There is a small roundabout just outside my home where four residential streets meet. It’s easy to drive past without giving it a second thought.

A few years ago, some neighbors quietly decided to care for it. They planted grasses, flowers, and a tree, dragging extra lengths of hose across the street just to keep everything alive through our dry summers.

Not everyone appreciated their efforts.

A car struck the young tree, breaking it in half. Somehow, it survived and is trying to make a comeback.

Last year, someone threw a lit firecracker from a moving car into the dry grasses late at night. I heard the explosion and ran outside with a watering can while other neighbors grabbed bowls and buckets. Together, we managed to extinguish the flames before the fire department arrived, but some of the plants were harmed.

My neighbors simply replanted.

This week, I observed their daughter and several friends spend hours transforming the circle once again. They shaped the soil into a mound, planted drought-tolerant flowering succulents and cacti, and tucked in beautiful rock formations that will make it much harder for anyone to drive through it again.

When I finally walked over for a closer look, I had a deeply emotional moment.

It wasn’t just a garden; it was persistence made visible.

It was hope, replanted after every setback.

It was ordinary people refusing to let carelessness have the final word.

Standing there, I realized how heavy my heart had become from so much heartbreaking national news. But this tiny patch of earth reminded me of something I desperately needed to remember:

Destruction is loud.
Restoration is quieter, but more powerful.

Every time I look at this little garden now, I’ll remember that communities can heal. Beauty can return. And with enough love and determination, we really can grow back better.

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Learn how to walk in harmony with the natural world, connect more deeply with animals, restore balance to your life, enhance your intuitive skills, and help heal the Earth through my live Reiki and shamanic virtual classes and digital workshops.

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A WILD WAY TO HEAL
Rose De Dan, Wild Reiki and Shamanic Healing LLC is an animal communicator, Reiki Master Teacher, shamanic energy healer, and author of Tails of a Healer: Animals, Reiki and Shamanism and Out of the Darkness and Other Animal Tails. Her classes, sessions, and ceremonial work are inspired by wild and domestic animals who have issued a call to action for personal and global healing.