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Trebbe Johnson's Newsletter
December 2009
Facing the Mystery
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 Dear Questers, Friends, and Seekers of the Beloved,
Several years ago a few colleagues and I created a program called Facing the Mystery, which we offered through Animas Valley Institute. The week-long retreat was designed to help people with life-altering illnesses explore what was happening to them, with an emphasis on spending time in nature. We called it Facing the Mystery, because that's what illness and the prospect of death force one to do--throw out all previous plans and ask what's really important. And each of the men and women who attended the program really were amazing, courageous people who had determined to embrace life fully as they confronted death.
The value of facing the mystery applies to situations other than illness. It 's a worthy effort when we confront any big looming prospect that is drawing us inexorably into its gravitational field. That's the theme of this newsletter: I'm looking at three stories about confronting what's big and scary and making a choice about how to respond to yet another of life's "invitations."
To those who are receiving this newsletter for the first time... welcome! Here you'll find news of upcoming Vision Arrow events, reflections, profiles of extraordinary people, and stories of transformation that occur when we accept, in small, bold, startling ways the invitations that the world is always sending us.
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IN MY BACK YARD
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For many years I have been searching for some way to bring attention, personal stories, and beauty to ecologically damaged places. In a way, I think this way of approaching life and death, joy and sorrow, and the strange beauty that can be found when we gaze at that which we least want to look at has been pursuing me all my life.
Over the years I've held small gatherings and longer programs in several wounded places, from a clearcut forest in British Columbia to Ground Zero in New York City to a coal-fired power plant for 350: the International Day of Climate Action last month. When I founded Radical Joy for Hard Times, I joined others who shared the vision of finding and creating beauty in wounded places.
And now, by strange fate or synchronicity, this long search is becoming very personal.
The Marcellus shale beneath the earth in Susquehanna County in northeastern Pennsylvania, where I live, has been found to have one of the largest reserves of natural gas anywhere in the world. In the past two years, the momentum has been building to tap this source of energy with new technology. Unlike more affluent counties in New York, just north of us, where people are fighting this encroachment, here in rural, low-income Pennsylvania, poor farmers are eagerly leasing their lands... and many are already regretting it.
The problems, not surprisingly, have begun: polluted wells; damage to the hilly, winding, rural roads by heavy trucks; and even the recent discovery that the water that has been used to shatter, or "frack," the shale thousands of feet in the Earth, may be radioactive after it is pumped back out.
Two months ago, to my surprise, my husband and I were offered $5,700 an acre for our five and a half acres, plus 20% royalties for a portion of a larger consolidated leasing area.
For weeks Andy and I were immersed in long, tearful discussions together and with friends about our options. Neither of us has much money, and we have lost much of what we did have in the current recession. If we leased, we would not only get a settlement up front, but a regular income. For me, however, there was never any dilemma. I knew I could not live with myself if I were to condone, and even profit from, the exploitation of the Earth.
We finally have reached a decision. As my husband said, "You founded Radical Joy for Hard Times to bring beauty to wounded places, and now the wounded place is coming to your own backyard." So we will be staying, at least for now, and we will not be signing a lease.
Some people we know, including a good friend, think we have made a very foolish choice. And as I look at the rolling hills, the long expanses of woods and fields near my home, my heart aches for the ugliness and scarring that is probably inevitable. But I also am seeing new opportunities for exercising the principles of Radical Joy for Hard Times--the main goal of which is to reconcile people and wounded places through storytelling, bearing witness, and creating beauty. As seekers have known for millennia, you never have to go far from home to find the revelation you so long for.
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JOANNA JOY
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 Among the Dagara people of Burkina Faso, children receive their names before birth. A medicine man sits with the child's mother and communes with the baby in her womb, reading the little spirit to perceive his or her life's destiny.
Joanna Joy Burgess was born not in Africa, but in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, yet her middle name, like the names of the Dagara, seems to have been a guiding principle of her life. Joanna enchants you from the first moment you meet her. A small, delicate woman with enormous brown eyes and a high-pitched voice, she embodies both innocent delight and ancient wisdom.
When she was three years old Joanna was diagnosed with a rare cancer. She survived, but the massive doses of radiation she had to submit to resulted in wounds and physical challenges that have burdened her ever since. As a little girl she kept her spirits up by turning to nature as her confidant, for, as she expresses it, "Nature fully accepted and loved me."
Instead of putting the pain and difficulties of childhood cancer behind her as she grew up, Joanna decided to become a pediatric nurse. After graduating West Virginia Wesleyan College in 1985, she practiced at Duke University Medical Center, caring for a wide range of childhood illnesses including cancer. When she discovered that she would need further surgery to correct problems caused by the treatment of the cancer, she knew she faced an uncertain future and in fact might not even be able to walk. Because she did not know what lay ahead, she decided to throw herself into life as fully as possible and volunteered to work as a nurse in a poor hillside community of Honduras.
In 2002, Joanna attended Facing the Mystery (see greeting above), in Evergreen, Colorado. While embracing a bent and distorted whispering pine tree high in the snowy mountains, she heard the inner call to devote her life to helping others find beauty and joy while living with a life-altering illness. She has since become a certified wound care and ostomy nurse and currently works in an acute care center caring for and teaching patients with wounds and disfigurements how to live fully and how to embrace joy.
Since Facing the Mystery, Joanna has been on two other vision quests, both in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania. A woman with strong powers of persuasion, she brought her father on one of these quests and the man who is now her fiancé, Ross Stocks, on the other. Joanna is also on the Board of Directors of Radical Joy for Hard Times, for she has come to believe that her work includes caring for wounded places as well as wounded people. She inspires and warms everyone who comes within her radius.
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RADICAL JOY FOR HARD TIMES NEWS
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Our Radical Joy for Hard Times website it up! Visit us and learn more about who we are and how you can become involved.
I have written previously in this newsletter about David Powless, the Oneida Indian engineer, former Washington Redskins football player, Native American business consultant, and meditation teacher, about whom I wrote a multi-media presentation more than twenty years ago and whose story played a big part in the long gestation of Radical Joy for Hard Times. When I was interviewing him for the show, David described ecologically damaged places as "orphans from the cycle of life," a perspective that struck me even then as a profound and meaningful way of thinking about environmental problem places. I am honored to say that he is now on the Council of Advisors or Radical Joy for Hard Times.
Here's what David told me recently about the importance of our mission of bringing beauty back to wounded places: "These places have served us well, and we can't just abandon them. They're like veterans. You may not agree with the war, but you've got to take care of the warriors."
Photo: Zero Log Trucks Circle by Daniel Dancer
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MAINE TROOP GREETERS
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On the subject of taking care of warriors, here's another story that, like Joanna's, reminds us that sometimes we can best and most courageously face the mysteries of our own lives by helping others to face the mysteries they are confronting.
Bangor International Airport in Maine is the easternmost major airfield in America. It is also isolated and has an exceptionally long runway. For this reason, it is the preferred take-off and landing site for U.S. military planes carrying troops to and from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since 2003, shortly after the start of the war on Iraq, a small group of about twenty-five volunteers, mostly elderly, have been on hand to honor and either greet or say good-bye to every single service person who arrives at or leaves that airport.
A new documentary, The Way We Get By, by Aron Gaudet, chronicles the work of these Maine Troop Greeters and profiles two of the men and one woman who show up during the day and in the middle of the night to make the troops feel appreciated for their bravery and sacrifice.
As the documentary reveals, delivering this simple kindness is not only moving to the soldiers but also gives the greeters a renewed sense of purpose. Many say that prior to volunteering as a greeter, they felt they had outlived their usefulness. One of the men, Bill Knight, is eighty-seven years old. His wife died several years ago and he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. "Life is pretty strange when you're alone," Knight says. "You never know what it's gonna drive you to. My life don't mean a hell of a lot to me, but if I can make it mean something to someone else, well, that's my endeavor." Tears fill his eyes as he speaks, and you sense that his emotion is partly for himself, partly for his wife, partly for the men and women he's said good-bye to who will never return.
It is estimated that the Maine Troop Greeters have received and sent off nearly one million service members since they themselves became warriors of the open arms.
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BOOK AND WORKSHOP NEWS
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My book, The World Is a Waiting Lover, with a foreword by Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, is available from Amazon.com or from your favorite bookstore.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
When you receive this newsletter I'll be in Melbourne, Australia attending the Parliament of World Religions, whose theme this year is the environment. Watch my blog and next month's newsletter for updates.
Winter dates to come!
Upside of the Downturn
Our fourth round table session, to explore your relationship with money, has ended. It was a great success. The next session will take place in February-not in December 2009 as originally scheduled. Details to come.
January 2-23, 2010
Sahara Camel Caravan and Vision Quest
Southern Algeria
The caravan is full.
March 9-21, 2010
Bali From Within
Next year our one-of-a-kind trip to Bali is timed so we can participate in the three-day Balinese new year, Nyepi. Nyepi begins with everyone in the village chasing huge papier maché monsters out of town, continues with a day of reflection, and ends with an evening of mingling with friends and eating on the street. The trip, as usual, also includes visits with Balinese artists, a gamelan musician, village priest; hikes in the forest; a blessing ceremony at the sacred spring Tirta Empul, and many other events visitors rarely have a chance to engage in up close.
Call 570 727 4272 or email Trebbe if you have questions or would like to talk about any of these programs.
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