Gone: One Beautiful Bird: Radical Joy Revealed

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Radical Joy Revealed

Gone: One Beautiful Bird

October 20, 2021

Kauai O`o. Image from Wikipedia

Greetings!

This month the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing 23 species of animals and plants from the Endangered Species List. Occasionally there are species, such as the Gray Wolf and the Northern Brown Kiwi, that are removed from this list because their populations have rebounded. Those that lost their designation recently were not so fortunate. All of them have become extinct.

One of those missing beings is the Kauai O'o. This black, brown, and white native of the Hawaiian island of Kauai had feathers of bright yellow on the upper part of its legs. Its long, tapered beak gave it access to its favorite food, flower nectar. It built its nest inside the cavities of rainforest trees, and both male and female guarded the fledglings. Among the causes of the birds' demise were rats, mosquitoes, domestic pigs, and habitat destruction. The Kauai O'o has not been seen or heard since 1985.

I am writing this Radical Joy Revealed because, in their online report about the 23 vanished species, the New York Times featured a blurry video and a recording, courtesy of Cornell Ornithological Laboratory, of the Kauai O'o. The high-pitched, variable whistle sounds reflective, as if the bird is commenting on various things: the location of the sun, the nearness of its mate, the breeze. The song is beautiful and we will never hear it again.

How do we live with the loss of the Kauai O'o and all the other beings who are no more? How do we live with the knowledge that climate change will eradicate many thousands more species?

One option is to participate in the Remembrance Day for Lost Species, which takes place every year on November 10, with people all over the world honoring extinct beings with art, music, and ceremony. As for me, I’m going to start building a cairn in my yard. Each stone will represent one species that has vanished from Earth. This cairn will not be built hurriedly. I will get to know a species first by reading about its habits, if possible listening to its voice. Then I will thank that being for its life and add a stone to the cairn. The first stone will be for the Kauai O'o.

—Trebbe Johnson

NEWS AND UPCOMING EVENTS

We haven't yet scheduled our guest for the November Earth Exchange Café, so watch RadJoy Revealed and our social media for updated information!

In the meantime, you can watch our conversation with Carl Safina, the award-winning author whose work focuses on animal intelligence—not for how it compares to human intelligence, but for how amazingly it works for the animals.

Attending to Place

Facilitator: Harriet Sams

A 10-week online course

Starting October 26

8-10 AM Eastern time

£86.83 / $120

Attending to Place, developed by Radical Joy for Hard Times, is an experiential course designed for ecotherapy practitioners, though all are welcome to participate. A place-based practice that develops ways of personally relating to wounded places, it offers participants a focus for deep immersion over time into a place we care about that is hurting—and so is hurting us in turn. Participants will connect into awareness of the wounds and the gifts of the place.

Information and registration

Earth Ceremony

Deep Live Gathering

On your own schedule, between October 23-24

Free

Deep Live is a gathering that will be held in person in Montenegro and among many different groups gathering locally around the world. RadJoy activist Sasha Daucus has adapted our practice, so that groups and individuals may create beauty for a place near them and share their photos with other conference participants, who will be making beauty where they live.

More information about Earth Ceremony and other Deep Live events

Things to Read

Each book in this brand new 5-volume set, Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations, focuses on an aspect of the human-natural relationship: Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, and Practice. The entire set costs $95. However, you can buy individual volumes for $22 each.

Vol. 5, Practice, includes essays by Kimmerer, Sharon Blackie, and Trebbe Johnson. Trebbe's essay, "The Coal Remembers," explores sorrow and waste at the site of an underground coal fire.

We can't heal the Earth. But as the moving and inspirational stories in this book show so plainly, together we can heal our deep and lasting bond with the places we love that have been hurt.

You’ve Made Earth More Beautiful! is now available, with stories and photos by some of the many people who’ve participated in our annual honoring of place since 2010.

All proceeds go to support the work of Radical Joy for Hard Times.

Join our online

RADJOY COMMUNITY!

We invite all Radical Joy Revealed subscribers to join RadJoy Community, the online hub for people who are committed to finding and making wild acts of beauty in hurt and challenged places! You're welcome whether you've been doing this practice for years or if you're just discovering it and want to know more.

It's free, there are no obligations, and you don't get on any strange and unwelcome email lists! RadJoy Community is a place to find others in your bioregion or around the world who care about the Earth.