The Willows at Red Oak

“The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.” – Henri Nouwen On Global Earth Exchange Day, the women of The Willows at Red Oak Recovery sat in a circle, contemplating, witnessing, and giving voice to our inherent connection to the Earth and each organism upon it. In the circle, we were guided by the notion of Henri Nouwen’s “the wounded healer”— the (wo)man that, through deep intimacy with her own sacred wound, is able to recognize and minister to the sacred wound of both the Earth and each individual upon it. After a guided meditation to ground with the Earth, each woman followed a call to a sit-spot, where she communed with the land and asked it about its own woundedness. Born of this experience, each participant then wandered the land collecting found and natural objects, creating a radical joy bird by turning “trash to treasure.” Finally, as a whole, the group then selected a tree upon the property as the site of their altar (a young tree that one participant said seemed “overlooked”). To close, each woman offered her radical joy birds and intentions to the Earth, its inhabitants, and all present and future visitors to The Willows. We loved taking part in this event!