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
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 …
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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 …
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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…
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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. …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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. …
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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 …
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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. …
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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 …
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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 …
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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.
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“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 …
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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 …
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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. …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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Florida Waters Earth Exchange
Date: June 6, 2021Author: Jess Kovach
Location: Hangars Beach, Fl Atlantic Ocean
Wounded Place: Oceans + Lakes + Rivers
We held a Global Earth Exchange at the water’s edge in Florida on the Atlantic coast. Many sea turtles had nested and laid eggs the night before all along this beach. We could see the …
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Memorial for ancient mother trees
Date: June 6, 2021Author: Terry Dance Bennink
Location: Songhees First Nation
Wounded Place: Historic & Cultural Sites | Trees
I stood in silence and thanked the land and felled trees for offering me a home, despite their suffering.
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College Students on Dredged Land
Date: May 5, 2021Author: Jo Huxster
Location: St. Petersburg, Florida
Wounded Place: Climate change | Industry & Development | Oceans + Lakes + Rivers
Every Spring semester, I teach a course called Climate Change Communication. The material is fascinating but, at times, tough and discouraging. Often my students come to the class hoping that there is a secret formula …
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Climate Change Communication Class—Eckerd College
Date: May 4, 2020Author: Claire
Location: Skaket Beach, Orleans Massachusetts
Wounded Place: Climate change
Skaket Beach, Orleans Massachusetts. This beach is one of my favorite places on the Cape to watch the sunset. The bay you see in the picture is becoming more and more of a wounded place. …
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Radical Joy for Hard Times: Healing ourselves as we try to heal the world around us
Date: May 10, 2020Author: Jo Huxster and 2019-22 Climate Communication Class
Location: Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL
Wounded Place: Climate change
Although I like to think that taking my Climate Change Communication class is a rewarding journey, I know that can also be emotionally taxing. We spend the entire semester talking about climate change, obviously, so …
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Recreating beauty in a wounded national park
Date: June 27, 2020Author: Andy Carnahan
Location: Morton National Park, Echo Point Lookout, Australia
Wounded Place: Animals + Birds + Insects | Climate change | Natural disasters | Trees
The south-east of Australia lost much of its wild places over the (southern) summer of 2019/20. Uncontainable bush fires ran through from August 2019 to early February 2020. People died, houses were lost and forest …
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For Travelers at the Border
Date: June 19, 2020Author: Carol Zuccarino
Location: Las Cruces, NM
Wounded Place: War & Violence
Carol Zuccarino is volunteering and living at a shelter on the border of Mexico to work with asylum seekers. She sent the following description of their Global Earth Exchange: Yesterday our small group of three …
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But the trees never came back
Date: June 21, 2020Author: Debby Herman
Location: Apalachin, NY
Wounded Place: Industry & Development | Mineral extraction | Trees
There are woods in back of my house that are very dear to me—I walk on the trails most of the year, and cross-country ski on them during the winter. Those woods and trails are …
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Overhauling
Date: June 27, 2020Author: Beatrice Pook
Location: Stanford, South Africa
Wounded Place: Climate change | Personal
This year’s story: I found this sign in a shop and found it amusing as I work mainly as a massage therapist and this seemed appropriate and funny. By now, a few months later and …
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What is a “worthwhile action”?
Date: June 25, 2020Author: Mike Beck
Location: Navarre, FL
Wounded Place: Other | Personal | Trees
What constitutes a “worthwhile action” when the whole of Earth is sick and wounded, when people are so without a sense of place they are willing to set what passes for theirs on fire? So, …
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Enemies
Date: June 23, 2020Author: Joanne Martin
Location: Darlington, PA
Wounded Place: Industry & Development | Mineral extraction | Personal
This year I am acutely aware that what I was called to do was heal my relationships with the people I am judging to have wounded the land. This became an uncomfortable practice as I …
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Gratitude for nature’s spaces
Date: June 20, 2020Author: Eugene Hughes and Louise Austin
Location: London, England
Wounded Place: Personal | Plants
Louise and I decided to give gratitude to our nature spaces (Louise’s balcony and my garden ) that nurtured us through lockdown. We each spent time there at the weekend, reflecting and being with the …
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Centered at Home
Date: June 22, 2020Author: Fran Weinbaum
Location: Montpelier, VT
Wounded Place: Other | Personal
This year, I placed the Radical Joy banner on our front door along with the “welcome but keep your distance” sign and a heart from Montpelier’s annual Valentine Phantom who leaves hearts ALL OVER Montpelier. …
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Lasting Stewardship
Date: June 20, 2020Author: Anne Stine
Location: Modoc National Forest
Wounded Place: Climate change | Personal | Trees
Modoc National forest is the homeland of the Modoc native peoples who were, like so many other native peoples, were driven from their homes force marched from northern California to Oklahoma where they were forced …
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Forgiving and figuring out
Date: June 20, 2020Author: Marla Ferguson
Location: Palisade, CO
Wounded Place: Personal | Trees | War & Violence
I have had a very difficult time doing this practice this week. I loved the zoom introduction and speakers last week and followed all of the questions and responses online even though I haven’t participated …
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Wounded Rivers/Wounded People
Date: June 21, 2020Author: Janet Keating
Location: Green Bottom, WV
Wounded Place: Oceans + Lakes + Rivers | War & Violence
Story & Experience This year, 2020, I once again, returned to the banks of the Ohio River near Green Bottom, WV for my Global Earth Exchange. The Ohio River is the most polluted River in …
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Garden Earth Exchange
Date: June 20, 2020Author: Carol Warren
Location: Davis, CA
Wounded Place: Plants
Our Earth Exchange this morning was at the garden I have been attending. It is a lovely garden enjoyed by many in the city park, although its beauty is now “western” artifice. This dry place …
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