Bellows Air Force Base

Nine of us came together for our Global Earth Exchange. There were a couple who had participated previously but most were new to the practice. We started by sharing our names and why we chose to be there, and then talked about the past inhabitants of the place. I read an excerpt from a book by a renowned Hawaii archaeologist Patrick Kirch who had actually conducted excavations in the area in the past. The passage I read was an imagined reenactment of a canoe arriving and landing on the shores from the Marquesas. An imaginary scene of the first people to step on land here. Then we had a short conversation about the place and the changes that have happened over time, including the current changes from climate change that we can see happening in our lifetime with the sea level rising. The we went off on the land for about half an hour. Some participants went towards the ocean and were enchanted by children at the beach, one participant picked up a full bag of garbage during his time, some felt grief for the place and the loss of its past inhabitants. Near the end of our practice, some kids started driving recklessly around the parking lot creating lots of noise and kicking up lots of dust. A couple of us felt immense grief for the lack of purpose these kids seemed to have and the disconnect there was between what we were doing vs. what they were doing. It is very possible they were driving over sites that might have been sacred to early Hawaiians. Some also expressed sadness for a place just down the beach that is creating much upheaval, as the local government is in the process of developing a big sports complex despite the protests of most community members and island wide. To date, they have plowed through a large area  cutting down several trees, some of which might be roosting sites for endangered Hawaiian bats. We had a set of experiences that were as diverse as the place itself.