I haven’t been around these parts much lately. I’m spending most of my time co-producing a documentary film called The Great Turning. The film is about how we can see the several crises of our times as an amazing opportunity to change the way we live on the planet.
More on the film below, but if you’re in a hurry, please take 2 minutes to help us in our bid to win a $200,000 grant from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.
To vote,: go to JustMeans and support the film (it’s listed under my real name, Chris Landry) by pressing the "Support It" button just underneath my vote count.
It’ll just take a minute or two to make an account and cast your vote and help us produce a film that can help all of us get through our fear and despair about our predicament so we can take action from a place of creativity and power.
Films, and the media in general, have done a good job at scaring the hell out of us. There’s no question that we are in a perfect storm of peak oil, economic chaos, and climate change that demands our full attention and ingenuity.
The problem is that after scaring us, most of the solutions offered are at what my co-producer Kristen Chamberlin and I call the surface level. And most of us are smart enough to know that surface-level solutions like changing light bulbs, while important, are not going to be enough to save us.
So a movie like An Inconvenient Truth, as brilliant as it was, leaves many people stuck in fear and despair about the future – emotions that paralyze us at the very moment when we most need access to our creativity and power.
We need to tell a new story.
We need to tell the story about how we must, as activist Joanna Macy puts it, “look straight into the face of our time” instead of looking the other way.
We need to tell the story of how the great turning from destruction to sustainability is not only possible, but is already well underway, all over the world.
We need to tell the story of how our culture is being asked – and has the opportunity – to grow up and mature.
We need to tell the story of how the future can be more about what we gain than what we lose, as we as we reconnect to our purpose, our communities, and our interconnectedness with all life on earth.
The Great Turning will tell these stories.
The film will describe what Paul Hawken in Blessed Unrest calls "the largest social movement in human history" through interviews with Buddhist scholar and activist Joanna Macy and others, and through the stories of ordinary people who are creating extraordinary change.
The Great Turning will tell this story of hope through the words of Native elders, young activists, and leaders of the corporate sustainability movement. Viewers will see not only the vast scope of this global ecological revolution, but also the roles we all can play in it.
These are extraordinary times. It’s time to tell a new story, one about letting go of what has been so we can make room for something better.
An excerpt with Joanna Macy
Twenty years ago, Bill Moyers made scholar Joseph Campbell a household name, and Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth changed the way millions of people thought about their lives.
We think Joanna Macy, who will turn 80 this spring, is another elder who is long overdue for wider recognition. Her wisdom, her perspective, and her ability to paint the picture of our times have made her a teacher for thousands of people around the world.
Watch this short clip and you’ll see what we mean. Here she talks about how we can’t know what the future holds, and how that’s okay.
Joanna Macy on Uncertainty from Chris Landry on Vimeo.
Do you think the world needs to hear from this wise woman? If your answer is yes, please take a couple of minutes to make your opinion count by supporting our project at JustMeans.
After you’ve done that, you can sign up for our mailing list by sending a message to
thegreatturningfilm [at] gmail.com and learn more at our web site.
Thanks for reading, and thank you for your support.