I am enlightened each time we receive a message sharing Telephones put up around the country. This one is extremely special as it has many unique features. Sheila Peters led the project and below has provided answers to the questions we like to ask creators.
Sheila was born in the coastal BC town of Powell River where the phone was installed. She moved inland to the mountains near Smithers in northwestern BC 45 years ago. She then married and raised two sons while working as a journalist, weaver, college instructor, environmental and human rights activist. She moved back to Powell River five years ago to care for her aging mom. She and two others worked on the Telephone, check out her blog to see the complete story. https://sheilapeters.com/2024/11/10/telephone-of- the-wind/
What made you put up the phone?
I am a hospice volunteer and help people with Advance Care Planning. In many of the
workshops, people ask questions about funerals, burial rites, etc. As I researched this to
be able to provide local information, I visited the main cemetery here. At the same time,
we were living with my mother, 99, and we visited there together as her sister and
mother’s ashes were there. When she died last fall, I began to think about the idea of the
phone – you can check out my blog at https://sheilapeters.com/2024/11/10/telephone-of-
the-wind/ to see what more I wrote about it.
Describe where the phone is located? It’s in our main cemetery in a small copse of
cedar trees.
Has this helped you through your grieving process? The planning and execution of
the ideas helped me connect more deeply with the community which I’d lived away from
for over 40 years.
What have been some of the personal experiences people shared with you? Since
it’s fairly recent, just a few folks have talked to me about it – mainly about how
meaningful they found it. The way in which it concentrated their feelings and helped
channel their grief and memories.
Did you create The Telephone of The Wind yourself or did you have someone help
you create it? With the blessing of the local government responsible for the cemetery
and our local Four Tides Hospice Society, three of us made it.
Where did you find the rotary phone? What was the origin story of the phone? I
was checking out thrift stores looking for one, and the local hospital auxiliary had one
they weren’t sure what to do with it. They were very happy to donate it.
Have you and your family done anything else on this topic? Both my husband and I
are long-time hospice volunteers; my husband helps run grief support groups.
Do you believe that grief and loss should be discussed more openly? The
opportunities to share feelings about grief and loss should be available and welcomed,
but people grieve in many different ways. That’s one of the wonderful things about the
phone – what happens there is very private and is especially helpful for people who don’t
want to speak directly about their feelings or who don’t have friends or family they want
to share those feelings with.
What do you want people to take away from the telephone? I want it to bring people
to the cemetery, which is a beautiful place, where they can recognize that others have
shared similar pain and loss, that they are not alone. And I hope they can find a positive
conduit for their own feelings.
The team who worked on the phone inset the spiral of beach pebbles above the phone. The spiral of beach pebbles above the phone changes from grey to white, drawing a link between earth and spirit and signaling the lightening of your spirit as your words are carried on the wind to the one you miss.
After Tla’amin elder Les.Pet Doreen Point (left) blessed the telephone, Sheila Peters tells its story.
Harvey Chometsky building the telephone of the wind in his outdoor studio