Radical Joy for Hard Times has always urged our members around the world to give attention and beauty to those places and beings that have meaning for them. It’s not necessary to seek out some dramatic place like a Superfund site or a nuclear power plant—though people have done some very moving events for those very places.
One of the stories from this year’s Global Earth Exchange reminds us that our own backyard, or even a small corner of our own backyard, can bear traces of hurt and sorrow, inviting us to make reparation.
Alison Cornish of Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts writes:
In the garden I share with our neighbor, there is a row of blueberry bushes, and then another of raspberries. It’s getting close to harvest for both, so the blueberry bushes are now shrouded in a light fabric to protect them from the birds. Last year, the same bushes were covered with a fine mesh netting which has become commonly used in this area to protect plants from deer. But one day a beautiful male cardinal became entangled in the netting, unable to free himself. Jan and I tried so hard to free him—but he died in our hands. He was one half of a mating couple that had made the backyard home for several years, and we were both devastated, both by his death, and by how it happened.
I created this RadJoy bird, which you can barely see, to represent the spirit of the male cardinal—his beauty and uniqueness. And I did it under the new cloth, hopefully less lethal to birds (but what about the insects and other pollinators??) to represent my grief of having been a part of his demise.