Joyality

Joyality is a program created by Eshana Bragg and Rachel Taylor to combine psychological health and planetary health. "Through the eight week program, participants explore what they really care about, what they are distressed about, what they are inspired by, and they work out a passion project that they develop over that time and so after that eight weeks they have something they can come out with and can take concrete action for," says Eshana Bragg.

Eshana and Rachel are the vehicles for spreading awareness on how to connect to the deeper intrinsic values of nature. From just sitting down and talking to them about their up and coming project of Joyality, you could see the passion and compassion seeping out of their beings. Eshana was the very inspiration for me to create my own passion project: Human and Earth Connections. She has been my institutional teacher for my study abroad project and through the first week of my course she helped connect me to the spiritual value connected to nature. She spoke about "deep ecology," which is the ecological and environmental philosophy shedding light to the inherent worth of the environment regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. Rachel had been in the same environmental study abroad program as me a few years prior and carried on this legacy that Eshana had once taught her as well. 

In order for me to further deepen my understanding of their program I took an approach of asking them personal questions about their motivation to inspire others to take responsibility for the earth. Eshana states, "I guess because of my deep connection with nature, it’s given me a motivation to care for it and an awe and a wonder that inspires me...I’ve always loved nature and its always been a place for solace and security for me. When I first came out to Australia, I had a really rough time socially. I was only seven, but I was teased at school about being from another country. So I would spend a lot of time wandering the beaches and it felt really safe and inspiring and calm. I just realized I felt more connected to nature than I did to people at that stage. In high school, I became aware of all of these places that I thought were pristine were actually severely polluted. This was in Sydney, so discovering that the surf that I thought was pure was actually contaminated with sewage and that the beautiful sunset was actually city pollution over the landscape, I was horrified. It was the age of thirteen or fourteen when I actually recognized that I had a passion for making a difference...I wanted to inspire people somehow to see the wonder in nature."

 Rachel went on to explain her connection to nature: "I think in a lot of ways nature has taught me a lot about myself. It gives you time alone to reflect and let your mind wander and watch your own process as well as perspective. Nature gives me a lot of perspective on a lot things, myself and the world. When I am living more aligned with my deeper values, I feel better about myself not in a superficial egotistically way, but i just feel better and more grounded and that supports me in a lot of ways. A lot of my sense of place in nature is from memories and history, stories that you’ve been through in your life that certain places hold for you. Thats part of what sense of place feels like to me, this acquaintance with the place itself, that it knows you and witnessed things with you. My connection with nature gives me the inspiration and my community and I can see the joy and the positive things in life too and that creates empowerment to actually step out and take real action."

These two empowered and powerful ladies are making a difference in a world through their innate compassion for the environment. Support their program and learn more about your own passions by taking their eight week program at http://www.joyality.org/