An Elderberry Bush Copes with Hard Times: 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.

Elderberry tree producing flowers and fruit at the same time.

Photo by Eva M. Brockmann

An Elderberry Bush Copes

with Hard Times

Usually, we write here in Radical Joy Revealed about the ways in which humans confront wounded places with compassion and acts of beauty. But a note we received recently from Eva Brockmann of Germany reminded us that nature herself is the ultimate expert in using creativity in hard times.

It was an elderberry tree that taught Eva this lesson. She writes:

"Here in northwest Germany we had a dry spring and a very wet summer, and everything looks different. I guess the elderberry here knows more. I was touched by her efforts to put out new blossoms, even while the berries are fully ripe on the same branch. I've seen a few more of those around the area, too."

Typically, a tree flowers only once, in preparation for the fruiting process.

But this tree is trying to overcome a hard season by producing a second flowering.

The coping and the wild, beautiful, creative response, Eva writes, "It's all happening at once--extremely special times we are in."

Let us all look for the ways in which nature copes beautifully with hard times.

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Upcoming Events from Radical Joy for Hard Times:

October 14
Raise a Glass to the Catskills
Join New Yorkers in raising a glass of pure NYC water to the people and rivers upstate who steward the reservoirs.

October 21, 2:45 PM

Leading with Nature's Guidance

Bioneers Conference, San Rafael, CA

A workshop with Polly Howells and Trebbe Johnson, at the annual groundbreaking national conference, about how to ask for guidance from the natural world and absorb the answers you get.

November 17-19

Gift for Broken Places

Rowe Center, Rowe, MA

Trebbe Johnson's workshop on how spending time in and making beauty for wounded places can bring clarity, compassion, and healing for our own inner wounds as well.

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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