Bellows Air Force Base

I chose this sight because it has a little bit of everything. It’s a place of real beauty but there is also a lot of loss and change. It’s the site of the earliest known ancient Hawaiian settlement and the native ecosystem has changed dramatically. There is very little left and most of the species there are introduced, many of which are invasive. It’s also a place for military training but also a place for the military community to relax and restore. We came together and began with a prayer of gratitude and a couple Hawaiian chants, then I read a an excerpt from a nonfiction book that was written by a distinguished Hawaii archaeologist of his fictional but based on fact account of what it must have been like for the first Polynesians who arrived at this place. Then we all went off for half an hour on the land. Some migrated towards the ocean, some towards the barbed wire fencing surrounding the military training grounds. When we returned we shared stories and laughed, cried, and hugged as well as created our bird out of both natural materials and marine debris that the beaches are riddled with (plastics