92 NATURE-BASED EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPY
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating
in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain;
without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot
make paper... So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter–
are ... Looking even more deeply, we can see ourselves in this
sheet of paper too. (Hanh 1992, p.95)
As we face challenges of great social and environmental magnitude,
Thay inspires us to become informed and involved, to meet the world
with an open heart, to sow seeds of compassion and to work through
nonviolent social action to see and unearth the lotus in the mud, the
beauty within the ugliness of the world.The way of active hope
Buddhist scholar, ecophilosopher and activist Joanna Macy (1991;
Macy and Brown 1998; Macy and Johnstone 2012) agrees with
Thomas Berry that the greatest danger of our time is the deadening
of mind and heart. In her work she combines theory with action.
She draws on systems theory, deep ecology and ancient teachings to
suggest how we can face the consequences of the repression of our
conscious and unconscious pain for the world. Macy has pioneered
the Great Turning Initiative that deals with the turn away from a
society based on industrial growth toward a sustainable world (Macy
and Brown 1998). This initiative involves three aspects. The first is
holding action to defend life on Earth now. The second is an analysis
of the institutional and structural causes of our current state. The
third is a spiritual and cognitive shift in our perception of reality.
In support of the Great Turning Initiative, Macy has developed
and teaches a program called the Work that Reconnects for groups to
engage in personal and social change to work for peace, justice and
deep ecology. The idea of reconnection with ourselves, with each
other and with the world comes in part from one of her teachers,
Gregory Bateson, whose phrase, the pattern that connects , and ideas were
discussed in Chapter Three. There are six theoretical foundations for
the Work that Reconnects (Macy and Brown 1998):