The Elemental Healing Walk

began as a path through the land and has become a way of standing inside the long weather of harm.

The names that pulse first—Gaza, Haiti, Sudan, Puerto Rico—are not distant crises but living mirrors. They remind us that the violences of occupation, extraction, and neglect do not belong to the past or to “elsewhere.” They move through our economies, our conveniences, our silences. Every breath we take on unceded land carries both privilege and the possibility of repair.

In 2019, my friend and landmate Susan Clark learned that her ancestor had served on the jury that condemned John Proctor to death in the Salem witch trials. From that discovery came an unshakable impulse: to create a memorial here for all who have been condemned—and for those who carried the weight of condemning. Her vision seeded this memorial place where remorse and reverence could coexist.

“Her vision seeded this memorial place where remorse and reverence could coexist.’

  • Facing Modern Condemnation.

    I walk this terrain not only as witness but as someone who has lived through the distortions of online condemnation myself. I know how swiftly the digital crowd can turn a human being into a headline. That experience shapes my commitment to build spaces where we can face harm without reproducing the violence of shaming.

    From those seeds, the Elemental Healing Walk unfolded. Each step along its path is an invitation to meet our own participation in harm without collapsing into guilt or denial—to feel how condemnation, ancient and modern, moves through our muscles, our policies, our families, our screens.

    The memorial that Susan envisioned, and the walk that has grown from it, are both gestures toward balance. They ask us to remember that healing is not an idea but a rhythm—something the earth already knows how to do. To make that rhythm tangible, the path follows the language of the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Each station invites walkers to meet an aspect of themselves and of the wider story, to offer what needs composting, and to receive what the land offers back.

  • The Four Stations

    Earth for grounding and grief: the body remembering its weight.
    Air for breath and voice: releasing what has been held too tightly.
    Fire for transformation: honoring what must burn to become fertile again.
    Water for compassion: the flow that connects all who have been named and unnamed.

    Walkers are invited to pause, listen, and interact in their own way. You might leave a stone, a breath, a word, or a tear. The elements receive without judgment.

    I know what it is to be named, misnamed, and exiled in the public square. The Elemental Healing Walk grows from that soil—a practice of meeting judgment with curiosity and choosing relation over erasure.

  • Sustaining the Elements

    As the elements sustain the walk, it’s our shared care that sustains the elements—every contribution, whether of money, time, or attention, keeps this practice alive for the next walkers.

    Support this Work

    The infrastructure at EHW was constructed by professional services provided by Susan Clark, Janis Walrafen, Alice Sky, Jason Mallory, Eric Guillard, Colin Brown, Michael Clookey and seven, hardworking, young women from Twinfield High School.

    Special thanks to the Todd & Libby Rieke Philanthropic Trust for providing seed funding in 2021. 

    Thank you to Alice Sky for holding the EHW vision with me, in her heart and with her sacred time, from its conception.

  • Onion River Campground

    The Elemental Healing Walk is entering its sixth year of development on the grounds of Onion River Campground, a community space that for years has offered affordable, transitional, and seasonal homes. Its soil has already absorbed countless stories of arrival, loss, and renewal; the walk simply continues that teaching. Visitors are guests of the land and of the community that stewards it—please walk with respect for both.

 
 
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