What to Leave at the Threshold: 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.

Philip Munyasia at an Earth Exchange before a drought-stricken lake, Tamera, Portugal.
Photo by Carsten Dolcini

What to Leave at the Threshold

When we arrive for an Earth Exchange at a place that has been damaged or poisoned by human activity, we are often assaulted by one or two immediate reactions: (1) We want to punish the people who've done this and (2) We want to restore it to a better state as quickly as possible.

Both these inclinations are at the root of much productive environmental activism, and we need them in our world. However, they are not the fundamental purpose of an Earth Exchange. The purpose of an Earth Exchange is to get to know this place in its current condition, as if it were a sick friend (it is!), and to offer it a gift of gratitude or consolation.

The process of getting reacquainted with this place and loving it as it is does not mean we have to overlook the corporations, people, and practices that have hurt it or forgive them for having harmed it. Those responses may fuel important actions later on. However, while we are here our intention is to be present with this place. What does it look like? How is it managing? How is it adapting to what has happened to it? What emotions, memories, insights, fascinations arise in you as you spend time with it?

Practicing an Earth Exchange, we attempt to leave our own toxic mental state on the threshold, as we would leave our shoes at the entrance to a temple, so that we can be fully present for the land we are attending to and open to what it has to teach us.

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GLOBAL EARTH EXCHANGE TO EXPAND

This year's Global Earth Exchange on June 16 kicks off a whole year of drawing attention to hurt places of all sizes and kinds! Watch this space in Radical Joy Revealed and our social media for unfolding details.

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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