Seven Continents!

On June 19, 2010, about sixty groups, on every one of the seven continents of the planet, met at ecologically wounded places for the first annual Global Earth Exchange, sponsored by the non-profit organization Radical Joy for Hard Times.

They gathered at polluted rivers, clear-cut forests, and the sites of abandoned factories. They went to coal mines and the sites of gas drilling. They honored endangered bats, dolphins, and wild horses. In Antarctica a scientist focused on the glacier that is retreating farther and farther each year rom the window of the research station. In New South Wales, Australia, Glenn Albrecht, the philosopher who coined the term solastalgia, meaning "the pain one feels on recognizing that the land one loves is under assault," did an Earth Exchange on the hill above Hunter Valley, where open pit coal mining has wreaked constant noise, light, and pollution on a community.

The size of the groups ranged from one to 36. In Boulder, Colorado a woman had private a Earth Exchange at a house she bought that had been a meth lab and where a murder had taken place. In southwest Washington, a group (pictured above) gathered at the site of a forest that had been cleared. And three people met at dawn to drum on the beautiful white-sand beach at Navarre, Florida, where the first oily globs from BP's broken rig have begun washing ashore. When a passerby asked if they were members of a band rehearsing for a show, one member of the Earth Exchange responded, "Oh no, we're not a band. We just came to be with a sick friend." There was a pause, and then the man who had asked the question said, "Thank you for doing this."

At each location, people talked about or reflected on their feelings about the destruction of lands and animals and spent time sitting or walking on the land, bearing witness to it in its present condition.

Each Earth Exchange concluded with an "Act of Beauty," something given back to the place or species that has given much to humans. In most cases this act included the construction of a stylized bird, the Radical Joy for Hard Times symbol, made of found materials.

Said one woman who participated in the San Antonio River Earth Exchange in Texas, "I will remember this day for the rest of my life."

Barry Lopez to Join Global Earth Exchange

Barry Lopez, the acclaimed author of many books, including the Arctic Dreams, which won the National Book Award; Of Wolves and Men; and the recent anthology, The Future of Nature, will participate in the Global Earth Exchange sponsored by Radical Joy for Hard Times.

On that day, people around the world will gather at ecologically wounded places to share their stories about what the place means to them... spend time sitting, walking, and "listening" to the land... and give back an Act of Beauty (a song, a dance, a prayer, a sculpture, etc.).

Lopez, who last month was the featured guest on the very last show of Bill Moyers's forty-year career, will participate privately in rural Oregon, where he lives.

Here's what he wrote about the Global Earth Exchange: "It's wonderful of you, and important, to sponsor and encourage this work."

Message to Coal: 350!

Saturday October 24 was designated 350: The International Day of Climate Action. As of this posting, two days later, it is estimated that more than 5,400 events were held in 181 countries around the world to call attention to the urgency of attaining this number.

350 is the parts per million of carbon dioxide that climate scientists have determined to be the maximum level for a healthy environment. Currently, levels are at 389 ppm. The United States Congress, considering legislation on energy efficiency that won't

Magic Phragic Wands

In my blog for July 18, I described the Radical Joy for Hard Times retreat I led at the World Healing Institute at Cobb Island Station, Virginia on June 19-21. We spent one day considering the invasive common reed, phragmites, from different perspectives, the most startling and personal of which were the ones that emerged after each of us spent an hour sitting alone with the plant without any expectations or judgments about its place in the biosphere. As a result of what we gleaned from that exercise, we created a meandering path through the tall grasses as a way of interacting in a more personal way with their rampant, stubborn beauty.

A few days ago I had an email from Annie Hess, the WHI administrator. She wrote that they had held a program for children a couple of weeks after the Radical Joy for Hard Times event. In one project the children made magic fairy wands out of the dried phragmites stalks. They called them phragic wands.

This is how we can remake the world we live in: by having the willingness to enter into relationship with it, listen to what it has to tell us, and respond with creative acts that come from the heart. And we can invite our children and grandchildren to explore with us, and perhaps teach us a whole new way of perceiving beauty—and even magic—in what we have formerly considered waste.

Life Lessons from a Pest Plant

Guests at the World Healing Institute at Cobb Island Station, on Virginia's beautiful eastern shore helped launch the first-ever Radical Joy for Hard Times retreat on June 19-21. It was a particularly diverse and inquisitive group, composed of two Methodist ministers, an architect, a biologist, an artist, and WHI center coordinator Annie Hess.

Plans for the weekend included a walk on Sunday with a biologist to visit and perhaps do ceremony on a stretch of endangered beach. However, on Saturday our attention was repeatedly drawn to an environmental problem closer at hand. This was the common reed that grew abundantly between the institute's front lawn and the bay. Phragmites (frag might eez) has become a reviled plant along the eastern shore, even though it grows on spoils, such as dredged land, where no other plants can survive. The Nature Conservancy, which owns the land at WHI, has tried repeatedly to poison it, but it keeps coming stubbornly back.

The mission of Radical Joy for Hard Times is to bring attention and beauty to wounded places. Gradually our group came to realize that phragmites itself is one of nature's wounded. We discussed the plant at length, getting the facts about how it grows and where, then each person spent an hour sitting alone among these tall grasses with their round stalks and sandpapery leaves. Afterwards, everyone came together to tell the story of what had happened. All the comments were striking in their individuality and in the precision of the way observations of the plant all around had dovetailed with inner experiences and reflections. I was particularly moved by what one of the ministers had to say:

"I was thinking about inclusivity and exclusivity. There's a movement in our church these days to exclude gay people from worship services. I think this is wrong. Everyone should have a right to worship God and His creation. And every plant should have a right to grow, because it, too is a part of creation."

As in any Radical Joy for Hard Times event, we ended this excursion with an Act of Beauty. This one had two parts. First we all made a path through a long stretch of phragmites, a kind of meandering ramble that might serve as a counterpart to the beautiful Chartres-style labyrinth cut into the grass between the building and the (phragmite-lined) bay. Finally, when the path was complete, we cut stalks of phragmites, arranged them in a glass vase, and placed them on our dinner table.