When people go to wounded places and make gifts of beauty for them, they often tell us how surprised they were by what happened. They had gone with feelings of reluctance, sure that they would be depressed by the experience. And instead, they felt energized and reconnected with their place. Sometimes, they tell us, “I ended up falling in love with the place!”
There is a precedent for this metamorphosis, and it is timeless and universal. It involves an archetypal story of giving beauty to ugliness-and in the process falling in love.
In the Inuit tale of Skeleton Woman, for example, a woman in pursuit of an impossible love drowns in the ocean. One day a fisherman feels a tug on his line and pulls it up to find that he’s caught not a fish but the skeleton of a woman. He is tempted to drop her back into the ocean, but his compassion gets the better of him and he hauls the bones into his boat, then takes them back to his snowhouse, where he carefully lays them out aright. Gradually, the skeleton begins to transform. Flesh swathes the bones, the features emerge. Then the fisherman himself shapeshifts. He becomes a shaman. He picks up his drum and begins to beat it and invites the skeleton to dance. As she does so, she becomes a whole woman again, warm-blooded and sensual. The two of them clasp hands, leap into his drum, and run off together.
This story reminds us that true beauty is revealed only when we stop wishing for ugliness to disappear and accept the other for what he or she -or place-is. But acceptance alone is not enough. Loving, and active loving at that, is necessary. Remember, too, that in the fairytale, it’s when Beauty returns to Beast out of love that he changes into a handsome prince.
The magic happens also in places that have been hurt and made ugly. When we recognize what they have given and give some beauty and love back to them, they—and we—transform.

Trebbe Johnson
Trebbe JohnsonFounder

Image Credit:

  • Clancy RedBones: Clancy Cavner


  • Buddha Touching Earth

The Earth is Witness

During his long meditation under the bodhi tree, the Buddha was repeatedly taunted by Mara, the non-human energy of the Tempter. Calmly he resisted and ultimately he attained Enlightenment. Mara querulously demanded that he produce [...]

  • Ware Bedtime 040620

The Cover That Says So Much

This cover of The New Yorker says so much about how the coronavirus is affecting people. It tells a story that would take many words to tell and would not be nearly as poignant. Here [...]

  • Wilhoit Earth Exchange 2020

Can an act of beauty make a difference?

Radical Joy for Hard Times doesn't claim that we can heal wounded places; that's way beyond our capability as humans. We can, however, heal the relationship between our places and ourselves. Yet every now and [...]

More Revealed


