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.

This park is a familiar place to most people in Davis, and the garden is a well known walk. But many do not know that only a century ago, the park and larger surrounding area was a marsh, where the Patwin people gathered tule and other plants they used regularly. White settlers converted the place into a dry area, and eventually into a grass-covered park in the midst of the city’s “downtown.” It has been drastically changed from its original make-up,  plant composition, and ecological function…it has been wounded, even though there is beauty.

There are a number of native California plants, flowers, fruits, and grasses present, but also non-natives, such as palm trees, and a cultivated rose garden. Most of the plants here that are native to the state would not have grown in this particular place when it was a marsh. We gratefully observed hundreds of bees of various kinds, all companionably sharing the flowers. There were finches and other birds visiting the bushes and trees. The areas of soil were alive with ants. It was surprising, though, how few butterflies there were in a space with so many flowers to attract them. As in most places people frequent, there was also trash, which we picked up to discard. The air carried scents of lavender, sage, roses, and produce from the neighboring market. The squirrels were watching from the trees, as the amount of human traffic on Saturday morning was apparently daunting to them.