'How beautiful this is'

 Joanna Macy, an interesting thinker who died at 96, had a beautiful saying on our standing in relation to the cosmos: 

We don’t want to die not knowing how beautiful this is.

 

I take that to heart. I try to get outside regularly just to see.

I think this is the same idea in different clothing:

 

This is, in the end, the only courage required of us. The courage to meet what is strangest and most awesome.

 

The cosmos is mysterious in many ways, and the mystery strikes different people in different ways. I think she was right: As individuals, we grow by facing the things that most baffle us.

• Sources: “Joanna Macy, In Memoriam”; On Being with Krista Tippett, July 22, 2025. It’s here:

https://onbeing.org/programs/joanna-macy-and-anita-barrows-what-a-world-youve-got-inside-you/

The quotations above both come from this conversation after the 40-minute mark.

Trip Gabriel, “Joanna Macy, Who Found a Way to Transcend ‘Eco-Anxiety,’ Dies at 96; The New York Times, July 23, 2025. It’s here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/climate/joanna-macy-dead.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare