Story Info

Blackmer
Stephen Blackmer and Church of the Woods
Canterbury, New Hampshire
2019

Story & Experience

The people of Church of the Woods in Canterbury, NH, USA, gathered on a little knoll amidst a forest that is vibrantly regrowing after destructive logging. Humans have cut forests around the globe for centuries, destroying the habitat of countless creatures and initiating increases in atmospheric carbon. At Church of the Woods, we gathered around one stump to celebrate the ways in which forests can regrow. Even as trees are growing anew on the knoll where we gather, the stump itself is full of life in its own beautiful decay. Two weeks after these pictures were taken, this and other nearby stumps were knocked over by a black bear who came to feast on the ants that had made their homes in the stump. Life goes on in endless song…

The people of Church of the Woods in Canterbury, NH, USA, gathered on a little knoll amidst a forest that is vibrantly regrowing after destructive logging. Humans have cut forests around the globe for centuries, destroying the habitat of countless creatures and initiating increases in atmospheric carbon. At Church of the Woods, we gathered around one stump to celebrate the ways in which forests can regrow. Even as trees are growing anew on the knoll where we gather, the stump itself is full of life in its own beautiful decay. Two weeks after these pictures were taken, this and other nearby stumps were knocked over by a black bear who came to feast on the ants that had made their homes in the stump. Life goes on in endless song…

Canterbury, New Hampshire

RECENT STORIES

  • Beck 2010

For the Gulf Coast

Our beaches are being bombarded almost daily since the end of the first week of the sinking of the Deep Water Horizon with gatherings of people or all stripes: protests, prayer groups, volunteers, rallies for [...]

  • 2023 Kadonneiden Lajien Muistopäivä Helsinki

Remembrance Day for Lost Species in Helsinki 2023

On November 30th, there was first a session organized by the Finnish social and health sector project about eco-anxiety and eco-emotions (www.ymparistoahdistus.fi). This “morning coffee roundtable”, a hybrid event, focused this time on ecological grief [...]

  • 9442542D 86F2 44DB B000 C8EBDAB10152

Ashdown Forest

Ashdown Forest is an area of natural beauty in West Sussex, England. It is also one of the very few remaining areas of extensive lowland heath left in Europe. This rare and threatened landscape is [...]

JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER

Radical Joy Revealed is a weekly message of inspiration about finding and making beauty in wounded places.