Dear Friends,
We are 34 in number as of Wednesday evening. Well, that's something!
Thank you all for jumping in with me! I'm so grateful that you care about the health of this endangered ecosystem and network of communities within the south Victoria region.
I am offering a link here to a 1+ minute video of the site and construction today. The deeper levels of excavation work to create the original huge crevasse in the hill (picture on the petition page) is now undergoing various layers of engineering and seismic work.
https://youtu.be/D7PRs09L_M8
We will find out tomorrow if my intuition is correct that the project site at St. Ann’s is concurrently serving as a connector for City energy upgrades along the streets surrounding the property. I do know there is a lot of work happening in this realm on the NW, NE and SE corners of the Southgate/Douglas/Blanshard intersection right at the corner. I'll demonstrate this in a longer video tomorrow or Friday.
It is all connected, and with confirmation of this we can understand that the site was already identified for other purposes than just the Memorial Park.
The title for this petition has changed, as I’ve realized my true purpose is to invite all stakeholders to a vision of healing. I explain this with some words in the petition. What has been destroyed is an essential and interdependent landscape within the whole Humboldt Valley, the south side of which descends from the rocky area of Beacon Hill down through the entire St. Ann’s landscape.
Restore and Regenerate St. Ann's District in Victoria's Humboldt Valley is the petition’s name now. This is the vision in my mind and heart, with ceasing of the construction being the essential first step. Imagine if a portion of a $30 million budget had been spent on loving this land back to rich health and productivity, instead of being a vehicle for these invasive, industrial and disconnecting impacts?
The roots of the word ‘redress’ are in repair, restoration and amending… How can this be achieved by damaging nature first? How has the project ignored local people's sense of place, the beautiful feelings felt in the urban environment’s endangered natural spaces, and the desire to keep them healthy?
How did the leaders of this project overlook the connection between destroying the landscape and forcing the Japanese Canadian citizens from their lands?
Please receive my request for support from this small group of signers, to share this information and opportunity with others.
If 34 people shared with ten people each, the petition could have 300 signatures by the weekend. This would demonstrate a shared perception amongst many community members that the process has not been transparent or fair to make possible this forever-altered face of the St. Ann’s Academy District.
At the very least, it can serve as a point of reflection upon how a construction site like this one is so normalized as a necessary approach to creating public art, or a tourist destination, or even proof that trauma healing is actually taking place. People feel disempowered, unheard, ignored, exhausted, defeated and afraid that soon enough they will no longer belong to the lands they call home. The cycle repeats again and again.
I’m also sending here a beautiful link to a song by Peia. She describes letting her name fall to the depths of the sea. I would let my name disappear again and again to witness the flourishing of the world once again. Who could ever say their name was separate from the earth that gave them life?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbIulyHj1Iw
Thank you for extending whatever nudges you can towards helping more people be aware. And if you know someone who would like a volunteer job in the next few days helping me—a young person who loves social media, for example, please send them my way.
Wishing everyone wellness and peace,
Sally
(Picture of big rabbit taken today at St. Ann's behind the construction muster station, on the Blanshard side of Academy Close.)