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We Are The Great Turning

We Are The Great Turning

Joanna Macy & Jessica Serrante

We welcome you to the kitchen table of the legendary eco-spiritual teacher Joanna Macy, where we’ll dive into what it takes to live with our hearts and integrity intact in this time of global crisis. You’ll be guided into these conversations by Jess Serrante, a longtime activist and student of Joanna’s. Together, we’ll discover abiding wisdom that can help us stay joyful and energized as we work toward a more just and life-sustaining world.

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Top 10 We Are The Great Turning Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best We Are The Great Turning episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to We Are The Great Turning for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite We Are The Great Turning episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

We Are The Great Turning - Ep 2: The Three Stories of Our Time

Ep 2: The Three Stories of Our Time

We Are The Great Turning

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04/25/24 • 30 min

What’s really going on in the world right now? “Business as Usual”—a comforting narrative in which industrial growth and progress overcomes all? “The Great Unraveling” —a planet careening toward inevitable destruction? Joanna‘s work introduces a third story, “The Great Turning”—a paradigm shift on an epic scale, the creation of a just and life-sustaining society. The stakes are high, the outcome uncertain. This conversation invites you to devote yourself to the Great Turning even as you grasp the truth in all three stories.

In this episode:

  • Three outlooks on these times: Business as Usual, the Great Unraveling, and the Great Turning
  • What’s behind all three—how they affect us in conscious and unconscious ways
  • What the Great Turning means, and how to devote yourself to it
  • Bonus Exercise: Envisioning the Great Turning

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

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We Are The Great Turning - Ep 1: Love and Loss

Ep 1: Love and Loss

We Are The Great Turning

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04/17/24 • 28 min

As Joanna Macy approaches the end of a long life dedicated to healing our imperiled planet, she begins the conversation with Jessica Serrante, her student and dear friend, “standing afresh with what it’s like to live on Earth at this moment.” As we look into the face of the climate crisis, injustice, and war, difficult feelings arise; all are welcomed.

You are invited to join them at Joanna’s kitchen table, and invited into a deeper sense of your belonging and love for our world.

In this episode:

  • How to connect with the great possibilities that still exist for us even in these precarious times Joanna reflects on her awakening of environmental consciousness
  • Jess reflects on how meeting Joanna changed her life
  • Love, laughter, heartbreak, and the Work That Reconnects
  • Bonus Exercise: “Open Sentences”—a practice for partners

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

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We Are The Great Turning - Ep 2 Bonus: Envisioning the Great Turning
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04/25/24 • 13 min

This bonus episode will support you to take the main insights from Episode 2, “The Three Stories of Our Time,” deeper into your life.

In Episode 2, we talked about the three stories of our time: Business as Usual, the Great Unraveling, and the Great Turning. All three stories are true, and we can choose to give ourselves to the Great Turning—to building a more just and life-sustaining society.

We need inspiring visions for the kind of world we want to live in that can motivate us, move us to action, and so that we know what it looks like to succeed. So, in this bonus episode, we’re going to envision, in detail, what the world might be like if the Great Turning really were the predominant story of our time.

All you need is a quiet place where you can sit and close your eyes. We hope you’ll do this exercise with someone else, so that you can talk together about your experience after you finish. It might also help to have something to write with and on.

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

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We Are The Great Turning - Ep 5: This Pain Is Not for Nothing

Ep 5: This Pain Is Not for Nothing

We Are The Great Turning

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05/16/24 • 25 min

Now we get to what may be the toughest part of reckoning with our planet’s situation: dealing with numbness, grief, and despair. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the many crises around us, and natural to want to numb ourselves to the pain.

Joanna and Jess speak with great vulnerability and candor about what it takes to navigate our darkest feelings—and the strength and beauty that can be found when we honor our pain.

Trigger Warning: In this episode, we discuss suicide.

In this episode:

  • When it feels like our pain could swallow us whole, it helps to remember that all feelings come and go
  • Desperation can take us to dark places, but we are more than our despair
  • Numbness—Jess opens up about her familiar tactic for escaping pain
  • Our pain becomes sacred when we allow it to deepen our connection with the world
  • Bonus Exercise: Breathing Through

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

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We Are The Great Turning - Ep 4 Bonus: Breathing Through

Ep 4 Bonus: Breathing Through

We Are The Great Turning

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05/15/24 • 13 min

This bonus episode will support you to take the main insights from Episode 4: There is No Future if We Go Numb deeper into your life.

This bonus is a recording of Joanna leading a meditation called Breathing Through, recorded at a retreat in 2006. In it, she’ll guide you to create space to acknowledge and honor the pain for the world that you carry without numbing or getting overwhelmed. All you’ll need for this bonus exercise is a place where you can close your eyes and relax.

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

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We Are The Great Turning - We Are The Great Turning Podcast Teaser
play

04/04/24 • 2 min

We welcome you to the kitchen table of the legendary eco-spiritual teacher Joanna Macy, where we’ll dive into what it takes to live with our hearts and integrity intact in this time of global crisis. You’ll be guided into these conversations by Jess Serrante, a longtime activist and student of Joanna’s. Together, we’ll discover abiding wisdom that can help us stay joyful and energized as we work toward a more just and life-sustaining world.

Join us on April 22 for the first of 10 episodes of this powerful and transformative new podcast.

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We Are The Great Turning - Ep 1 Bonus: Open Sentences

Ep 1 Bonus: Open Sentences

We Are The Great Turning

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04/18/24 • 29 min

This bonus episode will support you to take the main insights from Episode 1, “Love and Loss,” deeper into your life. Jess will guide you through a simple yet profound exercise called Open Sentences where you’ll be prompted to speak from your heart. It will take about 25 minutes.

All you’ll need is a friend and a place that is quiet enough for you to speak freely and listen carefully to one another. If that’s not possible and you want to try this alone, you can answer out loud or write the questions in a journal.

The prompts for this exercise are:

  • Some things I love about being alive on earth today are...
  • What breaks my heart about living on earth in this time is...
  • If I withhold my feelings about what’s happening in the world right now, I do so because...
  • What keeps me going when the world breaks my heart is...

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

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We Are The Great Turning - Ep 6: The H-Word

Ep 6: The H-Word

We Are The Great Turning

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05/23/24 • 25 min

When it comes to the state of our world, the concept of hope can feel elusive. Joanna teaches Jess that the future may be uncertain, but that means that there’s still room for something beautiful to happen. This episode offers insights into embracing uncertainty, cultivating joyousness, and understanding the intricate interplay between hope, courage, and action.

In this episode:

  • “Active hope” is about acting in service of the future we hope for
  • Whenever Jess asks about hope, Joanna talks instead about courage
  • When hope eludes us, courage and our devotion to life remain steadfast

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

bookmark
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We Are The Great Turning - Ep 3: We Begin with Gratitude

Ep 3: We Begin with Gratitude

We Are The Great Turning

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05/02/24 • 26 min

When things are at their darkest, what is it that “allows you to see promise and allows you to see beauty?” Joanna begins her exploration of some of the most difficult emotions and circumstances we face in a surprising place: with gratitude. This episode introduces the concept of the spiral, the basic structure of the Work That Reconnects.

In this episode:

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

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We Are The Great Turning - Ep 3 Bonus: Lovingkindness Meditation
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05/02/24 • 12 min

This bonus episode will support you to take the main insights from Episode 3, “We Begin with Gratitude,” deeper into your life.

In Episode 3, we talked about how in the Work That Reconnects we always start with gratitude, because it gives us the strength to speak the truth and act in service of life.

Lovingkindness meditation is a simple and powerful way to feel and express our gratitude and love for our world.

All you need to do this bonus exercise is a quiet place where you can meditate. We hope you’ll do this exercise with someone else, so that you can talk together about your experience after you finish.

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

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FAQ

How many episodes does We Are The Great Turning have?

We Are The Great Turning currently has 20 episodes available.

What topics does We Are The Great Turning cover?

The podcast is about Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Podcasts, Self-Improvement and Education.

What is the most popular episode on We Are The Great Turning?

The episode title 'Ep 1: Love and Loss' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on We Are The Great Turning?

The average episode length on We Are The Great Turning is 26 minutes.

How often are episodes of We Are The Great Turning released?

Episodes of We Are The Great Turning are typically released every 6 days, 8 hours.

When was the first episode of We Are The Great Turning?

The first episode of We Are The Great Turning was released on Apr 4, 2024.

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