*Keynote Speaker
*Workshop Facilitator
*Award-Winning Singer/Songwriter
*Conservation Advocate

Inspiring the Connection Between People and Place

Place is Personal
Wendell Berry wrote "If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are." Reconnecting with the places that matter to us in our lives is like reconnecting with a part of ourselves we may have been longing for, without even knowing it. Remembering our connection helps us remember who we really are.

Forgetting our connection has caused many of the ills we experience in the world today, both personally and globally. Sometimes it's easier look the other way, especially if the places we love are lost or forever altered. But to reconnect with the places that are meaningful to us is to feel awake and alive in the world.

Mending the rift
What are your stories of place and belonging?

I created the Soulful Landscape programs to help mend the disconnect many of us experience in our fast-paced modern world. They are grounded in the fact that we all have stories of place and belonging, waiting to be remembered and revealed. Your story could be from your childhood or your own backyard. It could be a city street or a wilderness peak. What matters is remembering how those place made you feel.

My Background
Many of you know me as a touring singer/songwriter, but I originally went to college to become a wildlife field biologist to help protect wildlife habitat. During college I was inspired by the writings of people such as Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard, Terry Tempest Williams and others. I came to see how in addition to research and data, being able to express our personal relationship with natural world could also make a significant impact in the world. I went on to become a touring a singer/songwriter whose songs are deeply rooted in my connection to the land and a sense of place.

About ten years ago, after witnessing the loss of many of the landscapes I'd come to treasure during my travels as touring songwriter, I decided to bring my work more actively full circle. I now combine my career as a performing artist with my life-long interest in natural and cultural history, and conservation issues to teach, speak and sing about personal connection to place, and the role that connection plays in land stewardship.

"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

Place-Based Arts and Land Conservation
We can tell people 'why' to protect and conserve the land, and other treasured places, but it is only when the heart is engaged can action begin. In the words of Aldo Leopold (my personal hero since high school) "When we see the land as a community to which we belong, we can begin to use it with love and respect." For many people the arts are like a doorway, an entry point that helps them relate to the world around them. The arts stir the imagination and inspire us. And when we can use our creativity to express what places matter to us and why, we can inspire that sense of caring in others.

Tools for connecting people and place
From in-depth staff trainings to public events, I offer programs that provide all the tools and inspiration you need uncover and express your stories of connection.  I would love to help you explore what connecting to place means for you through my music, my Soulful Landscape programs, or other information available here on my website.

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To Deep Water: A Story of Belonging
On my latest CD, Good Summer Rain, I wrote a song about a lake (pictured at right) near my home in western Massachusetts. When I first saw this lake, it was so beautiful, I cried. It reminded me of wilder places I have visited, much farther from home. Standing there, I experienced a sense of recognition, as if the lake and I somehow understood each other. "To Deep Water" is a song I wrote out of gratitude, thanking "my" lake for how it's helped me in my life.

Coming Soon: Free Triple Gift Bundle
Look for the free triple gift bundle I'll be offering soon to anyone who signs my mailing list. I think you'll really enjoy these gifts!

  1. A download of my song "To Deep Water"
  2. An e-book I've written called Seven Soulful Ways to Connect to Place
  3. A subscription to my monthly newsletter, "Being Here: Connecting Soulfully to Place"





Good Summer Rain
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"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

"If this CD doesn't compel you to get outside and enjoy what little green space we have left, put it on for a mental break while you're stuck in the concrete grid of rush hour." -Performing Songwriter Magazine

"Listening to Good Summer Rain is like flipping through the photo album of an Ansel Adams road trip. Each artfully created song transports the listener to a particular location, like a snapshot in time." -Planet Jackson Hole News

About Erica
Erica Wheeler is an award-winning singer-songwriter, a dynamic keynote speaker and an experienced workshop facilitator. She brings a gift for connecting people and place to both her music and her inspiring Soulful Landscape programs. She has presented The Soulful Landscape (keynotes, trainings, concerts and workshops) at conferences, events and learning centers across the country, from Yosemite National Park (CA) to the Thoreau Institute (MA).

Erica's most recent CD, Good Summer Rain, was sponsored in part by the Trust for Public Land, a national conservation organization. An unforgettable journey through the American landscape and the lives lived there, the CD also won first place in the "Best Interpretive Music" category at the National Association for Interpretation 2008 Media Awards.

Erica's work connecting people and place has been featured in national publications such as Orion, Yankee and Yes! magazines. Her songs and programs shift the way we see, think and feel about the places in our lives in a profoundly moving way. One result is inspiring the sense of engagement needed to participate in land stewardship today. As Yankee magazine put it their review of Good Summer Rain, "Suddenly your local zoning battle may seem a little more interesting."

With six critically acclaimed recordings to her credit, Erica has headlined clubs from Boston to Berkeley and shared the stage with Greg Brown, Shawn Colvin, Indigo Girls and others. Her songs have charted in the top-ten on Billboard's Gavin American Chart, and she has been interviewed on Voice of America, NPR's All Things Considered and other syndicated radio programs.

last updated Thursday, January 28, 2010 @ 6:25 PM