10 Ways You Can’t Do It Wrong

As people around the world get ready to participate in the Global Earth Exchange on June 22, we like to remind everyone that this event is all about reconnecting people with place. It’s about taking a new look at surroundings you might ordinarily have dismissed as ugly or depressing. It’s about finding something unexpected there. And it’s about making a gift for the place from things the place itself offers you.
 There’s no such thing as “doing it right.” And there are…
…10 ways you can’t do it wrong!
1. All you have to do is show up.
2. You don’t need training.
3. Anything you do will make a difference.
4. It’s okay if it’s just you and a friend—or just you and the Earth.
5. Everything you need to have the experience is already there—except a camera.
6. A place is “wounded” if you feel sad about it.
7. If you think you don’t know how to listen to the land, you do. Just be present, look around, and tune in to your feelings.
8. Whatever you feel is appropriate, even if you feel nothing.
9. Sharing stories? You noticed something in this place. What was it?
10. Make a gift of beauty for the place: Make the RadJoy Bird out of materials you find at the place. And/or: sing, dance, say a prayer, jump, sit, cry, shout, laugh, make a sculpture out of trash, make a circle, make a mudpie, hug a friend, hug a tree, drum, chant, walk in circle, make a human pyramid, do a cartwheel, make a mandala, write a poem, play, make prayer flags, make music…
There’s still time to sign up on our website and receive a hand-painted RadJoy flag. And even if you don’t sign up, you can still send us the photo and story of your Global Earth Exchange! Check this blog next week or visit our Facebook page for details.

Trebbe Johnson
Trebbe JohnsonFounder
Trebbe is the author of The World Is a Waiting Lover and 101 Ways to Make Guerrilla Beauty. Her new book, Radical Joy for Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty, will be published in Fall 2018 by North Atlantic Books. Her articles about people’s emotional and spiritual relationship with nature have appeared in Orion, Sierra, Ecopsychology, The Ecologist, The Nation, Harper’s and other magazines. She lives with her husband, Andrew Gardner, in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, a region currently under exploitation by natural gas companies.

Image Credit:

  • Frangs Whale: Janet Frangs

MORE RADICAL JOY REVEALED

  • Costa Rica Altar

The Gift Decoupled

The French anthropologist and sociologist Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) was the first westerner to write about gift-giving as an essential aspect of culture, more widespread and more universal than any other. Mauss saw gift-giving as a [...]

  • Mandala Sasha Daucus

The Wound Is Part of the Wholeness

Sasha Daucus has been an active member of Radical Joy for Hard Times since 2012 and has hosted Global Earth Exchanges every year since then. For the 2017 GEx she rallied people in her hometown of [...]

  • Flowers In Phone Booth

Introducing Flower Flash!

For about three years floral designer Lewis Miller has been recycling flowers as a way to jolt busy, always preoccupied New Yorkers into a moment of delighted awareness of their surroundings. He and his team [...]

More Revealed

SUBSCRIBE

JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER

Radical Joy Revealed is a weekly message of inspiration about finding and making beauty in wounded places.

2019-07-12T06:24:05-08:00

Give the gift of Radical Joy!

Donate
© Copyright 2012 -  Hosting by NEXUS.works   |   ALL RIGHTS RESERVED   |   POWERED BY WORDPRESS
FacebookInstagram
This website uses cookies and third party services. See our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy for more information. Settings Ok

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to track your path through our website. To assist in protecting your privacy, we anonymize the last 4 of the IP address.

Tracking Cookies

To monitor and help enhance your visit while on the website.

Host Accounts

We offer a individuals private member access as Hosts when they register. We offer Host newsletters and the ability to manage Earth Exchange Events & Stories that Hosts will author and help manage. We ask for basic information from Hosts to join. We additionally ask the Host to provide detailed information about their events and preparations. This includes images and narratives about their event and any Stories told about the Exchange Events hosted.