The Magic Of Joy

Joy is the energy of thriving. Magic Of Joy explores how to manifest our deepest yearnings for peace, happiness, joy, belonging, and love through the emerging culture of friendship and joy. If we want to manifest thriving in our lives, both personally and culturally, we need to reshape our lives and culture to support the far-sighted, healthy energies of thriving.

At the Magic Of Joy, we explore diverse topics about the connection between joy and pleasure as foundations for well-being, democracy, and the emerging thriving culture that embraces the rights of all living beings. We explore the seeds of self-trust we possess and consider how we can create a world that fosters trust in all aspects of life.


We are living during the greatest transition in human history. We have entered an adventurous time, an opening to a new way.  We are crossing a threshold from the old to the new. We can catch glimpses of this new way through:

  • the problems and challenges crying out for fresh thinking,

  • those places in culture and nature where life seems broken,

  • the deep desire in people to be able to be themselves,

  • the exhaustion that comes from having to give so much for so little in return,

  • the extreme depletion of the earth resulting in continuous emergencies and life-threatening conditions,

  • the fresh investments in real community and consciousness offering a new sense of possibility,

  • the yearning for more freedom and balance.

The Magic Of Joy is about this time of reclaiming, resetting, and renewing. It asks,

How can we create a world based on healthy thriving and trust? How can we be more ourselves, and what new way could we create? How could joy and pleasure become important foundations for a world that celebrates and honors the rights of all beings? How can they be important to a new emerging culture that fosters thriving and trust?

It invites a journey from a fear-based world to a joy-based one, the natural result of a thriving mindset.

We need to transition from a short-sighted, violent, fear-based world to one that fosters thriving. Thriving is a totally different approach to life. It is long-sighted and serves the common good, which supports everyone. The energies we need to cultivate to create this new way are self-love, connection, and joy: the energies of thriving.

I personally think we need to start a totally new conversation about how we can create a world that fosters thriving, trust, and joy and all of the goodness they create. We must accept the unraveling of our current survival/struggle system and the path of degrowth, which will bring us back into harmony with the Earth. We also must embrace and support the emerging culture of aliveness, which is based on the right of all living beings and the living earth - an important requirement if we are to actually create a new system of thriving. The new system will be totally different in terms of energy, pacing, priorities, and values. We need to welcome the feminine into the public square and invite new ideas about how to live embedded in and friendly to all of nature.

In this Substack, we discuss what and why our culture and system are dysfunctional in order to make the shifts and productive choices we need. We also discuss different possibilities for opening up our imaginations and creating a healthier world for ourselves. The frameworks we discuss provide inner mental understanding and emotional and energetic support to shift our alignment from the fear-based world to the emerging thriving model. We discuss new ways to think about ourselves, our culture and offer practices and new ideas for living to make it easier to embrace an uncertain future.

Most importantly, you get to write the new story. We make it easier for you to do so.

Topics

Our posts and discussions are meant to illuminate the deeper patterns creating our living conditions. With clarity about how we got to where we are and what needs to change, along with an understanding of the new emerging culture, making choices that serve you and those you love will be easier and more satisfying. We do not have to, nor can we afford to, live in a world built on violence and distrust. Culture does not have to be this ugly.

Most importantly, these topics help you embrace more of your wholeness, which will make living in a collaborative world easier. You will feel more secure and appreciate yourself more. These are our topics:

  • The Unraveling: What is not working and why? What deeper patterns and foundations are our current cultural systems built on? What are the intentions and consequences of these old building blocks of culture? What and how does culture stand in the way of necessary change, and what can we do about it? What is creating the violence and distrust in the world? What unreality is not working, and what reality needs to be given space?

  • Aliveness Culture: How do we create a culture that makes trust, thriving, and healthy aliveness central to our culture, not the survival model? What does a culture that fosters trust, thriving, and healthy aliveness look like, and what is required to make it a reality? How does this friendliness towards ourselves and life change our cultural structure and institutions and make life easier and better? How does the Commons provide a way to create a world that is healthier, more functional, and friendlier to all? What is a world healthy in all aspects like?

  • Gentle Living: How does gentle living make it easier to live in a state of flow, in connection with reality, ourselves, and each other? How does gentle living help us make nature a part of the conversation in life, not just a resource to be used? How does a model of caring heal all people and the earth? What are practical ways to take back our lives and transform them through a human-scale gentle living approach?

  • The Return Of The Feminine: A world based on the violent masculine is not healthy, thriving, or survivable anymore. What neglected groundedness does the feminine offer to help us create a new, healthier, thriving world? How does the rejected feminine help us connect better with nature and develop the ecological skills we need for a healthier world? How does a healthy connection with sensuality and sexuality provide a way for us to relearn a connection that supports a thriving world? (This topic includes Age Of The Queen webinars.)

  • New Sovereignty: What foundations of human culture block healthy autonomy and agency? What do we need to know about the old authoritarian and patriarchal patterns of the past to release those which no longer serve us? How can we come to terms with the deceptions and violence of these systems? How can we release false enchantments of unworthiness to welcome a new relationship with ourselves that embraces and celebrates the good in ourselves? How can a Joy Practice help us shift into a healthier relationship with ourselves and all aspects of life? How can we reclaim our agency for friendship towards ourselves and others? How does balanced ecological living support healthy autonomy and agency and prepare us for a collaborative, inclusive world, especially for those marginalized by circumstance: race, gender, nationality, or childlessness??

Joy As A Practice

It is time to celebrate the good in ourselves, each other, and the world.

For thousands of years, the world has been anchored in fear. We need a new anchor supporting an emerging collaborative, healthy, grounded culture. It is time to change from a world based on fear to a new world based on joy, not just as a feeling but as an energetic foundation and skill.

Joy is a different kind of bold. It lets us imagine new possibilities and tap into new sources of power to heal ourselves and the challenged world we call home.  When we exchange ideas about scarcity for the freedom of being and having enough, we make space for ourselves, each other, and the needs of nature.

Embracing having and being enough means we can chill and go easier on ourselves and others. We, therefore, have space for the natural flow of what poet David Whyte calls "the conversational nature of reality." Embracing this new way opens the door to joy.

Joy is not just a feeling. Joy is an intelligence, an anchor, a practice, a skill, and a compass. Joy is a way to make friends with ourselves, each other, and nature. It is time to make the spirit of friendship that joy creates a living reality in our lives.

Joy invites fresh, cherishing energy and a way to love ourselves and our lives. Since we are embedded in the natural and human world, we can think of joy actively and playfully as a skill or practice. This is how we create all sorts of openings for ourselves and others through fresh possibilities.

Magic Of Joy is a place for the questions we need to ask, and that beg to be asked so we can rethink how we live to create something new. It is a pathway to a new way of being. 

At the Magic Of Joy, our intention is to invite practicality, sanity, groundedness, health, and joyfulness into our lives so we can be a constructive part of the rebalancing necessary to live more aligned with nature and accepting of ourselves and others. it is a freedom we all deserve.

Please join us at the link below.


Who this is for

People who are:

  • tired of a world that does not work and ready for one that does. 

  • in the process of transformation and seeking new ideas.

  • invested in seeking new, healthier ways of living.

  • who know they deserve better.

  • who have been marginalized through their nature (sensitive/empath), life circumstances (childless), and social norms around racial and other forms of identity and want a better life.

Reviews

… a hidden gem. A gem that is polished and beautiful…

Claire, Brussels, Belgium

…I've been working with Maria Hill for seven years, and she has changed my life…

Amelia, Randelman, NC

… a profound depth…

Anne, Wilmington, DE

Join the conversation

How do we create a world where we are all happy to be alive? We will share our ideas and hope you will also. Make sure you never miss an update—every new post is sent directly to your email inbox. For a spam-free, ad-free reading experience, plus audio and community features, get the Substack app.

Join us in making a new, healthier, and more joyful world!

Be part of a community of people who share your interests. Participate in the comments section, or support this work with a subscription.

Photo by SwapnIl Dwivedi on Unsplash

To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.

Subscribe to Magic Of Joy

Magic Of Joy explores how to manifest our deepest yearnings for thriving, peace, happiness, joy, belonging, and love through the emerging culture of friendship and joy.