My report on what I was able to day today at 1.00pm in the Hunter Valley on June 19th, 2010. Location, Lemington Lookout, overlooking Hunter Valley coal mines and power stations. 

The location was chosen as it has a commanding view of the desolation of the Hunter Valley by open cut coal mining. My wife Jill and I selected white stones in the immediate area to build an Earth Dove. The Earth Dove had an olive branch placed in its beak as a peace offering to the earth. The Olive branch was taken from the garden of a person in the Hunter Valley whose life has been badly affected by open-cut coal mining. She has had to move from her ancestral home to a new location to avoid mining, but now it too is under threat from an expanding coal mine.

We also ‘smoked’ the bird and the area as the Indigenous people would do to “cleanse” an area of bad spirits and things that cause pathology. The smoke generates a new beginning and the return of human and ecosystem health.

 Jill and I spoke of the symbolism of the Earth Dove and the soliphilia needed in the Hunter Valley to overcome the solastalgia caused by mining and burning coal.

—Glenn Albrecht