TENDING THE APPLE TREES
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When my husband and I bought our house in 1988, we fell in love with the land before we ever went inside the house. Although only five and a half acres, the place is extraordinarily diverse, with mini terrains that include a meadow, a frog pond, woods, and an apple orchard. The orchard, which was planted more than sixty years ago, has eighteen trees, each one bearing a different species of fruit. Andy has pruned them over the years, but taller trees have grown up around many of them, shading them out, and many of the branches have become tangled.
So we've decided to reinvigorate them. Our decision is based partly on the gas drilling that has taken over northeastern Pennsylvania. We will not lease our land for drilling. We can't afford to move. The drilling, which started in the western part of the county in the now infamous town of Dimock, is moving inexorably east. So what to do?
Helping the apple trees to thrive again seemed like one good solution.
In times of trouble, we figured, the troubled get creative. So what better response is there to a threatening future than to take actions that affirm life, create beauty, and help the land thrive?
So for the past couple of months in this unusually mild winter we've been getting most days and pruning the apple trees. We cut up the larger limbs for firewood and haul the smaller twigs out to the perimeter of the place and interweave them into the brush fence that we've been building for years. To me it looks as if the trees are already preening.
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BIOPHILIA, BIOPHOBIA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In celebration of his 29th birthday in April 2010 my friend Noah Crowe, inspired by the twentieth century German artist Joseph Beuys (pronounced BOYS), decided to make a ritual that would connect his birth with the life-giving force of the Earth.
First he bought a native California oak tree that was close in height to his own 6'2." Next he collected thirteen and a half gallons of water, equal to the amount of water in his body. Finally, like Beuys, whose "7,000 Oaks" event paired each tree with a stone, Noah chose a large rock. At around the time his mother would have been going into labor, he and a friend drove to the site of the ceremony, a littered patch of wasteland by the off-ramp of the expressway between Los Angeles and Ventura.
At 4:47 PM, the exact time of his birth, Noah undressed and lowered himself into the hole he had dug. His friend filled it with soil. Below the waist, he was rooted in the earth, while the upper part of his body was exposed to the air. Although his intention was to stay in the hole until morning, when his friend arrived at 1:00 AM to check on him, he was shivering with cold and knew it was time to emerge. He then planted the tree in the hole and poured the water into it. Throughout the summer he tended it.
But in January, when he went to visit the tree, he had a shock. "My tree has been torn in two," he wrote. "The stone has been upturned and pushed 20 feet from its tree. Why? Who? Hurt a tree? My heart feels like it's been torn out."
Evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson has proposed that human beings have a biophilia gene that prompts us to focus on life and lifelike processes. Biophilia strengthens with repeated use, but Wilson believes that it will also weaken when it is not adequately exercised. With prolonged immersion in an environment where the natural world is absent or degraded, people can become, first, indifferent to, later, even hostile to nature. Biophobia exacerbates biophobia. So, when you think of it, a broken place is the perfect location for wreaking more breakage. Someone just passing through, someone who had forgotten what it is to love a place, must have seen Noah's little tree as a reminder of something too generous, too touching to bear. Something that would therefore have to be eradicated.
The way to reverse biophobia is to keep on giving beauty and attention to those waste places, those wounded places. Even if your act of beauty is destroyed, you, the maker of beauty have done a thing of crucial importance to the Earth. You have given generously to an unloved place, and in the process both you and the place have been transformed. Someone destroyed Noah Crowe's birthday tree, but who knows how many others-including the place itself-were changed by it?
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RADICAL JOY FOR HARD TIMES NEWS
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RadJoy's New Website
Radical Joy for Hard Times has a new website! Check it out. It was designed by Munro Sickafoose of Diamondheart Studio. The new website has a more modern look, and it's easier to negotiate your way around from one page to another.
Best of all is our new interactive page, the Earth Exchange Network. You can create your personal profile and post stories, photos, and videos about the places you love and that you're concerned about. You can join or start discussion groups and find out what other members around the world are doing. Join the Network! (It's free.)
You may already have noticed that we are changing our website home page every Monday so as to feature news from around the world about the ways that people are making beauty in, for, and about damaged places. Remember to check in for some surprising stories and ideas. My blog, which you can access from the website, explores each of these stories in more depth.
2012 Global Earth Exchange
With the Earth Exchange Network, it's also easier than ever to sign up for the third annual Global Earth Exchange on June 23. This is the day when people all over the world join together in honor of the places they love to find and make beauty there. All you have to do is click on the link for Create a New Earth Exchange, fill in the details and, if you like, add a photo of your place. You can always change the details later.
Already people committed to offer Global Earth Exchanges at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where nuclear weapons testing has been ongoing for sixty years; Pigeon Square, the heart of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina; and in the heart of Washington, DC. A group in California will be honoring endangered honeybees, and for the third year in a row, farmers in northern Bali will plant native trees on a mountain whose sides have been badly eroded in recent decades. Please join the world in making beauty for the Earth!
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"LIFE" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joseph Beuys insisted that art, the environment, and the human community are inextricably linked. This poem by Beuys shows his playful side. Thanks to Ursula Glunk who recently sent it to the members of her Sahara vision quest group. Translation is by me.
LIFE
Let yourself fall.
Learn to observe snakes
Plant impossible gardens.
Invite someone dangerous to tea.
Make little signs that say "yes"
and put them all over your house.
Become a friend of freedom and uncertainty.
Look forward to dreaming.
Cry in movies.
Swing as high as you can in the moonlight.
Cultivate different moods.
Refuse to "be responsible"-- act out of love!
Take a lot of catnaps.
Give away money. Do it now. Money will follow.
Believe in magic, laugh a lot.
Bathe in moonlight.
Dream wild, fantastic dreams.
Draw on the walls.
Read every day.
Imagine that you are enchanted.
Giggle with children. Listen to old people.
Open yourself. Dive in. Be free. Praise yourself.
Let your fear fall away, play with everything.
Entertain the child in yourself.
You are not to blame.
Build a castle out of blankets.
Get wet.
Hug trees.
Write love letters.
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WRITING AND WORKSHOP NEWS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My book, The World Is a Waiting Lover, with a foreword by Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, is available from Amazon.com or from your favorite bookstore. It's also available as an e-book!
UPCOMING PROGRAMS from VISION ARROW
 Der Weg der/des Geliebten
Der Weg der/des Geliebten ist ein Herangehen, das Dich ermutigt, lockt und Dich auf etwas ausrichtet, das Dich bereits aus Deiner Tiefe ruft. Während dieses Wochenendes arbeiten wir mit inneren Bildern, der Herstellung von Lebenslandkarten, Dialogen mit Partnern und der inneren Stimme, Storytelling, einer Wanderung in der Natur und vielem mehr.
April 27-29
Eschwege Institut
Eschwege, Germany
May 4-6
Schweibenalp
Brienz, Switzerland
Both programs are for German-speakers.
3rd Annual Global Earth Exchange
June 23
Worldwide
Sponsored by Radical Joy for Hard Times
Join people all over the world as they go to wounded places to find and make beauty, pioneering a path of Earth activism that reconnects people and the places they love and affirms that all places, no matter what has happened to them, are part of the circle of life and worthy of honor and care.
 Endless Mountains Vision Quest
June 27-July 1
Northeastern Pennsylvania
This four-day program, held in a secluded 400-acre nature preserve, is specially designed for those who seek a meaningful rite of passage in a beautiful, yet accessible place. You explore many of the same processes and practices as in the longer vision quest, but with a focus on reading Nature's lessons and discovering how they apply to your own life. For the twenty-four-hour solo you may choose from among diverse ecological niches: glacial pond, meadow, beaver habitat, clear stream, and indigenous forest. Minimal backpacking.
Guide: Trebbe Johnson
Cost: $605, plus $75-$125 for one night's lodging in a local bed & breakfast
Youth Vision Fast
(recommended for people ages 17-23)
July 14-24
In the high desert of eastern California
Sponsored by the School of Lost Borders
To recognize and mark the moment when a young person turns toward adulthood takes great courage, especially in a culture that has all but forgotten the importance of honoring this transition. With the intention of finding and facing your deepest truths, your strengths and weaknesses, you then turn toward the critical questions: "Who am I to be in the world?" and "What are my gifts?" This opportunity is both a great challenge and a simple task, providing the possibility of returning home with a timeless memory in your bones and a profound connection to the Earth, ready to embark on the life-long quest of finding and making your place in the world.
Guides: Will Scott and Trebbe Johnson
Tuition: $700-$1,100 (sliding scale)
Lead Like a River has been chosen by the Times of London as one of the "20 Retreats That Will Change Your Life"!
Like a River
August 4-11
Atlas Mountains, Morocco
Being clear on who you are and what you stand for, defining your vision and inspiring others to act are all key competencies of your leadership. Mastering this is a lifelong journey, and this program in the Atlas mountains provides the ideal opportunity to reflect on your path, gain strength through connecting with nature, and listen to what is important and meaningful to you.
You'll stay at the beautiful Kasbah du Toubkal, just one hour from the Marrakech airport. This hidden Shangri-la is pearched on rocks with stunning views of remote valleys and the summit of Mount Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa. We will spend five nights in the Kasbah and one night in a mountain lodge that we will trek to. You will have a dawn-to-dusk solo in a wilderness place of your choosing, where you will reflect on both the landscape around you and the landscape within as you mark your passage to a new height of personal leadership.
Program is limited to ten participants.
For information, contact Will Jackson.
Guides: Eugene Hughes and Trebbe Johnson
Cost: €3,300 / $4,250 (includes all meals and lodging and transportation to Kasbah du Toubkal Lodge; does not include airfare)
Fifth Annual Bali from Within
August 23-September 4
Bali, Indonesia
Bali from Within is a journey into the heart of one of the most beautiful places in the world, geographically, culturally, and artistically. In this trip, which is limited to only 6 participants, we work with Balinese guides who, over the years, have become dear friends. Together you will explore Bali in ways that tourists cannot do:- visit the sacred spring Tirta Empul and receive a blessing there, hike through beautiful, lush forests to visit a great waterfall, a gigantic and historic banyan tree, and maybe drop in at the home of gamelan orchestra leader, Made Trip
- join in the gala celebrations of Galungan, when the Balinese welcome the spirits of the ancestors back to the villages
- take a village walk and learn about sacred architecture and its role in everyday life
- enjoy a day at Bali Botanica, a spa by a riverside in Ubud
- hike through rice paddies and forests where native trees mix with cultivated plan and share reflections and responses each night in a Council with our own small group
Guides: Trebbe Johnson, Rucina Ballinger, A. Agung Detra Rangki, and Nyoman Sutarya
Cost: $3,900. For a complete itinerary, see Bali from Within on the Vision Arrow website.
 2-Week Sahara Desert Vision Quest and Camel Caravan December 29, 2012-January 12, 2013 Southern Algeria Sponsored by Foundation Iferouane Following the steps of intrepid seekers throughout the ages who have been drawn to the desert to fast and pray for guidance, we venture into the greatest desert of all: the Sahara. Our guides are a group of nomadic Tuareg, a matriarchal people known for their love of the desert, poetry, camels, and beauty.
Our base camp is truly remote, reached after 1-2 days travel by Land Rover, followed by 4-5 days in a camel caravan. Your three-day solo will take place in a place of your choosing, in a desert valley or in a black basalt wilderness. To undertake this quest, you must have an adventurous spirit and be prepared to sleep under the stars, immerse yourself in the ways of another culture, experience hot days and cold nights, live three weeks without a shower, and move fearlessly into a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Guides : Sabina Wyss, Trebbe Johnson, Adem Mellakh, and Tuareg hosts
Cost : 4,444 Swiss Francs, (approximately $4,900.00 as of 2/28/12), including all meals, camping fees, riding camel, land transportation in the desert, and air travel from a European city to Tamanrasset, Algeria
For more information about Vision Arrow programs, see our website.
Call 570 727 4272 or email Trebbe if you have questions or would like to talk about any of these programs. |
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