Alicia Viguer Seguí, whose grandfather was a republican in the Spanish Civil War, and Trebbe Johnson with their RadJoy Bird for the energy pylon at Ananta Sacred Space. Photo by Charlotte Phillips

Members of the Radical Joy for Hard Times program, the Secret Life of Places, held at Ananta April 17-19, had come to focus on the ways that traumatic events in places affect the people who live there. This they explored not only at Ananta and at Corbera d'Ebre, site of the last and bloodiest battle of the Spanish Civil War, but as it relates to their own lands, which included Spain, the U.S., Ireland, and Northern Ireland. They also felt inspired to make beauty at the pylons.

Three members of the group headed up the hill toward the northern pylon, three to the south. The group at the northern pylon sang to the land and the pylons, placed a large standing stone in the center, wove sticks and flowers into the crisscrossed metal struts of the structure, and placed stones and flowers on the concrete supports. The southern group made a ring of sticks and stones around their pylon, and they, too, decorated it with flowers, pinecones, and leaves. Finally they made a RadJoy Bird in the center.

It would be a stretch to say that these two behemoths are welcome now at Ananta. But at least they have been transformed into balanced--and beautiful--parts of the landscape.