all places, spoiled as well as splendid.

 

The artist David Hockney exemplifies this kind of exuberant engagement with the world. When he took a journalist for a drive through his native Yorkshire to see an alleyway of trees he was painting, he tried instruct her in the proper way to look at them: "'Watch!' he called out. 'The ash tree now comes in--look at the shape of it! And now then on the right, another tree. There's a point where each one stands on its own. There. Now. It's surrounded by the sky. Now the next one, and it stands on its own. You see?'"

 

Hockey seemed to see the trees as beings as creative as he himself, as they collaborated with and distanced themselves from one another, the land, and sky. Discovering the resilience and beauty that a wounded place is constantly persisting in... and then giving back to that place with some beauty and attention of our own making, we, too, enter into a relationship of fascination, not only with that place but with all others we encounter.

 

On June 20 people around the world will go to wounded places to share their stories of what the places mean to them, spend time getting to know the places as they are now, and make a simple act of beauty there: a bird created out of materials found on site. Join the world in making beauty for the Earth for the 6th annual Global Earth Exchange.

To see the photos of the 2014 Global Earth Exchange, visit our website. To read the stories click on the little "pins" on our world map.

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.