Radical Joy Revealed
July 27, 2016
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Radical Joy Revealed is a weekly message of inspiration about finding and making beauty in wounded places. We hope you'll enjoy these doorways into places that are both familiar and surprising, and we welcome your suggestions, stories, and photos. Click here to subscribe. 

Bellows Air Force Station Global Earth Exchange
Global Earth Exchange at Bellows Air Force Station, Waimanalo, Hawaii, 2016. Photo by Lizabeth Kashinsky

For three years in a row Lizabeth Kashinsky has hosted her Global Earth Exchange at Bellows Air Force Station in Waimanalo, Hawaii. Whereas many participants in this annual ceremony of making a gift of beauty for a wounded place choose new places to attend to each year, Liz is compelled to return to one.
 
She had long felt a personal connection with this land, which was the site of the earliest known native settlement in Hawaii. The military has occupied the place since 1917, after taking it over from a sugar plantation. Much of the land is strictly off limits to the general public, but on weekends the Air Force opens some areas for recreational use. Liz was struck by how the same beach where people swim and sunbathe on Sunday turns into a testing ground for war machines on Monday.
 
Throughout the years she has offered her Global Earth Exchange at the base, many of the same people have joined her for the event. They look forward to what they feel is a simple, yet powerful ritual, and everyone contributes to the ceremony, bringing poems, offering songs, and of course making the RadJoy Bird together.
 
"The landscape has changed a lot since western contact," Liz said. "There's not much native vegetation remaining. There's a lot of trash. You have beauty and woundedness, war and peace all woven together. Yet no matter what's going on above the surface, there is a deep presence to the place."
 
This year, toward the end of their GEx, the group noticed many cars stopping along the road that runs along the beach. The object of their attention turned out to be three small feral piglets trotting along in the militarized zone. Liz's first thought was that they were just pests, an invasive animal species destroying the native vegetation. But then she found herself charmed by the animals... and by the delight that the visitors were taking in them.
 
"How do you hold the space for all these emotions?" Liz wondered. "The Global Earth Exchange helps us to expand our own sense of self, so we can feel all the emotions. When we contract, we can't hold that space. Doing these kinds of practices helps us to expand."

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Radical Joy for Hard Times is a global community of people dedicated to finding and making beauty in wounded places. Reconnecting with these places, sharing our stories of loss, and making acts of beauty there, we transform the land, reconnect people and the places that nourish them, and empower ourselves to make a difference in the way we live on Earth. 
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