Joanna Macy, An Inextinguishable Flame: A Journal for the Great Turning

By Kathleen Rude

As we prepare to honor the one-year anniversary of Joanna Macy’s death and reflect on the gift of her 96-year-long life dance as a luminary of Gaia, it is fitting to lift up this exquisite journal/book by Rashani Réa, Joanna Macy, An Inextinguishable Flame: A Journal for the Great Turning. In this self-professed “love letter to Joanna,” Rashani shares colorful, magical collages that combine images with quotes from Joanna. This coupling of art and prose invites us into an expanded and embodied experience of Joanna’s eloquence and wisdom.

In the book’s foreward, Anne Symens-Bucher writes: “(This) is a multi-purpose book created by Rashani to honor Joanna’s influence on her life and right livelihood. This collection can be read as a reference for some of the most meaningful and evocative of Joanna’s quotes. It can be enjoyed as a book of art. It can be used as a meditation tool, reflecting on each individual collage one day or one week or one month at a time, jotting down one’s own reflections with the prompts and pages provided. Joanna would love that Rashani has incorporated blank pages for personal reflection. As Rashani quotes Joanna, The voice people most need to hear is the voice from within.

“An Indistinguishable Flame contains beautiful words of tribute to Joanna in the form of poetry and prose. It tells the intimate story of Rashani’s own long and fruitful relationship with Joanna. It captures other stories of how people’s lives were changed because of meeting Joanna either in person or through her work. It is a thing of great beauty.

Rashani is a writer, artist, retreat leader, wisdom keeper, and singer/songwriter who, at the age of 17, realized that she was not called to attend university as was expected. Instead, her calling was to sit with awakened people from around the world, a passion she pursued for 25 years. Rashani has dedicated her life to living and sharing their wisdom through her many creative endeavors, retreats and councils. She found her way to Joanna in 1984 and was blessed with over 40 years of close friendship and mentorship with her.

Rashani envisioned An Inextinguishable Flame as soon as she learned of Joanna’s fall and broken hip last year. Sensing this was the beginning of Joanna’s transition, she began creating collages with Joanna’s beautiful wisdom. (Sixteen of the collages were created many years ago and 28 were created during the last weeks of Joanna’s life. Some were direct transmissions.) She told Joanna of her desire and received her blessing. Sadly, Joanna didn’t live to see the finished book.

The journal format has powerful significance for Rashani. “As an indigenous person, decentralization is very important to me. In the business-as-usual world, there is the teacher, the mentor, the wise one and then there is the audience. I’ve always hated that (separation) since I was young. I didn’t want this book to be like that…that’s why there are prompts after each collage, like a diving board for the reader. Let’s see what this brings up for you. Tell your own story, find your inner wisdom.”

Rashani created a memorial garden for Joanna at her home on the Big Island, Hawai`i. “She’s with me all the time,” Rashani said. “When people come to this garden, they feel her presence, even if they didn’t know about her before. They do now.”

Through her journal An Inextinguishable Flame, Rashani continues her mission to share Joanna’s wisdom with the world. In these pages and collages, she offers every reader a creative and intentional way to invite Joanna to live on through each one of us in service to life.

The book is available at a 20% discount on Rashani’s website.