $15.95
The Cancer Monologue Project ImageThe Cancer Monologue Project
by Tanya Taylor
MacAdam/Cage; Published: 2002-10-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.60
Price in other shops: $22.00
Why War Is Never a Good Idea ImageWhy War Is Never a Good Idea
by Alice Walker
HarperCollins; Published: 2007-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.71
Price in other shops: $16.99
How to Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism ImageHow to Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism
New World Library; Published: 2005-02-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.27
Price in other shops: $14.95
Urgent Message From Mother: Gather The Women, Save The World ImageUrgent Message From Mother: Gather The Women, Save The World
by Jean Shinoda Bolen
Conari Press; Published: 2005-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.95
Price in other shops: $16.95
Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics ImageStorming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics
by Rebecca Solnit
University of California Press; Published: 2007-06-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.99
Price in other shops: $30.00
Similar Books and other products
Widening Circles: A Memoir ImageWidening Circles: A Memoir
by Joanna Macy
New Catalyst Books; Published: 2001-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.15
Price in other shops: $17.95
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World ImageThe Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
by David Abram
Vintage; Published: 1997-02-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops: $14.95
Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings ImageThinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings
by John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming
New Catalyst Books; Published: 2007-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.03
Price in other shops: $12.95
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World ImageBlessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World
by Paul Hawken
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2008-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.74
Price in other shops: $16.00
Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind ImageEcopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind
Sierra Club Books; Published: 1995-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops: $16.95
The Great Work: Our Way into the Future ImageThe Great Work: Our Way into the Future
by Thomas Berry
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2000-11-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.92
Price in other shops: $13.95
Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World ImageNature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World
by Bill Plotkin
New World Library; Published: 2007-12-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.84
Price in other shops: $17.95
Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche ImageSoulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche
by Bill Plotkin, Thomas Berry
New World Library; Published: 2003-08-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.56
Price in other shops: $16.95
The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community ImageThe Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community
by David C Korten
Berrett-Koehler Publishers; Published: 2003-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.02
Price in other shops: $19.95
World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal ImageWorld as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal
by Joanna Macy
Parallax Press; Published: 2007-10-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.08
Price in other shops: $18.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories