Does Land Live? Can It Revive?: 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.

Navajo elder Mary Begay, threatened with loss of land that was sacred to her, c. 1989. Photo by Karen Marshall

Does Land Live? Can It Revive?

I n the late 1980s and early 90s I spent a lot of time in northeastern Arizona, writing about an issue that was forcing 10,000 traditional Navajos off the land that was sacred to them. The Navajo people were in despair, not only because to move away from the Four Sacred Mountains was to lose their essential humanity, but also because they worried about what would become of the land if they were no longer present to take care of it.

As one elder, Roberta Blackgoat, expressed it to me, the land was a "sacred altar", and if the people were stop making offerings and prayers to the holy people whose presence imbued it, that sacred presence would fade.

Even if you don't come from a tradition that regards land as sacred, you will have observed that, when a loved place becomes toxic and broken, it loses vitality. Ceasing to find the place to our liking, we begin to avoid it. Then it loses more energy, more aliveness.

Yet each of us has the ability to bring new life, beauty, and vitality to wounded places! To begin the process, all we have to do it go to that place, allow ourselves to really see it and absorb our feelings about it, and then make a simple gift for the place in the form of art made from what we find on site.

On June 17, people all over the world will be giving gifts of new vitality to places they care about as they participate in the Global Earth Exchange! Please join us. Please take one small step to bring life and vitality to a place you care about.

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Radical Joy Revealed.

The 9th annual Global Earth Exchange is Saturday, June 17! On this day people all over the world go to damaged places they care about, share their stories, and make a simple gift of beauty for the place. Our theme this year is...

Sharing Love of Place

For more information and to register, see our website.

Just in time for the Global Earth Exchange!

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.

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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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