Beauty for a Wounded Homeland: 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.

Heart-shaped wreath of flowers for a wounded homeland. Global Earth Exchange 2017,
Darlington, PA. Photo by Joanne Martin

Beauty for a Wounded Homeland

Have you imagined that you can't make beauty for a wounded place because you're not an organizer, a mobilizer? Have you thought that you need a big group of people to make it happen? Or that the "wounded place" you attend has to be something large and visibly bad, like a Superfund site or an old-growth clear-cut forest?

Not at all.

This year, for her Global Earth Exchange, Joanne Martin of Darlington, in eastern Pennsylvania, did a small private event for what she called her "wounded homeland."

Never in my life have I rejected nature, particularly the little ecosystems that I've lived within. When I moved to my home six years ago, the gas fracking boom was taking off. Now there is a petrochemical plant being built in our community to process the gas byproducts with four more plants planned for the wider region. "Cancer Alley" is our new name.

Even while joining with other activists to protest these events, somehow I also withdrew and closed myself off from the wild life happenings at my homestead. I hardened and closed my heart. This year, I chose to do a solo Earth Exchange, feeling that I HAVE wounded my own eco-home here with my rejection.

I wandered, allowing the wild happenings to call to me--the snakeskin, the dark cool under the pines, the gnat at my ear, shadows, dew drops, the wind! There was nothing for me to do other than allow my heart to be touched. I wasn't struck by a lightning bolt of wisdom, or hit on the head with a snapping branch of insight. I was gently reminded of the resilience and unjudging stance of nature--She does what She does with or without my attention. But Oh! Maybe my reverence, gratitude and love will be felt by Her, and my heart wants to offer Her those gifts.

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Radical Joy Revealed.

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.

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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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