There's a sense of vitality that comes from deeply connecting with the places we love.
Your "place" could be a city street or a canyon creek. It could be your grandmother kitchen or a wilderness peak. What matters is tapping into how those places made you feel. Can you remember the last time you felt deeply connected to a place?
Places resonate with our soul. We all have stories of place and belonging, waiting to be remembered and revealed. Remembering yours will restore a part of you that you may have been longing for without even knowing it.
My Story
I originally went to college to become a wildlife field biologist. I went on to become an award-winning singer/songwriter whose songs are deeply rooted in the land and a sense of place.
During my first decade as a touring artist I fell in love many times with the places I visited. And sometimes I would return only to see them forever altered by new development and sprawl. I thought if people were really connected to these places, they wouldn't have let this happen.
In 2001 I created my Soulful Landscape programs in response to the changes I'd witnesses in the American Landscape. Since then I have offered them at events, conferences and learning centers across the country. From Yosemite National Park (CA), to the Montana Fish and Wildlife Spring Interpretive Training (MT), to the Walden Woods Institute (MA) I have helped thousands of people reconnect with their sense of place.
My work Soulful Landscape work has been featured in national publications such as Yes!, Orion, and Yankee magazines. My most recent CD"Good Summer Rain" was sponsored in part by the Trust for Public Land, a national land conservation organization. The CD was also the winner of the 2008 National Association for Interpretation Media Award for "Best Interpretive Music."
Mending the Rift
Wendell Berry wrote, "If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are." That sense of knowing is needed now more than ever.
I believe we're in the trouble we're in environmentally today because of people's disconnection from their surroundings. I also believe our sense of connection can be restored. I offer programs that help people remember both where they are and who they are.
Tools for Connecting People and Place
Combining my background in environmental studies and the creative arts, I provide acessible, engaging programs that help to restore the connection between people and place.
If you want to engage your staff, your community or just feel re-inspired yourself, these programs are for you. I work with the public, organizations, learning centers and anyone interested in restoring the connection between people and place.
People who have benefited from my work include:
The Public
Land Trusts and other Conservation Organizations
State and National Parks
Nature Centers
Museums
Botanical Gardens
Schools and Universities
A Soulful Landscape Keynote or Concert will:
Take the listener on a journey across the American landscape and the lives lived there.
Evoke peoples own stories of place and belonging.
Explore the role of personal connection to place is land stewardship.
Each keynote and concert is individually tailored, providing relevant links between my songs, stories and humor and “your place.”
A Soulful Landscape Workshop or Training will:
Provide the tools and inspiration to uncover and articulate peoples stories of place and belonging.
Include a presentation of "place-based" arts and their role in land conservation.
Include a series exercises designed to reveal the relationships between people and place.
Offer a method of writing that connects people and place, and support for developing ideas.
Enjoy exploring my Website. I hope I get to know you and "your place" someday soon!
"In the hour she spoke and sang for us,
she had all of us in the room reconnected to the land,
to our special memories, and to our passion for the work."
Lee Hayes, Vice President, Sippican Land Trust, MA
"We sometimes need a guide to point us, like a compass, in the right direction
—a true leader, a willing mentor.
I believe we found that in Erica Wheeler."
Kelly Farrell, Assistant Chief of Interpretation, Arkansas State Parks
"Although I hadn't put my finger on it until the workshop, I had been struggling with a sense of loss regarding my connection to nature that first inspired me to work in this field. The workshop rekindled that connection. I left with the tools and resolve to more intentionally tap into the power of nature and place — as well as the inspiration to help others do the same."
Claire Dacey, Naturalist, Educator, Landscape Historian, MA
"Her songs measure the cost of urban sprawl not in terms of species endangered, but in memories lost. Her lyrics evoke all the trails we've hiked, the streams swum, the trees climbed, and all the moments of growth enjoyed there--the silent epiphanies, the stolen kisses--without ever sounding preachy. But when she drops the truism
"Your children won't know (the land) the way I did,"
suddenly your local zoning battle may seem a little more interesting."
Yankee Magazine
