How to face the mess we're in with unexpected resilience and creative power - revised edition came out in 2022
Active Hope is about finding, and offering, our best response when facing concerns about our world situation.
It offers tools that help us face the mess we’re in, as well as find and play our role in the collective transition, or Great Turning, towards a society and way of being that support the flourishing of life.
The Book - revised edition
At the heart of this book is the idea that Active Hope is something we do rather than have. It involves being clear what we hope for and then playing our role in the process of moving that way. The journey of finding, and offering, our unique contribution to the Great Turning helps us to discover new strengths, open to a wider network of allies and experience a deepening of our aliveness. When our responses are guided by the intention to act for the healing of our world, the mess we’re in not only becomes easier to face, our lives also become more meaningful and satisfying.
Click here to read or download a pdf taster of the revised edition - with the introduction and first two chapters
An Online Training
The book, and our free online course, guide you through an empowering and transformational process informed by mythic journeys, modern psychology, spirituality and holistic science. In an outcome survey of over a hundred people completing the free online course, participants reported that the course had significantly strengthened their motivation to act for positive change, and their belief that they could make a difference, leaving them feeling less overwhelmed by their concerns for the world and personally nourished by their experience of taking part.
The Authors
Ecophilosopher Joanna Macy PhD is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and the environment, she interweaves her scholarship with six decades of activism. Now in her nineties, she lives in California.
Resilience specialist Dr. Chris Johnstone has a background in medicine, mental health promotion, and the psychology of change. He is known internationally for his online resilience training work, which has attracted participants from more than sixty countries. Heading towards sixty, he lives in Scotland.
“Books about social and ecological change too often leave out a vital component:
how do we change ourselves so that we are strong enough to fully contribute to this great shift?
Active Hope fills this gap beautifully, guiding readers on a journey of gratitude, grief,
interconnection and, ultimately, transformation.”
– Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine