On the day of the Global Earth Exchange (June 25 this year), people often make the RadJoy Bird as their gift of beauty for a hurt place. They craft it of materials the place itself offers: twigs, stones, leaves, sand, even trash.

Here’s how the bird came to be our symbol:

Three days into the very first Radical Joy for Hard Times board meeting in 2009, Eugene Hughes suggested that we stop talking and instead try to arrive at our shared vision by making art. We stuck together several large sheets of paper, then we all worked in silence for about an hour, moving around the paper as we drew, pasted, wrote, and embellished.

When we finished, we carried the painting outside to a little park across the street and lay it down on the grass. At first no one could make any sense of it. It looked like nothing but a big mess. Then Noah Crowe stood on top of a picnic table and got a new perspective. “It’s a bird!” he exclaimed. Instantly we all saw it: a crazy bird facing all the dark stuff of wounded places and striding into it, singing.

So the bird became our symbol. Birds are universal. They sing even in the midst of war. They remind us of the possibility of transformation and even transcendence. We make our RadJoy Bird out of materials from our place as a reminder that places, like people, are already endowed with the all elements of their own innate beauty.

Over the years, members of our network have made an extraordinary “aviary” of birds for hurt places all over the world. You can see some of them in the STORIES section of our website.

And we look forward to seeing your own RadJoy Bird this year!

—Trebbe Johnson