Story Info
Story Info
Carol Warren
Central Park, Davis CA
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.
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.
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.
Why this Place?
Central Park, Davis CA
This is a place where I have been doing “attending to place” practice for several years. It is also a place my friends were familiar with, but they began to see it in new ways through our Earth Exchange.
Act of Beauty
Say more about your actions and activity
As we walked along observing, we gathered some fallen plants and spent flowers from the garden to incorporate into our act of beauty. There we a number of rocks we gathered to provide a frame. My friends arranged these in a design pleasing to them in a spot off the beaten path. We all expressed gratitude for the opportunity to see a familiar place in a different way, and to see things we had not noticed because we had not looked with focused attention. They were pleased that this gift was left for the garden, and that our act of beauty was made entirely of natural materials.
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