Cartwheels for a Clear-cut: Radical Joy Revealed

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.

Cartwheels for a Clear-cut

Rain Crowe turning a carthwheel in a clear-cut forest in southern Missouri. Photo by Rain Crowe

Sometimes people think that you have to be silent and reverent when you go to a wounded place. That attitude of solemnity may be appropriate at times... but at other times and in other places, just the opposite response might be called for.

Remember, you have come to this place to make a gift to it. It might be a gift of gratitude, or it might be a gift of consolation. Your mission might even be a wish to cheer the place up, as if you were visiting a sick friend. Which, in essence, you are. So allow yourself to be irreverent. Do something silly, something whimsical. Turn a cartwheel. Do a somersault.

When Radical Joy for Hard Times was first founded, we had the idea of using a photograph of a woman turning a cartwheel in a clear-cut forest on our website. Some people were insulted by this image. They found it disrespectful in the extreme. Yet, we believe that the purpose of visiting and making beauty in wounded places is for the people who love those places to re-establish a meaningful relationship with them. And who knows: doing a cartwheel in a clear-cut might cheer up both you and the place!

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Radical Joy Revealed.

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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Each week Radical Joy Revealed comes to you free of charge with inspiring stories and suggestions for living with endangered places in creative, life-affirming ways. It takes thought, imagination, and a sense of timing to uncover and write the stories, choose just the right images to accompany them, and prepare them for distribution, and we could use your financial help. Please show your support of Radical Joy Revealed by making a tax-deductible donation to our non-profit organization.

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