Story Info

Mitchell
Dianne Monroe and Deb Greene-Jacobi
Sebastopol, CA
2013

Story & Experience

Number of Participants: 20

Act of Beauty: We gathered at the Laguna de Santa Rosa. The Laguna, was once a lush forest and wetland, today reduced to 8% of its former size, once used as sewer and dump, now being partially restored. Participants shared words of sorrow and hope for our Earth, then wandered the Laguna, gathering items offered by nature with which to build an eco-mandala on the water’s edge. Part of the eco-mandala was a trash bag half filled with bottles and cans that seemed to belong to a homeless person, gathering recyclables to earn a little money while cleaning the land. The woman who found this spoke of the connection between how our society treats economically disadvantaged humans and our Earth. Participants then gathered on a small footbridge crossing the Laguna to offer acts of beauty directly to the water. A water dowser brought a special message to the waters and people gathered there. Others offered poems, stories, and prayers. Two children brought hand-decorated leaves, with beeswax candles, to be lit and placed in the water as their offerings of beauty. 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.):

Number of Participants: 20

Act of Beauty: We gathered at the Laguna de Santa Rosa. The Laguna, was once a lush forest and wetland, today reduced to 8% of its former size, once used as sewer and dump, now being partially restored. Participants shared words of sorrow and hope for our Earth, then wandered the Laguna, gathering items offered by nature with which to build an eco-mandala on the water’s edge. Part of the eco-mandala was a trash bag half filled with bottles and cans that seemed to belong to a homeless person, gathering recyclables to earn a little money while cleaning the land. The woman who found this spoke of the connection between how our society treats economically disadvantaged humans and our Earth. Participants then gathered on a small footbridge crossing the Laguna to offer acts of beauty directly to the water. A water dowser brought a special message to the waters and people gathered there. Others offered poems, stories, and prayers. Two children brought hand-decorated leaves, with beeswax candles, to be lit and placed in the water as their offerings of beauty. 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.):

Sebastopol, CA

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