Healing + Memorial Landscapes
From time immemorial, we have used our amazing human imaginations to express our innermost selves in the landscapes we live in. The infinite intricacy and elemental poetics of the natural world offer their powerful, nuanced language to us on our quest for truth and meaning as we navigate the inevitable tides of joy and pain, birth and death, love and loss. We have historically turned to stone and bronze to embody loss, or to fix a memory, a person or a story in place… We know, however, that memory is fluid, that grief and other emotions are not finite, that consciousness and perspective can expand, that peace is a process. As we better embrace the current research and understanding of memory, trauma, loss and grief, the art of healing and memorial landscape design can evolve and elevate its therapeutic potential through an intentional embrace of the radical impermanence inherent to both wild nature and the human experience.
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It was an honor to create this interactive altar for the celebration of the WAILS Songs for Grief album release in West Seattle on the Equinox of 2024. Alexandra (Ahlay) Blakely recorded these songs with a 200+ choir in the summer of 2023. These songs are inspired by whalesong and by the concept of the five gates of grief as described by psychotherapist, author and soul acitivist Francis Weller in his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow. (continued below)
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This interactive altar was designed and constructed to reflect on these gates that we pass through enroute to the ocean of sorrow and grief.
Everything we love we will lose
The places that have not known love
The sorrows of the world
What we expected and did not receive
Ancestral grief
The dark outer ring, made of biochar, represents the shadow we all pass through. Ten red cedar branches, symbolic of whale ribs, frame each gate. At the entrance to each gate is a bowl of wild offerings available to participants to help transform the shadow into something beautiful and meaningful upon passing through. The center of the circle remains a simple, open space where others may find each other, so that we may know we are not alone. I wanted to create something simple that would allow space for connection and witness, and that would invite people into the poetics of the carefully chosen, wild materials -- from bleached, Pacific driftwood "bones", to rusty madrone bark and ponderosa pine needles in poignant senescence, to delicate skeletonized alder leaves and lichen, to chunks of rotting cedar trunk, to windborn seeds that teach us how to let go. You can learn more about Wails, purchase the album, and explore Ahlay's work in community singing and grief tending here. Several of the beautiful photos are credited to Alexandra Doumas. Learn more about Francis Weller here.
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This simple memorial of locally extinct California wildlife brings the lost tracks of wolf, grizzly bear and pronghorn antelope to a wild hilltop landscape. The accompanying poem “Predator Prayer” conveys the ethos behind this installation, which considers how a resident coyote interprets and grieves the loss of these species he coevolved with.
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Over 600,000 known forced adoptions occurred in Canada between the 1940’s and 1980’s. This interactive installation recreates a symbolic embrace between mother and child that never was.
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Anyone who has lived through a wildfire will likely feel the return of trepid vigilance to their bones every year when the lush spring hills dessicate to a long-held, golden brown.
Redwood Rising is intended as an offering to the forest at the start of every fire season. A burnt redwood trunk, which survived past fire/s, hosts a scar line from which bright blue Steller’s jay feathers can be “planted”. The jay and its vibrant plumes represent what we wish to protect with our heartfelt prayers: the rich life of the forest, and the clear blue sky. Redwood and jay both embody tenacious resilience, resourcefulness and powerful, enduring vitality. In placing this piece across a flowing creek or waterfall, we embrace the symbol of a bridge - a way to move from fear to safety, fire to rain, death to life.
Living with increasingly intense and frequent fires is a new reality, especially on the West coast of North America. Simple ritual can truly help us to mentally and spiritually prepare us for what may come, and keep our sense of friendship and community strong as we move into the dry months.
Water is Life
“Jessica consulted with the Carmel River Watershed Conservancy to brainstorm interpretation concepts for California's largest dam removal.” Lorin Letendre
The beautiful, massive steel doors that were once affixed to the spillway at the top of the 106-foot tall San Clemente Dam can realize a proud new purpose... In this concept, each of the seven cities that source water from the Carmel River shall feature a segment of this historic steel infrastructure repurposed as a large, laser-cut tree grate to host one of seven species of trees found in the watershed - Western sycamore, red alder, coast live oak, madrone, big-leaf maple, California buckeye, and coast redwood. A curvilinear cut running lengthwise through the steel will evoke the river, and allow native understory species to grow through. Inscribed through each grate will be the simple words: "WATER IS LIFE," in both English and in the native Esselen language. Furthermore, a substantial list of names of the wildlife species that thrive here, also in both languages, will be etched through the once-imposing steel, becoming the conduit for rainwater to nurture each tree. These tree grates will serve as a unique kind of memorial to the dam itself, as well as a tribute to all of the life that will benefit from the river flowing freely in the dam’s absence – from the insects and aquatic invertebrates at the base of the food chain, to the reptiles, amphibians, fish, birds, rodents and mammals we know and love. The list will highlight both extinct animals, such as the grizzly bear, as well as the endangered species that demand our concerted and persistent care. These installations would provide a tangible, historic reminder of how the dam enabled the growth of these beloved cities, while reconnecting them to the the river itself.
"Water is not a "resource," it is the source of life." (Krista Tippett quoting a Native American elder in an interview with Layli Long Soldier)
*Concept design
Sea Star Walk
The Monterey Bay Aquarium recently constructed its new Education Center. The stretch of Monterey city bike path parallel to Wave Street that links the two buildings can become another means to inspire stewardship and affection for the ocean. Once an industrial landscape dominated by fishing canneries, which nearly wrought the demise of the foodweb and kelp forests of Monterey Bay, this stretch of coast has a completely revolutionized identity. Thanks to the Aquarium, Cannery Row has become a globally recognized hub for ocean education and marine conservation, attracting a steady stream of tourists year-round. The current bike path is not particularly interesting, and could quite easily, without compromising the historic character of the district, be re-envisioned to better reflect this new and positive identity of Cannery Row, and help tell the story of the critical heroes and heroines whose stewardship helped reverse the ecological collapse of the bay and its fisheries.
A Sea Star Walk clearly takes inspiration from the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This well known memorial streetscape honors over 2,600 American cultural icons in terrazzo and brass stars embedded into the pavement along 1.3 miles of Hollywood Blvd. and beyond, and is estimated to attract 10 million visitors annually. The symbolism of stars is not lost on anyone – we grant them for respect and admiration. For the City of Monterey to host a memorial streetscape that reflects the strong ocean ethic of our community and that celebrates individuals who champion that would be a beautiful expression of this deep cultural value in the coastal landscape. Each star granted – to living and legendary local heroes such as David and Lucille Packard, Julia Platt, as well as Jacques Cousteau, Sylvia Earle, Rachel Carson and many more ocean “celebrities,” could be accompanied by ceremony and celebration.
*Concept design
Cypress Moon
Cypress moon rises out of a sedge meadow - a beautiful raw embodiment of the complexity of life that only gets more exquisite with age and time…
*Concept design - in process