20 - Joanna Macy & The Great Turning — with Jess Serrante

About this episode

In this episode, Alex Leff discusses the Great Turning with climate activist Jess Serrante, featuring insights from the late Joanna Macy on living meaningfully during societal upheaval.

How do we live through wild times? Legendary scholar, activist, and systems thinker Joanna Macy named the moment we are living through the Great Unraveling—a time when our ecological, political, economic, and social systems destabilize to the point of no return. And yet, she also insisted that we stand on the threshold of a Great Turning: a profound transition toward a more just and sustainable world. Before Joanna's death in 2025, climate activist Jess Serrante recorded a series of intimate and insightful conversations with her. In this episode, Alex sits down with Jess, weaving in clips from those recordings to explore the questions Joanna devoted her life to asking: How do we live with meaning as civilization unravels? How do we turn toward the grief of this moment—and transform it into action? And how do intergenerational relationships help us become elders for the future - when wisdom is needed most? CITATIONS We Are The Great Turning [podcast] If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey , please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes. For full episode transcripts, essays, and additional…

People in this episode

Host: Alex Leff

Guest: Jess Serrante

Topics covered

• ecological systems
• social justice
• sustainability
• intergenerational relationships
• climate activism
• meaning in crisis

Keywords

• Great Turning
• Joanna Macy
• climate activism
• sustainability
• intergenerational wisdom
• social systems
• ecological crisis

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Ray Lynch Productions, resilience.org

Products: Celestial Soda Pop

Books & works: We Are The Great Turning, Deep Breakfast

More episodes of Human Nature Odyssey

• 22 - Earth Abides (Part 2): Future Animists · April 23, 2026 · 53 min
• 21 - Earth Abides (Part 1): Life After Civilization · April 9, 2026 · 49 min
• 19 - Modern Myths: Flat Earth, Space Colonization, and the Stories We Tell to Escape Reality · January 22, 2026 · 1h 0m
• 28 Years Later: Embracing Zombies, Death, and Gilmore Girls · January 8, 2026 · 26 min
• 18 - Time Machine 2126 (Part 2): Techno-Utopia Or Apocalypse? · December 18, 2025 · 56 min
• 17 - Time Machine 2126 (Part 1): Has Green Energy Saved Us Yet? · December 4, 2025 · 38 min