Last Saturday, June 17, was RadJoy’s 14th annual Global Earth Exchange, the day when people all over the world go to wounded places they care about and give them attention and beauty.

This was the first Global Earth Exchange for many participants, and they attended to polluted rivers, a monoculture field of strawberries laden with pesticides, and ancient historic sites, to name but a few. Five people—Judy Todd (Oregon), Glenn Albrecht (New South Wales, Australia), Mike Beck (Florida and Washington), Yudhi Ishwari (Bali), and I (Pennsylvania and New York)— have participated in the event every year since the first one in 2010.

This year, RadJoy members visited polluted rivers, insect-infected trees, sites of mineral exploitation, places where violence has occurred or toxins poisoned the Earth, and many more. There were Global Earth Exchanges in at least eighteen U.S. states and in thirteen other countries, including Zambia, Lebanon, Mauritius, Ecuador, and Finland.

It was moving to be part of a day in which so many people take time to pay attention to those places on the Earth that have given so much to living beings—insects, birds, fish, flowers, and humans—and now are suffering or in decline. When we make beauty for the Earth, we realize that:

And we realize anew that loving our place and sorrowing when something happens to it is something that all people on Earth share.

The Global Earth Exchange reports keep coming in! Visit the STORIES page of our website to read what happened and see the photos.