Story Info
Story Info
Rachel Forgasz
Brian's Seat, Gadubanud Country (Lavers Hill), Australia
2023
Type of Wounded Place
Story & Experience
12 members of the Earth Listening Circles of the Deep Adaptation Forum visited places local to them and did an Earth Exchange, as part of a global collaboration to listen to wounded places.
I walked to Brian’s Seat, created my leaf-bird companion, and danced the forest. My breath and arms generated the choreography as I moved to the shape and flow of the trees and ferns. Then we stood in solidarity – the trees, ferns, bird, and me. We turned to face the sun beating down through the hole in the canopy and threatening our very ways of being. We faced the sun with joy and welcome, recognising the sun as just another of our company, experiencing and therefore causing the collective decline of the known.
12 members of the Earth Listening Circles of the Deep Adaptation Forum visited places local to them and did an Earth Exchange, as part of a global collaboration to listen to wounded places.
I walked to Brian’s Seat, created my leaf-bird companion, and danced the forest. My breath and arms generated the choreography as I moved to the shape and flow of the trees and ferns. Then we stood in solidarity – the trees, ferns, bird, and me. We turned to face the sun beating down through the hole in the canopy and threatening our very ways of being. We faced the sun with joy and welcome, recognising the sun as just another of our company, experiencing and therefore causing the collective decline of the known.
Why this Place?
Brian's Seat, Gadubanud Country (Lavers Hill), Australia
Brian’s seat was humbly constructed 30 years ago by Brian, the kind-hearted man who build, and once lived in, the house where I now live in amongst the cool temperate rainforest of The Otways, Australia. Recently, a Mountain Ash fell, leaving a great hole in the canopy of Brian’s Seat, which in turn revealed a great Myrtle Beech, dying in the distance. Whilst no doubt beautiful, this pocket of forest feels to be reacting to climatic changes. Here I have felt the pain of all species experiencing – and in turn causing – decline and death in the face of anthropogenic climate change. I feel at once our pain, and the buoyancy of collective empathy shared over our shared plight; grief and sadness as I witness the death of the known and giddy delight at the regenerative transformation of the known into what has not yet become.
Act of Beauty
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Dancing the forest with a leaf-bird companion.
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