Radical Joy Revealed
January 17, 2018
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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. 

Mended wall
Work by Mind the Heart. Photo by Maya Gelfman and Roie Avidan
Suddenly your eye is captivated by a small and simple weaving of red yarn where you would least expect it: stitching the crack in a broken wall, streaming out of a pipe, or blooming bulbously in a tree.
 
Mind the Heart is an ongoing street art project created by two young Israelis, Maya Gelfman and Roie Avidan. They realized that when people live for a long time in a place, they tend to get used to what's ugly and overlook the beauty. "This also means that we become less connected," Maya and Roie write on their website. "We spend more time in our heads than in the world outside. We miss out on the present, on the fleeting moments, on random magic, on comforting eye contact with a neighbor, on the simple fact that your street changes every day, all the time."
 
In 2009, they began going out into the streets of Tel Aviv and marking places of decay and neglect with red yarn. Sometimes the yarn is in the shape of a heart, sometimes it's a bird. Sometimes it seems actually to mend a broken place or to flow forth like water or blood. The work is simple yet profound. It brings new life to that which is broken and calls attention to that which has been ignored.
 
Mind the Heart has now offered some healing to broken places in more than 100 cities around the world. Currently, they are traveling and mending in the U.S. See their website to learn more or get involved with the way Maya and Roie, like Radical Joy for Hard Times, find and make beauty for wounded places.

To discover other stories of inspiring people, stories, photos, and ideas, subscribe to
NEW WAYS TO CONNECT!

T he next  Global Earth Exchange  is June 16, and this year you'll be able to link up with other members of our worldwide community who are dealing with some of the same challenges you face to the places they love. More details coming soon!

 
It's easy to make beauty anywhere! Here's how!

New from Radical Joy for Hard Times founder
Trebbe Johnson: a book filled with ideas for creating simple, imaginative, collaborative gifts of beauty for hurt places in nature and in your community! 
   
To order click here.
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. 
Donate to help Radical Joy


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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