SHARE YOUR STORY
Use this form to share your story and photos about your experience at your wounded place and the gift you made for it.
DISCOVER STORIES
A Collection of Experiences
Discover the stories of people who have made beauty for hurt and endangered places throughout the years. You can refine your search by selecting options to filter our collection. You can always choose a story from around the world by clicking on sites presented on the map.
Story Map
Stories Found
Transfromations over Time
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Janet Keating
Location: Apple Grove, WV
Wounded Place:
Twenty-four years ago, I posed for a victory photo at a site near Apple Grove, WV, with two other wonderful women—friends and colleagues at the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (shuttered in February 2022). In 1998, …
Read more »
A Wounded Creek
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Polly Howells
Location: DEC Boat Launch, Sandy Road, Kingston, New York
Wounded Place:
We were a group of 11 who gathered at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Boat Launch on the Lower Esopus Creek in Kingston, NY. The Lower Esopus Creek meanders 35 miles from …
Read more »
Big Tree
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Jess Kovach
Location: Big Tree Park, Longwood, Florida
Wounded Place:
Shared the Global Earth Exchange with the land of and old tree Friend, the 3000 year old Senator, just a few years ago stood as the oldest Bald Cypress in the World. 10 years ago …
Read more »
Wally Farms
Date: June 26, 2022Author: Nancy Kuster
Location: Wally Farms, Ancram, NY
Wounded Place:
The farm team at Wally Farms did our Global Earth Exchange yesterday by honoring the land and the original inhabitants, planting a flower spiral (incorporating found objects from the farm) and then all “shaking” to …
Read more »
For the rivers, trees, Ukraine
Date: June 27, 2022Author: Jennifer Fendya
Location: Tioughnioga riverbank
Wounded Place:
There weren’t a lot of words exchanged amongst the 4 humans and one pitbull who took part in our Earth Exchange experience, and we moved around the grounds separately, each engaged in our own earthy …
Read more »
Elemental Wisdom | how to live in right relationship with earth
Date: June 16, 2022Author: christine morro
Location: Camas Sgiotaig, Singing Sands, Isle of Eigg, Scotland
Wounded Place:
a circle an act to encourage life, acknowledge kinship with the human and more than human world, humbly ask for instructions on how to live in right relationship with earth
Read more »
Halaco, A Wounded Place on Ormond Beach, California
Date: June 25, 2022Author: David Lutz and Farion Pearce
Location: Former Halaco Aluminum smelting plant Sight
Wounded Place:
This is our (Farion Pearce and David Lutz) third visit to this site, 2010, 2012 and 2022. Steve Nash joined us in 2012 and returned this year. Steve and David worked at the wastewater treatment …
Read more »
A Forest of Burns and Beauty
Date: June 17, 2022Author: Sara Harris and Sahara Chaldean
Location: Healdsburg CA
Wounded Place:
We are all members of a year-long book group called The Living Earth Book Club. The first book we read this year was Radical Joy for Hard Times. We have just finished To Speak for the …
Read more »
Marking Closure, Deep Silence
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Anne Stine
Location: Modoc National Forest, CA
Wounded Place:
We were in Modoc National Forest, next to Lava Beds National Monument. This is one of my base camps of many years. I was there with my base camp support, we were marking the closure …
Read more »
Paradox and Transformation in the “Aloha State”
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Christopher Quiseng
Location: Hilo Bay, Hawaii
Wounded Place:
On June 25th, 2022, my 7-year-old son and I set off on a journey to explore the Hilo breakwater, a 2-mile-long man-made wall extending out to sea, separating the Hilo Bay from the open ocean. …
Read more »
Oso Mudslide, again.
Date: June 26, 2022Author: Mike Beck
Location: Oso, Wa
Wounded Place:
I came again this year for the Global Earth Exchange to the community of Oso, Washington. My first visit was 2014 while I was at my daughter’s in the Pacific Northwest shortly after Spring …
Read more »
My body as the hurting landscape
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Desdra Dawning
Location: Olympia, WA
Wounded Place:
My original plan for this year’s Earth Exchange was to go to the Capitol Lake here in Olympia, which was created to form a reflection pond for the capitol building on the hill above. And …
Read more »
A Big Difference
Date: June 19, 2022Author: Autumn Van Ord and Lisa McCall
Location: Wyman Park, City of Baltimore
Wounded Place:
At the very first Global Earth Exchange we held at Wyman Park, we were faced with a landscape full of trash; after heavy rains the water would back up where the stream was forced underground …
Read more »
The Bird Chair of weekend trash
Date: June 26, 2022Author: Glenn and Jill Albrecht
Location: John Tucker Park
Wounded Place:
Finding beauty in the discarded.
Read more »
For Those Who Saw No Other Way
Date: June 26, 2022Author: Lauren Chambliss, Liz Maxwell, Trebbe Johnson
Location: 626 Thurston Avenue, Ithaca, NY
Wounded Place:
Lauren: Today we went to a place that symbolizes the despair and hopelessness so many young people feel. Cornell Campus’ Thurston Ave Bridge is well-known both for its extraordinary beauty and its dark history of …
Read more »
Dragon Bird
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Deborah J Milton
Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
Wounded Place:
Two of us were available to make prayers for our wounded world. We went to a crowded beach where many young people were swimming, despite the toxic waters. It’s natural for us humans to seek …
Read more »
A World of Loss
Date: June 26, 2022Author: Marla Ferguson-Leak
Location: Our Orchard in Palisade, Colorado
Wounded Place:
The wounded place that I chose for my ceremony was the whole world. There are SO many things happening in the world today that are negative and hurtful on SO many levels that it is …
Read more »
Earth Exchange at Putah Creek
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Carol Warren
Location: Putah Creek, Winters, CA, USA
Wounded Place:
My Earth Exchange today was along Putah Creek near Winters, CA. This creek stretches from mountains north of Lake Berryessa to the Sacramento River delta area. It was a source of food, water, basket materials, …
Read more »
Persistence
Date: June 26, 2022Author: Joy Kreves
Location: My back yard, Ewing, NJ
Wounded Place:
Because the grove destruction was to take place over a 2-week period, I did several GExs. The first one was the most remarkable. I picked up some broken cane sections, broken flower pot and other …
Read more »
Extractive sand and rock for the building industry
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Harriet Sams
Location: Creuse, France 23210
Wounded Place:
My daughter and I went to a local dump of many tonnes of unwanted road surface chippings. It had been gathered up after a recent resurfacing project when it had been put onto the road …
Read more »
Development in Florida
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Janice Rous
Location: Maitland, Florida
Wounded Place:
Sadly deveopment in florida is everywhere I made an offering to the land after spend the day at a small island in the intercostal Sadly the motor boats and tourists pollute every place in florida …
Read more »
Beauty in a Small, Neglected Pond
Date: June 25, 2022Author: Trebbe Johnson
Location: Ithaca, NY
Wounded Place:
In the spring, the pond has a few inches of water in it, and wood frogs and peepers congregate there and sing all day and all night. But then the warm weather comes, and the …
Read more »
Habari Pond Ceremony
Date: June 23, 2022Author: Krystyna Jurzykowski, Sandy Skrei, and High Hope Ranch
Location: Glen Rose, TX
Wounded Place:
Our water ceremony, again at Habari Pond (which, because of the ongoing drought, is down to 10-15%), was the location on June 21st – also the day of signing for the signing of the transfer …
Read more »
Global Earth Exchange for Wyman Park
Date: June 20, 2022Author: Autumn Van Ord and Lisa McCall
Location: Wyman Park, Baltimore, MD
Wounded Place:
This year we were wont to find garbage because the area is continuing to be cared for. The body of the RadJoy Bird is from a weed called cleavers that has a sticky property. The …
Read more »
Renewal Waters
Date: June 23, 2022Author: Federico Hewson/Hannah Alongi
Location: Berlin - Hasenheide Park
Wounded Place:
We chose this place as our wounded place because it is suffering from an extreme drought. It was the site of an Amusement Park that has run for 1 month every year since the 1960s. …
Read more »
Making beauty, making prayers
Date: July 24, 2021Author: Deborah Milton
Location: Pritchard Park, Eagle Harbor Drive Northeast, Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
Wounded Place: Historic & Cultural Sites | War & Violence | Waste
We returned to Pritchard Park where we’ve gone several other years. A Superfund site and the place where Japanese-American islanders began their long journey to internment camps right after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. Six …
Read more »
A Radical Day of Loss, Grief, Joy and Love
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Judy Todd
Location: Diverse-Oxbow Park on the Sandy, A Portland home & A Portland Garden
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Climate change | Historic & Cultural Sites | Oceans + Lakes + Rivers | Personal | Trees Read more »
Date: July 8, 2021
Author: Laurie Levites
Location: Port Townsend, WA
Wounded Place: Other
Creating a safe space Sometimes failing Sharing space Learning what that means
Read more »
Linden Tree Stump Medicine
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Anne Hemenway
Location: Onteora Lake, Kingston, NY
Wounded Place: Industry & Development
Anne, John, Medicine Buddha & many others are saving—from devastation of proposed concrete and steel production plant—Onteora Lake, Pickerel Pond, extraordinary wildlife, Bluestone wild forest in Kingston, NY, with the help of Linden tree stump …
Read more »
A Ceremony for Jabu
Date: July 1, 2021Author: Janet Frangs
Location: Durban, South Africa
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects
Two gorgeous elephants, Jabu and Morula were “released” from 32 years in captivity into the Okavango Delta. They were set free (although that is a relative term because they were chased from pillar to post …
Read more »
History’s River
Date:Author: Ebru Bingol
Location: Antakya, Turkey
Wounded Place: Oceans + Lakes + Rivers
The river Orontes passes through Antakya (Antioch) City that has a rooted history from Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods to Ottoman Empire, French mandate and Turkish Republic times. While the river is the reasoning of …
Read more »
Rethinking the Small Things
Date: May 20, 2021Author: Susan Gillotti
Location: Norwich, VT
Wounded Place: Trees
I’m thinking about the small things we do that harm nature. I planted a pyramidal Norway Spruce four years ago. I wanted the tree to block my view of a neighbor’s bathroom window, one without …
Read more »
Souls In-earthed
Date: May 24, 2021Author: Ranae Hanson
Location: Kirkbridge Center, Fergus Falls, MN
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Historic & Cultural Sites | Trees
The Kirkbride Cemetery itself and the Poor Farm Cemetery. Both are full of graves, most unmarked. Crates with rusting bindings edge the cemetery; each crate has five grave markers engraved with names and dates of …
Read more »
Soda Mountain-Cascade Siskiyou Earth Exchange
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Anne Stine
Location: Cascade Siskiyou Monument, Ashland, OR
Wounded Place: Industry & Development | Trees
On June 12, eight lovers of Radical Joy met with Dave Willis, chair of the Soda Mountain Wilderness and Cascade Siskiyou Monument, on the land itself. Each year Dave chooses a site he wants us …
Read more »
Wyman Park Global Exchange
Date: June 19, 2021Author: Autumn Van Ord and Lisa McCall
Location: Wyman Park, Baltimore, MD
Wounded Place: Plants | Trees | Waste
Lisa McCall and Autumn Van Old have been coming to Wyman Park for this event since 2011. The Stoney Run flows through Wyman Park on its eventual way to the Chesapeake Bay. The stream is …
Read more »
Date: June 12, 2021
Author: Kinde Nebeker
Location: Bear Lake, UT
Wounded Place: Industry & Development
I walked to the fields where my sister, her two kids and I had done a Global Earth Exchange in 2015. These fields had been in my family for five generations and now a cousin …
Read more »
Honouring people who died during the past year
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Claire Hayes and Jennifer
Location: Dartrey Forest, Cootehill, Co. Cavan, Ireland
Wounded Place: Other | Personal
As we set out on our walk through the beautiful forest, we took turns picking stones from the path. Each stone represented someone we knew who had died during the past year. We took turns …
Read more »
Goodbye to Our Houses Lost in the Glass Fire
Date: June 25, 2021Author: Linda Sartor
Location: Sonoma County, CA
Wounded Place: Natural disasters
We walked around to each of our ten house sites (12 homes) and other misc. out buildings that burned down completely in the Glass Fire in Sept. 2020. We read out loud a description of …
Read more »
Sorting Things Out When It All Goes to Pot
Date: June 20, 2021Author: Sasha Daucus
Location: My Back Deck
Wounded Place: Personal
This place, which I used to feel very happy about, has become a place I avoid, as it triggers feelings of not having done well enough at balancing work & play as well as not …
Read more »
Gratitude and Relationship
Date: June 13, 2021Author: Sandy, Oregon
Location: Sandy River, Dodge Park Oregon
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Oceans + Lakes + Rivers | Personal | Plants | Trees | Waste
Two days prior to Global Earth Exchange I hiked around the Sandy River near Dodge Park (Oregon) to consider the best way to show appreciation and honor this area. I took pictures of graffiti and …
Read more »
Mutilated Trees Along River Road
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Joy Kreves
Location: Titusville, NJ
Wounded Place: Trees
Why I chose the location: I frequently drive along River Rd to get to towns north of me. Every year trees along the road are trimmed back for the power lines. THIS year, an entire …
Read more »
For Wingello State Forest
Date: June 13, 2021Author: Andy Carnahan
Location: Wingello State Forest, NSW, Australia
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Trees
Our Global Earth (Gift) Exchange 2021 was for logged pine plantation at Wingello State Forest in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia. It was hard and painful. The forest was burnt in our …
Read more »
Vulnerability and shadows
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Beatrice Pook
Location: Stanford, Western Cape, South Africa
Wounded Place: Personal
My gift to Earth is the talking stick and my own vulnerability when attempting to speak from the heart and whole being, shadows included…
Read more »
What’s in the Dirt?
Date: June 11, 2021Author: Katie Case
Location: Townhome development in metro Atlanta
Wounded Place: Industry & Development
I have lived in this new townhome development since last October, 2020. Since it’s a community still under construction, I have borne witness to how devastating a construction zone can be on the surrounding environment. …
Read more »
Cultivating Radical Joy in an age of 5G
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Julia Casciola and Alice Ashwell
Location: Cultivating radical joy in an age of 5G, / Wynberg, Cape Town, South Africa
Wounded Place: Other
5G and an antidote of joy We met in a loved suburban garden, with 5G all around. Each of us carrying grief and shock at the impact of EMFs on our lives and the body …
Read more »
Peace at Piscataway Park
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Seini & Shanta
Location: Piscataway Park, MD
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Historic & Cultural Sites | Oceans + Lakes + Rivers
We were surrounded by dragonflies, cicadas, and the sweet smells of pollinating plants as we wandered through the tree-shaded trails of Piscataway Park. As always, the water drew us. The shoreline was scattered with driftwood …
Read more »
Acts of Beauty around an old recovering Olive Tree
Date: June 13, 2021Author: Sanda Hrzic
Location: Brač, Croatia
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Climate change | Historic & Cultural Sites | Personal | Plants | Trees | War & Violence
First photo: In the middle is a black hole of a burned old tree. A Long time ago, it was an strong olive tree, but a big fire took it away 70 years ago, (along …
Read more »
Sand dune healing
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Sharon Olver
Location: Devon UK
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Oceans + Lakes + Rivers | Plants | War & Violence
The exchange was enacted at a place where vehicles have torn up the landscape, destroying stability and biodiversity for military practice. Giving the gift of the colour organge for healing trauma, I created a mandala …
Read more »
Earth Listening ~ Earth Sandwich
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Sasha Daucus
Location: 1. Australia; 2. Germany; 3. UK ; 4. Isle of Mann; 5. USA; 6. USA ; 7. USA ; 8. Canada
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Climate change | Historic & Cultural Sites | Industry & Development | Natural disasters | Other | Personal | Plants | Trees
Members of the Deep Adaptation Earth Listening Circle, who live around the world and meet weekly on Zoom, created an “Earth Sandwich” together. The idea is that people in different places on the globe are …
Read more »
Beauty in the Marsh
Date: May 19, 2021Author: Debby Herman
Location: Apalachin Marsh
Wounded Place: Trees
I love to walk in the Apalachin Marsh near my home. The trail itself is nothing out of the ordinary, but the trees are very special to me. They are huge and old, stately and …
Read more »
12th annual Global Earth Exchange
Date: June 12, 2021Author: shemmaho Daystar goodenough
Location: Zuckerberg Island
Wounded Place: Historic & Cultural Sites | Industry & Development | Oceans + Lakes + Rivers | Waste
I decided to make this event very accessible, in the sense that it was close to town, and to include children, as this type of ceremony is a perfect focus and activity to include children …
Read more »
love over time
Date: June 10, 2021Author: caroline fairless
Location: wilmot nh
Wounded Place: Personal
We had to cut a tree whose root ball had shifted during a microburst, leaving the crown of this white pine leaning toward our bedroom. We left twelve feet of tree with the idea to …
Read more »
in wildness we trust
Date: June 11, 2021Author: christine morro
Location: northport bay, long island ny
Wounded Place: Oceans + Lakes + Rivers
aware that our waters are threatened by acidification, climate change, careless dumping of toxins and runoff from fertilizers I offered a blessing…that we as humans remember our place on earth, as stewards and earth keepers. …
Read more »
Date: June 14, 2021
Author: Joe Holtaway
Location: London, UK
Wounded Place: Children's Events
The week that RadHoy’s Global Earth Exchange took place coincided with a lockdown project we had where we took photographs of ourselves in connection with the earth and had an online exhibition. These young Earth protectors …
Read more »
For Bluestone Wild Forest
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Polly Howells
Location: Kingston, NY
Wounded Place: Industry & Development
We created our Global Earth Exchange on the border of a parcel of land on which there is a proposed manufacturing facility that will produce steel and precast concrete bridge decking. The proposed factory is …
Read more »
From Abandoned to Grateful
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Charity Wessel
Location: Abandoned Hospital
Wounded Place: Industry & Development
This hospital sits idle in my town and as a result, the medical care is also idle. We have a small clinic now, but this is a rural area in Nevada and resources are limited. …
Read more »
Under the Dying Cherry Tree
Date: June 13, 2021Author: Marla Ferguson-Leak
Location: Palisade, Colorado
Wounded Place: Trees
Two close friends and I came together under the large cherry tree in my yard that is dying due to an early freeze and an infestation of insects and a contagious fungus. I asked each …
Read more »
Reciprocal Medicine
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Lizabeth Kashinsky
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Wounded Place: Personal | Plants
I was supposed to be camping off the grid in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park this past weekend, and had intended to hold the Earth Exchange there. However, I was so depleted from an incredibly demanding …
Read more »
Healing place/family lineages
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Pierce Murray
Location: Tongva, Luiseno,Kizh, Cahuilla territories in Riverside, CA
Wounded Place: Personal
Healing the hurts and wounds of our family lineages on the cracked concrete covering the earth of our family home.
Read more »
“We do care … we love it”
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Glenn Albrecht
Location: Duns Creek, NSW, Australia
Wounded Place: Waste
Jill and I have been offended for a week or so by roadside litter on our local Duns Creek Road, so for our 2021 Earth Exchange we decided to go and clean it up and make a …
Read more »
Treephilia 2021
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Jennifer J. Wilhoit
Location: Nearby forested acreage
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Industry & Development | Oceans + Lakes + Rivers | Other | Personal | Plants | Trees
I spent a while exploring the area, appreciating its beauty and feeling grief about its imminent destruction. I then gently gathered the items for my bird and created him in a place where some leveling …
Read more »
A Glacial Experience
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Michael Beck
Location: Holgate Glacier, Alaska’s Kenai Mountains
Wounded Place: Climate change | Other Read more »
Industrial Waste by the Salish Sea (south Puget Sound)
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Desdra Dawning
Location: The shore of the Salish Sea called West Bay (southernmost tip of the Puget Sound) in Olympia Washington
Wounded Place: Industry & Development | Oceans + Lakes + Rivers | Waste
I wanted to go there to feel the barrenness of the land, stripped of vegetation, beside a very old structure still standing. I have driven by many times, but never walked down to the field. …
Read more »
Chestnut Horse Tail
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Robin Blakeman
Location: My home
Wounded Place: Personal
I have a love/hate relationship with my backyard, which is admittedly “overgrown” with what some would call weeds & small trees. It is also beautiful in terms of being a shady green space. I do …
Read more »
River Bird
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Simona Perry
Location: Lower Savannah River, Georgia USA
Wounded Place: Historic & Cultural Sites | Industry & Development | Oceans + Lakes + Rivers | Personal | RadJoy Philosophy | War & Violence
Standing on the banks of the lower Savannah/Westobou River right below the Houlihan Bridge at the public boat ramp, looking southeast I stand with Ernie by my side pondering the enormous industrial cranes of the …
Read more »
Attending to Nature’s Call
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Mary H. Reaman & Tree of LifeCommunity
Location: Dayton Ohio -
Wounded Place: Personal
15 members of Tree of Life Community met as a wounded place. Since covid, our vibrant, thriving spiritual community feels as if it has been clear-cut. Just prior to the shut-down we were a growing …
Read more »
The Farm
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Janet Keating
Location: Glenwood, WA
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Climate change | Natural disasters
From my window on the world, 2020 bleeding into 2021, has been a time of incalculable losses across the globe and personally. A combination of a pandemic and politics gone-wild has stressed us in ways …
Read more »
Honoring missing and endangered cottonwoods
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Trebbe Johnson
Location: Ithaca, NY
Wounded Place: Industry & Development | Trees
New piers are being constructed along the Cayuga Inlet, one of the channels at the southern end of Cayuga Lake in Ithaca. This development has resulted in many old cottonwood trees being cut down. Eight …
Read more »
Cleveland Embodied Lake Erie Lovers
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Elizabeth Meacham
Location: Lake Erie Bluffs, Ohio, USA
Wounded Place: Oceans + Lakes + Rivers
It was an amazing blessing to be together in person, to hold hands, to look into each other’s eyes, and to even share food. We took time to share what we had brought to represent …
Read more »
Uranium dumps in France
Date: June 12, 2021Author: Harriet Sams
Location: La Creuse, France
Wounded Place: Industry & Development | Mineral extraction | Waste
An eye of golden broom flower lay right at the junction of two paths. One path leading around a flooded river valley and the other to an old uranium mine. Hot and dusty, we began …
Read more »
Peace by Putah Creek
Date: June 11, 2021Author: Carol Warren
Location: Putah Creek, Davis CA
Wounded Place: Historic & Cultural Sites | Industry & Development | Trees
I love the peace of this place. I sat under a 150 year old coast live oak and watched a mother duck and her chicks swim up the creek. Squirrels and jays darted here and …
Read more »