73. “Our Responsibility to Reconnect” – celebrating Joanna Macy with Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland
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Welcome to episode 73 of the Nurtured by Nature podcast, today I’m delighted to welcome back Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland who previously joined me to share her amazing wisdom and some of her soulful poetry from her incredible book Daring To Hope at the Cliff’s Edge: Pangea’s Dream Remembered in Episode 35.
Elizabeth is currently on a UK and Europe tour with her amazing composer husband Beverly Glenn-Copeland, if you have the opportunity to see them live then I highly recommend it. They also have a beautiful new album called Laughter in Summer which is available for Pre-order: https://beverlyglenncopeland.com
Today we have come together to honour the incredible legacy of one of Elizabeth’s cherished mentors Joanna Macy an environmental activist, author and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory and deep ecology who transitioned from this world in July 2025.
Elizabeth guides us with poetry and gentle compassion to explore some of the principles of The Work That Reconnects, which Joanna created as the ground-breaking framework for the personal and social change that helps people take the despair and apathy we feel in the face of the challenges we see in the world and transform it into constructive, collaborative action. From gratitude and honouring the pain we witness in ourselves and the world around us, to finding a new story and vision to hold as we move forward and write the future for the earth and humanity that we want to bring into being.
Remember Hope is a verb, it is meant to be active not passive, it is a practice that we must tend daily to cultivate the change we want to see in our world.
Find out more about the UK and Europe Tour or Order The New Album: https://beverlyglenncopeland.com
Learn more about Elizabeth
Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland is a writer, theatre maker and arts educator whose career over the last forty years has evolved at the intersection of arts and activism. She has long had a passion for communicating with the animate world that began in childhood high up in the arms of an old weeping willow. Fast forward sixty years — Elizabeth is offered a writing residency at the Joggins Fossil Institute, a UNESCO World Heritage site on the mighty Bay of Fundy. She jumps at the chance to connect/converse with 300 million-year-old-rock, to go to Stone as supplicant, to fully engage with sea and sand and sky and winged helpers to deepen her connection to the living world. What emerged was a narrative of the odyssey in poetic form, “Daring to Hope at the Cliff’s Edge: Pangea’s Dream Remembered”.
Music journalist, Nick Storring says of the this work:
“Lyrical, bewildering, heartening, and unsettling, this work sees an individual voice reckoning with the overwhelming complexity of our present moment.”
Elizabeth lives in Hamilton, Ontario with her composer husband, Beverly Glenn-Copeland.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Onlythroughart
Purchase ‘Daring to Hope…’: https://chapelstreeteditions.com/book-catagories/poetry/daring-to-hope-at-the-cliffs-edge/
Rock Poem: https://nsadvocate.org/2021/06/26/rock-a-poem-by-elizabeth-glenn-copeland/
Resilience Magazine: https://www.resilience.org/resilience-author/elizabeth-glenn-copeland/
Listen to Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s incredibly moving music: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnwmuje1H7edkx3vK47ysrQ
This song is a particular favourite of mine that moved me to tears: ‘Stand Anthem’, an environmental rallying cry co-written by Elizabeth for her eco-play, ‘Bearing Witness’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmt14fmnQYE
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beverlyglenncopeland
Celebrating Joanna Macy
“Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life on whose behalf we can act. We belong to this world.”
Joanna Macy
Joanna Macy died peacefully in her Berkeley home on July 19 from complications after a fall. She was 96 years old.
Joanna Macy PhD, author & teacher, was a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with learnings from six decades of activism.
Her wide-ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and postmodern science. The many dimensions of this work are explored in her thirteen books, which include three volumes of poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke with translation and commentary.
Discover the work of Joanna Macy: https://www.joannamacy.net/
The Work That Reconnects: https://workthatreconnects.org/
Thank you for being a part of this journey with me.
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