Don’t let them take your joy

A morning note for your day

Photo credit: originally posted to Flickr by Andy Morffew at https://flickr.com/photos/66020093@N03/54567044907. It was reviewed on 12 June 2025 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

This morning, as I walked to a spot where I like to sit with the trees, I grappled with this question: how do I hold onto my joy amidst all the pain, suffering, greed and cruelty in the world?

I found my spot, took my seat, and opened up to inspiration from whatever you want to call the spiritual forces of the world – a higher power; my own soul; God, or angels, or Helping Spirits.

In my inner vision, an Eagle appeared, and suddenly I was way up high, flying with him. As we climbed further, individual trees merged into landscapes of rolling hills and mountains; higher still, and I was flying above a sea sprinkled with islands. The blue of the water soothed my soul; the forested islands brought peace.

We flew higher still, and I saw the Earth as astronauts see her from space.

The Earth is filled with so much beauty!, I heard. How could you possibly give that away?

Then, as though I was seeing through Eagle’s eyes, my vision sharpened and focused in on the latest news of the day: the starvation in Gaza, the White House commanding the FBI to arrest Democrats in order to gerrymander its way to a midterm victory; the multiple fires that have broken out in my area as the drought only worsens.

This is how you give your joy away, I thought: by focusing on the pain in the world to the exclusion of the beauty.

This is how you give your joy away: by focusing on the pain in the world to the exclusion of the beauty.

Then I heard:

Of course, you can choose.

So prodded, I wrested my attention away from the awful places where the media funnels it, and pointed it at beauty. I saw a dragonfly skimming along a creek, sun glinting off crystalline wings. I saw a hummingbird, its throat a shocking ruby and its back an iridescent green, drinking from a vine bursting with yellow flowers in my yard. I saw mountains soaring, water flowing, trees breathing. I heard birds singing, and my perspective landed in the microcosm of the natural world right where I live. I opened my eyes and saw nothing but beauty, peace, and life.

Many people caught in heady analysis and impotent anger would have you believe that making this choice is burying your head in the sand, choosing ignorance, and retreating into privilege. This is not so. I am not advocating that you ignore the news, that you fail to take action. The choice I am working with every day is to live life from a baseline of joy, even as I keep myself informed of the myriad ways the government of my country is creating tremendous harm. The choice I am working with is to cultivate love in my heart and radiate it out to all beings, even as other people choose to nurture hate and greed to further their own wealth and domination. The choice I am making, the choice I invite you to make as well, is to resist and create alternatives from a place of love and joy.

I have found that insight and release from heavy depression in meditation, vision or prayer is the first step, but it is not enough on its own. The next step is to embody the choice. Yet, I have also found that I cannot leap directly from inner vision to embodying this choice in the world of other people, whose energies I cannot anticipate or control, and who may come at me with anger or judgment, depression or despair. And so I am learning to embody my choice alone with the trees, first.

When my vision came to a close, I got up, took off my shoes, and drummed and chanted as I danced barefoot on the Earth:

I will not let you – you, who are caught in a prison of greed and cruelty – take my joy.

I choose to perceive the beauty of this Earth.

I choose to allow my joy to flow freely.

I choose to act in love.

From this place, I will resist you and build alternatives, with every breath that I take.

From this place, I will encourage others in love, with every breath that I take.