Healing the Earth Wheels:

Prairie Restoration Wheel  •  Pipeline Explosion Wheel


Pipeline Explosion: Community Healing Wheel for Whatcom Creek and three boys who died in the tragedy. Bellingham, Washington

In 1999 tragedy struck in my hometown Bellingham, Washington. A gas pipeline explosion roared through a pristine creek valley and engulfed part of a public parkland. It killed two young boys and a teen. It also destroyed a swath of forest and a rehabilitated salmon stream. In the few golden hours before the explosion, the boys were doing what boys do--horsing around in a beautiful wooded park called Whatcom Falls.

Whatcom Creek was a magical place indeed. It was a creek musical enough for waterfalls and deep enough for swimming, wild enough for otters and meditative enough for casting a fly line across blurring leaf-green current. It was the kind of place I played when I was a kid.   It never occurred to me--or most of us families with active, outdoor-loving kids--what dangers flow through seemingly serene landscapes.

When the pipeline exploded, I was standing a mile or so away in another public park--Lake Padden--right on top of the same pipeline. Ink black smoke rose over the horizon. Everyone was panicked.

The awful pipeline calamity moved me to sculpt a memorial "story" on the outside of a three-foot-tall clay cylinder. Without knowing, I created my first prayer wheel. Later, the wheel was mounted on a revolving stand at an outdoor gallery, Big Rock Garden. It soon became a vessel for people to place thoughts and prayers inside on pieces of paper. Ever since, my clay work has taken a different direction.