Michelle Simpson is executive director of the Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center.
BRATTLEBORO-As wildfires rage, floods rise, and species vanish, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the unraveling of the world we once knew. But if you've ever stood quietly in a meadow, listened to the wind through the trees, followed the deliberate path of a turtle crossing your trail, or seen a hummingbird at your feeder, you know that despair is not the end of the story, regardless of what we see in the constant news cycle.
This is the heart of Joanna Macy's work - what she called The Work That Reconnects - and it has never felt more vital.
Macy, who passed away on July 19, was a scholar of systems thinking, deep ecology, and Buddhist philosophy. She offered a way through our grief, fear, and paralysis. She taught that these feelings are not signs of weakness or failure but evidence of our profound love for the Earth.
At Bonnyvale, we see this every day: children frolicking through the woods, elders sharing stories of the land, families returning each season to watch the salamanders emerge in spring.
These are not just nature outings. They are acts of reconnection. Of remembering who we are in relation to this living world.
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Macy wrote that "the most radical thing any of us can do at this time is to be fully present to what is happening in the world." That presence doesn't always have to be in the headlines or the halls of power. Sometimes it begins by standing in the forest. It begins with seeing and listening.
At Bonnyvale, we invite you to do just that.
Come walk the trails, open dawn to dusk, 365 days a year. Join a workshop. Let your children turn over stones. Not to escape the world's pain, but to ground yourself in what Macy calls active hope - the kind that arises not from certainty, but from our deep commitment to life.
The climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, the crisis of meaning - they are all connected. But so is our response. Nature centers like Bonnyvale are more than educational sites. They are sanctuaries, laboratories for regeneration, and seeds of cultural resilience.
We don't need more people turning away in resignation. We need more people turning toward - toward each other, toward the Earth, and toward the work that reconnects. Macy called this The Great Turning.
As our community's nature sanctuary, we invite you to let your presence here be the beginning of something larger.
Let the forest hold you and experience the peace and healing of Nature.
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