Last Saturday, June 21, Radical Joy for Hard Times sponsored our fifth annual Global Earth Exchange, when people all over the world go to wounded places to share their stories, find beauty, and make beauty in the form of a bird made of materials the place itself provides. RadJoy founder Trebbe Johnson and her husband, Andrew Gardner, observed the day by taking a picnic to a natural gas pad near their home in northeastern Pennsylvania. Trebbe writes:

"About four years ago a well was dug on the top of a hill at a farm a couple of miles from our house. Now they are getting ready to frack for gas. For our Earth Exchange, we slid under the No Trespassing fence and climbed the hill to the drilling pad. We were a little nervous about being spotted, but the place was deserted and there didn't seem to be any security cameras.

"In late afternoon, the land around the site was beautiful. We saw butterflies and bees, a pair of bluebirds darting among the emerald, sun-dappled woods, goldfinches. We heard a hermit thrush's flutelike song. It broke my heart to know how all this beauty would soon be drowned out by bright lights and noise as toxic chemicals penetrated more than a mile into the Earth. My husband is more cheerful. He said, 'But we've found such an interesting new place for a picnic!'

Join people around the world for the 5th annual Global Earth Exchange on Saturday, June 21. Visit a wounded place you care about, get to know the place as it is now, share your stories, and make a bird of materials the place offers you.

Radical Joy for Hard Times is a global community dedicated to finding and making beauty in wounded places. Reconnecting with these places, sharing our stories of loss and despair, 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.