Name: Wilderness Rites of Passage Guide Training through 4H

We made a basalt and pine bark bird on the torn up ground.

Notes about the Experience (What participants said, what they experienced, any difference you noticed about the place at the end of your Earth Exchange, reactions, etc.):

We sat quietly with the place and felt/thought about what our personal and group relationships to the land was. The four of us were holding space at a base camp during a wilderness rites of passage training. Our trainer and lead guide had a long-standing relationship with this area and knew its history, topography, and changes over time quite well. He was a well-informed facilitator. The four of us were able to live on this patch of land for 8 days and really get to know it intimately. 

On the 22nd, we sat down in the bulldozed scars and discussed the site. A recurring theme that our group members voiced was Land as teacher and Sustainer. We felt deep gratitude for what the land was giving us and continues to give to a multitude of human and non-human inhabitants. We discussed the sorrow and anger that we felt while sitting with the land’s injury. We also discussed the resilience of the plants, birds, and soil who were able to live through the damage. 

The motives of the people who did the bulldozing came up and we were able to find compassion for them and understand a bit more about our own biases and shadows in the process. The marred land looked to be a hunter’s camp site. We talked a bit about our own relationships to food and our industrial food system. It was interesting to think about the hidden damages our own eating habits create and to compare those to the damages in front of us. This was a humbling process. At the end we constructed a basalt and pine bark bird to beautify the space and pay homage to the life force and beauty that imbues all living spaces—even the injured ones.