Radical Joy Revealed
April 29, 2015
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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.
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Apologies to the Redwoods
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Orange peels create the word "sorry" for a giant redwood. Photo by Daniel Dancer
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Many of us grieve what is happening to the places we love, but how often does it occur to us actually to apologize to them?
Daniel Dancer is an artist who creates art for, in, and about endangered places and species. In his Art for the Sky projects, he works with communities around the world to incorporate people themselves into poignant images which he then photographs from the air. Here he describes a private act of observance he recently made:
Making apologies to the wild Earth is of the highest importance to me these days. On Earth Day, in a magical grove of wild giant coast redwoods, I made apologies to them. 95% of California's ancient redwood forests have been cut down. Standing in a glade with them towering all around me, I spoke out loud and then I put the essence of what I said into form using materials at hand: the peel from my mandarin orange. I took a picture, put the peels in my pocket and left feeling heard somehow. As I walked on I thought about how natural it is for us to apologize to fellow humans whom we have hurt and yet how foreign it feels for most of us to do the same regarding the Earth. I wonder if everyone, now and then, went to a wild place or stood before an endangered species in a zoo, or at the site of a dammed river or even before a favorite tree in their backyard and apologized for the careless acts of our species (with absolutely no thought of forgiveness) if things might shift a bit somehow.
To discover other stories of inspiring people, stories, photos, and ideas, subscribe to Radical Joy Revealed.
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Make Beauty! Pass It On!
On Saturday, June 20 RadJoy's annual Global Earth Exchange soars to a whole new dimension. Besides making visiting and making the RadJoy bird at a wounded place you love, you can you'll have the opportunity to "link" your RadJoy Bird with two others: one that sends beauty and wholeness to your place, another to whom you'll send these gifts!  For more information and to register visit our website.
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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.
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