The Story of the "Mana-Earth" Sculptures

 

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Kohola, the Hawaiian Life Ahupua'a sculpture.

 

 

Lemon grass burns inside a California abalone shell in the traditional Native American consecration ceremony of the first Mana-Earth sculpture dedicated to the Children of the World in 1997.  

 

 

 

The One Voice 9-11 Healing Totem sculpture dedicated September 5, 2002 at New York City's Bronx Zoo where it will greet the one million children and adult visitors to the Bronx Zoo each year.

 

Introduction

"Mana-Earth Sculptures" is a project supported by Mana-Earth Foundation in cooperation with the Jon and Karen Larson Family Foundation, a non-profit 501c3 public benefit foundation with interests centered in California and Hawaii.  The foundation sponsors community activities which all have spiritual, cultural healing, or ecological restoration themes in their heart and soul.  Over the past seven years, under the umbrella of the Mana-Earth Sculptures Project, many different individuals and non-profit organizations (each with its own vision, mission and priorities) worked together in a burst of creative synergy to create a series of healing sculptures carved from old growth previously fallen logs which range from several hundred to over 1,000 years old.

Ten of the logs are immense Alaskan yellow cedar logs salvaged in 1997 from the U.S. Navy's former Port Chicago Naval facility on the San Francisco Bay where they were installed in the 1920's and used as floating and underwater caissons at the former west coast ammunition storage and trans-shipping facility.  Three others are previously fallen old growth redwood logs acquired from private land owners near San Francisco.

Each Mana-Earth sculpture is consecrated for a specific healing purpose.  Each is a model for spiritual healing which honors the cultural and faith traditions of the peoples and the plants and animal life worldwide.   

#1-2  Two sculptures have been completed to date and are installed out of doors, one at the Bronx Zoo in New York City and the other at the PAL (Protect All Life) ranch outside San Francisco.

#3-4  Two more honoring the First Peoples of California are completed and on public display at the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy's Presidio Native Plants Center.

#5-6  Two more are partially completed and on public display in the San Francisco Presidio awaiting consummation of the vision to relocate one to Honolulu, Hawaii and the second one to Japan where they will be completed and installed at appropriate locations. 

#7  One of the logs is stored at the Protect All Life tree recycling center in Oakland, California prior to being completed and installed at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio of San Francisco.

#8-10  The remaining three Port Chicago logs are stored at Fort Ord near Monterey, California. They will be used by the California Workforce Investment Board's youth training programs of the One Stop career training centers in special youth mentorship training programs modeled after the successful One Voice 9-11 Healing Pole project.

 

 

 

  • One Mana-Earth Sculpture was completed in 1997 and 1998, 

    • Children's Sculpture

 

  • Three were completed in 2000, 
    • Protect All Life Sculpture
    • Marine Life Bench
    • First Peoples of California

     

  • Two were completed in 2002.
    • One Voice 9-11 Healing Pole - New York City
    • One Voice 9-11 Healing Pole - California
      •

     

  • Two are currently in the build stage.
    • Thousand Cranes Youth Sculpture
    • Kohola Hawaiian Life Ahupua'a Sculpture
 
  • One is currently in the planning stage.
    • Interfaith Healing Pole

     

  • Three Port Chicago logs were acquired by the California Workforce Investment Board for future youth training programs with yet to be determined themes. Possibilities include:
    • United Nations
    • Port Chicago
    • Africa
  • A Park is in the vision stage.
    • Restoration Park  

Mana-Earth Project Inspiration

 

 

 

The project was first inspired when the Hawaiian Spiritual Delegation came to San Francisco in June of 1995 to participate in the United Nations 50th Charter Interfaith celebration where a call for a new United Religions Initiative was first heard by a confluence of representatives of the worlds faith traditions.

The arrival of the Hokule'a sailing canoe from Hawaii into San Francisco Bay the same week was another key event that brought together Hovey Lambert of the Pacific Islanders Cultural Association, Shane Eagleton, world renown eco-sculpturist, Marcus Von Skepsgardh of the Protect All Life Foundation, Melissa Nelson of the Cultural Conservancy, Paul Chaffee of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, Pat Friedel of the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center, Jon Larson of the Jon and Karen Larson Family Foundation, and other individuals and groups who related to the healing mission.  

Their shared visions and creative energy were further inspired by dreams for a better future in the new Millennium fast approaching. The people and the historical time of the new millennium together created the historical imperative within which the sculptures project was born.  

It was originally designated the Kohola Healing Poles Project honoring the common ties of the many Pacific Islanders at the core of the project including Jon Larson, the Pacific Islanders Cultural Association, and Shane Eagleton.  The project name was subsequently changed  to the Mana-Earth sculptures project to more broadly honor and represent the diversity of the backgrounds of all of the individuals and non-profit organizations that have come to be involved.

 

 

The Healing Mission

 Land - Ancient Trees               The First Peoples                    Oceans - The Great Whale

 

The healing missions of the Mana-Earth Sculptures is expressed through three living symbols (life forms) of the indigenous plants, animals and peoples of the world;

The whale (kohola) and the old growth redwood and cedar trees, ancient animal and plant species which have co-existed for over 40 million years on this planet, are threatened with extinction as are the history and collective wisdom of the indigenous "First Peoples" of the Earth. This brings meaning and importance to the healing mission expressed in each of the Mana-Earth Sculptures.  

The stories of the great whale, the great California redwood and Pacific Coast cedar trees, and the spiritual traditions and cultures of the  indigenous peoples of California, Hawaii and the Pacific region, are re-told through these Mana-Earth Sculptures in a respectful and reverent manner which seeks to heal ancient wounds and restore new life, respect and hope to the living and future descendants of the indigenous peoples, plants and animals of the world.

 

 

KohoLa - "Seek the Light"

KohoLa is the Hawaiian name for whale.  Early Hawaiians were inspired by the mother humpbacks pushing their keiki (calves) toward the surface (toward the light - Ko-ho-La) for a first breath of air. We used it in the early stages of the project as a spiritual idiom for "To Seek the Light (Truth)" and to describe all the various activities which were taking place under the umbrella that was originally called the Kohola Healing Poles Project and has since come to be known as the Mana-Earth Sculptures Project. 

The above painting by Bay Area eco-artist George Sumner called "Bali Hai" depicts a mother Humpback whale gently pushing her newborn keiki calf toward the surface (towards the light) for its first breath of fresh air off the Na Pali Coast of Kauai. 

 

The original Mana-Earth (KohoLa) Carving Team

The Mana-Earth team gathered at the Mana-Earth carving site in the Presidio of San Francisco on Earth Day in February of 1997 to receive the ten Mana-Earth yellow cedar logs salvaged from the former U.S. Navy base of Port Chicago, 40 miles northeast of San Francisco.

 

Presidio of San Francisco

 

The Carving Logs

 

The Port Chicago Yellow Cedar logs

A group of ten unique logs was salvaged by the Mana-Earth Sculptures Project in 1997. The logs range from 300-1,000+ years old each, average 30 feet long, and weigh 2-3 tons each.  They were brought by rail to San Francisco in the early 1920's from the Pacific Northwest to serve as submerged and floating caissons at a former shipyard which was converted to became the Port Chicago Naval Magazine, a U.S. Navy ammunition loading base 40 miles northeast of San Francisco.  

These ten logs all withstood the immense blast July 17, 1944 caused by the explosion of two ammunition ships being loaded with munitions for the war in the Pacific.  320 men lost their lives in the tragic explosion, the largest single loss of civilian lives during the war. This history is important because it feeds the healing and restoration themes of the Mana-Earth Sculptures.

The logs were removed from service 60 years later in the '80's, stored on a remote mudflat on the San Francisco Bay, and forgotten.  Fifteen years later, destined to be sold for firewood, the marine salvage firm Specialty Crushing sold them instead in 1997 to the Mana-Earth Sculptures Project team. 

On Earth Day in 1997, they were transported by truck to a special carving site within the Presidio of San Francisco obtained by the Mana-Earth Project under a temporary "special use permit" from the U.S. National Park Service.   

Historical information about the exact background of the Mana-Earth logs is not 100% certain. But we have researched all available information and present it herein as our best judgment and opinion about the sources, ages and history of each of the Mana-Earth logs. 

 

The Redwood logs

Two Mana-Earth healing sculptures, the Childrens Sculpture and the Marine Life Bench, and the original PAL KohoLa Whale sculpture carved by Shane Eagleton, the artistic director of the PAL Foundation, were sculpted from three old growth previously fallen redwood trees from the coastal areas of northern California. 

The whale shown below was sculptured from the redwood log shown above.  It is carved from a single 5 ton 40 foot long 2000 year old abandoned redwood log found by Shane Eagleton at a defunct sawmill in Mendocino County, California and transported to San Francisco in 1995 where it was carved by Shane and the PAL Foundation into the PAL Kohola Whale sculpture shown below. 

"Mother KohoLa"  sculpture by Shane Eagleton for the PAL Foundation on display at Crissy Field on San Francisco Bay at the Pacific Islanders Cultural Association's Aloha Festival in 1995. The sculpture was given its name "KohoLa" by the Hawaiian Spiritual Delegation to the United Nations 50th anniversary in San Francisco in 1995.

 

 

 

Photos of the Mana-Earth Sculptures:

 

Thousand Cranes Youth Sculpture

Pacific Islanders

Hawaiian Life Youth Sculpture

Children

Protect All Life

 Marine Life

 One Voice 9-11

      Below are some photos of seven of the sculpture projects.

 

"First Peoples of California" Sculpture

 

The First Peoples of California Sculpture shown above currently resides on public display at the Presidio Native Plant Nursery.

 

 

"Thousand Cranes" Sculpture

 

The "Thousand Crances" sculpture currently resides at the Presidio Native Plant Nursery waiting plans to be taken to Hawaii to be completed by teams of youth from California, Hawaii and Japan before it is transported permanently to Japan.

It was present and originally consecrated at the first United Religions Initiativeconference at Stanford University in June of 1999 shown above which was the initial convocation of a large group of representatives of faith traditions from throughout the world who gathered to organize a United Religions organization inspired by and modeled after the success of the United Nations. 

 

Pacific Islanders - Kohola Sculpture

The Pacific Islanders PICA Sculpture above honors the healing wisdom of the indigenous peoples of Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. A protective coat of oil is being applied to the surface of the PICA Pole which was sculpted into a Hawaiian humpback whale by Shane Eagleton, the Pacific Islanders Cultural Association, and the Mana-Earth carving support team of organizations from throughout the San Francisco Bay area. 

This Pacific Islanders Sculpture was carved in 1997. The Pacific Islanders Cultural Association, a San Francisco based non-profit organization seeks to preserve the Hawaiian and Pacific Islands culture in California and to extend a welcome hand to Hawaiians and all Pacific Islanders relocating to the Mainland.

We plan to bring the PICA Sculpture home to an appropriate permanent public place in Hawaii for viewing by all Pacific Island peoples and visitors to these islands. It honors all peoples of Hawaii and the Pacific Islands on behalf of the PICA organization, the Pacific Islands peoples and the indigenous peoples of northern California, and the Hawaiian Spiritual Delegation to the UN Interfaith gathering in San Francisco in June of 1995 when the United Religions Initiative vision was born.

 

The Mana-Earth PICA Sculpture

 

On display at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio

 

 

 

First Children of California

This healing pole is dedicated to the memory of the First Children of California including the children of the first people to inhabit the San Francisco Bay Area whose families are referred to collectively as the Ohlone.

 

 

The Childrens Sculpture under construction, being carved from a 150 year old California redwood tree that had fallen over on private land in a windstorm.

 

 

Eco-sculpturist Shane Eagleton explains the mission of the Childrens Sculpture to the participants at the consecration ceremony in Half Moon Bay.

 

 

Bluebird Woman Elayna Reyna of the San Juan Bautista American Indian Council puts her own healing energy into the Childrens Sculpture.

 

 

The Childrens Sculpture on display at the world headquarters plaza of Levi Strauss in San Francisco.

 

San Francisco Presidio Mural

A notable artistic feature of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio Chapel is a large wall mural painted in 1935 by Victor Arnautoff who was recognized as a leading artist of the period. The mural depicts a historical pageant related to the founding of the Presidio, the peacetime activities of the Army, and the first establishment of a Christian religious tradition on the lands of the Presidio, all in the first years of immigrants from Europe to the area. 

The mural also depicts the First Peoples of San Francisco, the Ohlone, in peaceful encounters with the recently arrived religious, military and business elements migrating to the area in the 1800's, just as the ancestors of the Ohlone First Peoples migrated to the area many thousands of years earlier and lived on these same lands.

Learn more about the Ohlone / Costanoan First Peoples of the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

 

Protect All Life

PAL Protect All Life Healing Pole in Half Moon Bay

The Protect All Life Healing Pole was carved by Shane Eagleton for the PAL Foundation. from one of the ten Port Chicago logs.  It is mounted vertically on PAL property on the coast in Half Moon Bay below San Francisco, as an "acupuncture needle for Mother Earth".

 

Marine Life Bench

Marine Life Bench

The Marine Life Bench contains representative symbols of the marine life that lives within the triangle of San Francisco Bay, the Farallon Islands, and Monterey Bay.  200 representational marine mammals, fish, reptiles, invertebrates, birds, and tidal marsh and dune plants are being carved into the surface of the bench.  

It is planned as a gift to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area for placement at an appropriate location within the GGNRA national park system, perhaps even the Crissy Field Visitor Center where visitors can sit and rest along the pathway while exploring the bird and plant life in the restored area. It is currently used within the Presidio Native Plants Nursery in the main gathering center.

 

 

 

 One Voice 9-11 Healing Totem Sculpture

The One Voice Healing Pole

The One Voice 9-11 Healing Totem sculpture above was gifted in the memory of all those lives lost in the 9-11 tragedies.  It was transported cross country from California and unveiled and erected within the New York City Bronx Zoo in September, 2002 on the first year anniversary.

 

The One Voice 9-11 Healing Pole with a representation of New York City Council members, Bronx Borough political representation, local Jacoby Hospital officials, New York City police and firemen, school teachers, Monterey student carvers, California Workforce Investment Board members, administrators and management of the Bronx Zoo, and surviving members of families who lost loved ones in the 9-11 tragedy.

 

News Release: 8-12-2002

 

How the Mana-Earth Sculptures are created

The following series of photos shows the process of converting salvaged old growth logs into completed healing poles. These pictures were all taken at the special Mana-Earth carving site at the San Francisco Presidio.  

 

The Carving Process

The logs are sand blasted to remove mud and loose bark. Rotted out sections are removed with special chain saws.  

Purposes and healing themes for each log are discussed by project members.  

Prior to carving, each log is consecrated in a special ceremony honoring the traditions of the First Peoples from California and the Pacific Northwest and the Pacific Islands. 

Chains of the double helix DNA are carved by special chain saws over the entire outside of the log. Eco-artist Shane Eagleton selected the DNA theme for all the Mana-Earth Sculptures because it symbolizes all life; animal, plant and human, male and female. DNA is the common link of all life. 

The surfaces of each log are then ground smooth by special high speed grinders.  

Special symbols appropriate to the intended healing theme and purpose of the log are hand carved with special carving tools onto the surfaces of the DNA.

A coating of boiled linseed oil or marine varnish is applied to protect the outer surfaces from the elements and to help retain the inner red and yellow colorations of the wood which will turn dark as it oxidizes naturally with the light and the elements.

The surface areas are periodically covered with linseed oil for continued protection against the elements.  For healing poles to remain outside in the winter elements, a special coating is applied to prevent cracking and discoloration of the exterior from exposure to the elements. 

Above Jon Larson applies another protective coat of linseed oil to the surface of the Pacific Islanders PICA Pole which was sculpted in 1997 into a Hawaiian humpback whale by Shane Eagleton, the Pacific Islanders Cultural Association, and the Mana-Earth carving support team of organizations from throughout the San Francisco Bay area. 

 

 

Transporting the Sculptures

The following sequence of photos shows the early morning relocation of the PICA Pacific Islanders Sculpture from a carving site across downtown San Francisco to its current display site at the Interfaith Center at the Presido.

 

Through the streets of San Francisco

 

In front of the San Francisco Civic Center Building

 

Along Crissy Field with the fog enshrouded Golden Gate Bridge in the background. 

 

Up Sheridan Avenue in the Presidio

 

Lifting the healing pole off the truck with the forklift.

 

Careful placement in its final resting place.

 

Mission accomplished.

 

 

The Artist

Eco-sculpturist Shane Eagleton, artistic Director of the Mana-Earth healing poles project.

 

"WhaleForest" wood print by Shane Eagleton

 

"Keiki Mana-Earth" -  by Shane Eagleton

The Artist: SHANE EAGLETON is a master woodcarver, ecologist, and educator. For 20 years he has created a multitude of sculptures, a few of them mentioned below. Trees are not sacrificed for his artwork. He only uses naturally fallen timber or recycled wood. The tree becomes the medium for the message. 

Eagleton's artwork abounds with images from the natural world, bringing attention to the plight of endangered species. Shane's carvings are enduring and inspirational monuments to our precious Earth and the need to pre-serve her for future generations. 

Shane is son of a British Royal Air Force officer who found his bride in Fiji. The family left Fiji when Shane was 6 to move to New Zealand. There he stayed until 17, when he set out to see the world. Shane spent years traveling through Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. He made his way to the United States for the first time when he crewed on a yacht crossing the Atlantic. 

In America Shane learned the art of tree surgery, a vocation which led him in two directions at once. He found a cause - recycling trees instead of consigning them to landfill or a buzz-saw. For Shane the cause has become spiritually grounded; giving trees a second life is symbolic of treating the whole planet and its endangered life-forms with more care and respect. Tree surgery also gave Eagleton an amazing tool, a new kind of artist's brush - the chain-saw. He has more than a dozen saws, ranging from small delicate machines to one with a chain arching out six feet. Whether he is sculpting a 40-foot whale from of a single 2,000-year-old redwood, carving small "fish" to make art-collectors out of awestruck children, creating furniture, raising healing poles, or crafting puppets, Eagleton is a master with anything made of recycled wood. 

Shane's work has been collected all over the world. In the Bay Area it can be found at the Shoreline Amphi-theater, Strybing Arboretum, the Mission Cultural Center, and St. Gregory of Nicea Episcopal Church in San Francisco, and in the Presidio Native Plants Nursery. His work is also installed in Australia, Czechoslovakia, England, Hawaii, and Samoa. Mr. Eagleton is an artist-in-residence at The Cultural Conservancy and involved in a continuing series of projects with the Interfaith Center at the Presidio. He was recently invited to create a Center for Trees, Culture, and Sustainability at the Windward Campus of the University of Hawaii. He will also continue his relationship with the Conservancy and Center.

"Mother Mana-Earth"  sculpture by Shane Eagleton on display at Crissy Field on San Francisco Bay at the Pacific Islanders Cultural Association's Aloha Festival in 1995. It is carved from a single 5 ton 40 foot long 2000 year old abandoned redwood log salvaged from a defunct sawmill in Mendocino County, California.

Click here for more background information on  Shane Eagleton. <==

 

 

A brief history of the Mana-Earth Project

 

The project genesis was at the United Nations 50th Anniversary Interfaith activities in San Francisco in June of 1995. At the invitation of the United Nations, San Francisco and Grace Cathedral were asked to host an Interfaith celebration honoring the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Charter of the United Nations in San Francisco in June of 1945. 

Religious leaders representing the world's faith traditions, UN leaders representing all member nations of the United Nations, Nobel Peace Prize winners, heads of State, children from international children's choirs, and young men and women from the Rediscovering Justice Conference representing all faith traditions, met at Grace Cathedral and heard a call for a new United Religions Initiative modeled after the political UN which seeks to promote respect, peace, understanding and healing between the world's main common era faith traditions.

During the Interfaith activities, the Hawaiian Spiritual Delegation hosted by Hawaii born San Franciscan Jon Larson and led by Rev. (Kahu) William Kaina and Kehaulani Kea of Honolulu met with many world peace representatives including Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the University of San Francisco ReDiscovering Justice Conference, native Americans at the University of California, and Rev. Paul Chaffee of The Interfaith Center at the Presidio. 

They first viewed the great life-size whale being carved by Shane Eagleton from a 2,000 year old fallen Redwood tree trunk. They named the sculpture KohoLa (the Hawaiian word for the humpback whales of Hawaii). Early Hawaiians observed the mother whales gently pushing their newborn keikis (calves) towards the surface (the light) for their first breath. KohoLa literally translates to "Seek the Light" and is used by the Mana-Earth Project as a spiritual idiom for to "Seek the Truth." 

Within these exciting historical spiritual circumstances, the Mana-Earth Sculptures Project was born.

 

Project Participants

 

 

Mana-Earth Project participants include:

Interfaith Center at the Presidio

Presidio of San Francisco

National Park Service

The Cultural Conservancy

Pacific Islanders Cultural Association - PICA

GGNPA - Golden Gate National Park

Presidio Native Plants Nursery

Muwekma Ohlone Indian Tribe of the San Francisco Bay

Shane Eagleton, eco-sculpturist

California Indian Museum and Cultural Center

GGNRA - Golden Gate National Recreation Area

Monterey County Youth Workforce Investment Board

Jon and Karen Larson Family Foundation

 

 

Logo's of the original Mana-Earth Sculptures project participants:

 

 

PICA - Pacific Islanders Cultural Association

 

 

The Interfaith Center at the Presidio

 

 

 

The Cultural Conservancy

 

The Ohlone Muwekma Indian Tribe of the San Francisco Bay

 

The California Indian Museum and Cultural Center



 

The Presidio Native Plant Nursery of the GGNPC Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

 

 

 

Monterey County Youth of the California Workforce Investment Board One Stop Career Center

 

Many individuals have contributed to the Mana-Earth Sculptures Project and the carving of the Mana-Earth Sculptures.  Special thanks to those below who have made

 

special 

contributions.

Shane Eagleton - Master carver

Manley Bush - Olena Productions

Jules Hart - Eye Goddess Productions

Marcus VonSkepsgardh - Protect All Life

Melissa Nelson - The Cultural Conservancy

Francisco DaCosta   -   National Park Service

Paul and Jan Chaffee - Interfaith Center at the Presidio

Joseph Werner - Workforce Investment Board of Monterey

Rudy Rosales - Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation Indian Council

Elayna and Sonne Reyna - San Juan Bautista American Indian Council

Rosemary Cambra - Ohlone Muwekma Indian Tribe of the San Francisco Bay

Hovey Lambert, Julian and Shirley Avilla, Sam Hart - Pacific Islanders Cultural Association

Jon and Karen Larson

 

 

 

"One Voice Healing Pole"

Dedicated to the memory of all those who lost their lives 

in the tragedies of September 11, 2001

in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Official News Release: click here

 

The "One Voice Healing Pole" was carved by a special group of young men and women of the Monterey Bay area under the supervision of Shane Eagleton in a special government and privately funded project sponsored by the non-profit Monterey County Youth Workforce Investment Board.

This organization sponsors special work programs funded by the Workforce Investment Act and sponsored by Monterey County Workforce Investment Board, the Office for Employment Training, and the Monterey County One-Stop Career Center System. Youth from throughout Monterey County participate in these annual projects which not only beautify the community for years to come but also provide the youth with team-building skills, bonding, and a pride for their community which translates into productive members and good citizens of the community in which they live.

 

Above are some of the Monterey County Youth Workforce participants.

 

A Gift in remembrance of 9-11

A project is under way to gift the One Voice Healing Pole and an associated Pne Voice Mural as  healing symbols in permanent memory of all those who lost their lives in the 9-11 tragedies. 

The vision is to transport it across country from Monterey, California on a truck, stopping off at schools and relevant historical points along the way to gather additional healing energy from children and young men and women enroute.  

It would make its first stop at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial in recognition of the special history Port Chicago played in the life of the Alaskan yellow cedar log from which the One Voice Healing Pole is carved.  Stops would be made at the crash site in Pennsylvania and the Pentagon on its journey to New York City. 

Assuming the vision is consummated and the proposed gift is accepted, it will be installed at an appropriate location yet to be determined somewhere near the rebuilt area of New York City where it will remain on permanent public display in memory of all those who lost their lives in the tragedies of that day as a symbol of healing and restoration.

 

Ten

Alaskan yellow cedar logs were salvaged from the former Port Chicago Naval Base in 1997. Here they are stored in the San Francisco Presidio prior to being carved into healing poles. They average 30 feet in length and weigh 2-3 tons each.  Their ages vary from 300 to over Thousand years old. It is difficult to determine the exact age of each log because the original cedar trees reached over 100 feet tall and these logs averaging 30 feet each could have come from upper sections of a much older old growth tree at the base. Actual ring counts indicate an age of over 1,000 years of the PICA Sculpture. One of these logs was gifted to the Monterey County Workforce Investment Board, the Office for Employment Training, and the Monterey County One-Stop Career Center System where it was carved in the summer of 2000 into the One Voice Healing Pole. 

 

Above is one of the original ten Mana-Earth logs salvaged in 1997 from the former U.S. Navy Port Chicago Naval Magazine base in the San Francisco Bay as it arrived at the original carving site at the Presidio of San Francisco before being carved into a healing pole.  The surfaces were charred and worn from being in service in the Bay for over 50 years as floating shipping caissons. The One Voice 9-11 Healing Pole (below) was carved from one of these ten logs.

 

The completed One Voice Healing Pole above is currently stored at Fort Ord in Monterey, California, waiting relocation to its final destination in New York City.

 

 

 

The One Voice Mural

The One Voice Mural above depicts the story of the One Voice Healing Pole from its birth  within a 1,000 thousand year old yellow cedar forest in Alaska, being cut down in the early 1920's and transported to San Francisco by rail, serving for 70 years both in peace and wartime at a ship building yard and then at the Port Chicago Naval Base where it survived the June 1944 blast, being salvaged and recovered by the Mana-Earth Healing Poles project in 1997 and transported to the San Francisco Presidio, then being transported to a special carving area within the U.S. Army's historic Fort Ord in Monterey, carving by the Monterey Workforce Investment Board One Voice project youth, and its final transportation to New York City as a gift in permanent memory of those who lost their lives in the 9-11 tragedies and those others in uniforms serving in the fire and police departments and in military uniforms in the global war against terrorism. 

 

 

     

Above, Jon Larson, director of the Mana-Earth Sculptures project who gifted the Port Chicago Alaskan yellow cedar log for the One Voice project, videographer Jules Hart of Eye Goddess Productions who captured the project story over 2 years on video, and Joseph Werner, director of the Monterey County Workforce Investment Board, the Office for Employment Training, and the Monterey County One-Stop Career Center System who sponsored the carving project, stand by the completed One Voice Healing Pole at Fort Ord, California near Monterey where it awaits transportation via truck to a permanent home in New York City.

 

       

    The One Voice 9-11 Healing Pole with a representation of California youth at the public dedication ceremony in Palm Springs, California.