Wind Phones: Speaking Grief to the Wind

In the middle of a hilltop garden in Otsuchi, Japan, sits an old-style phone booth with a disconnected rotary phone and notebook. People from all walks of life, from the countryside and from the bustling metropolis, travel to this phone booth to dial the number of people they have lost, holding one-way conversations with deceased loved ones.

This original wind phone (kaze no denwa) was created by garden designer Itaru Sasaki in 2010 to help him cope with his cousin’s death, and it was later opened to the public after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami killed over 15,000 people. The wind phone has since received over 30,000 visitors. Now, a number of replicas have been constructed around the world– in churches, forests, temples, and backyards. Now, we have one here at Pres House!

How do you make space for grief? Do you cry it out? Talk it through? Push it down and hide it for a while? Perhaps you’ve heard of grief expressed in the cyclical stages of (in no particular order) denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Something that connects us all as humans is that grief is universal. How do we move through life as we face loss? “One of the most dangerous things you can do to yourself is to keep your feelings … locked up inside,” says Erin Sylvester, who pilgrimages regularly with her young family to a wind phone just outside Olympia, Washington.

Where is the wind phone?

Enter Pres House Church (731 State St) and follow signs into the chapel. Head to the back of the chapel and up the stairs to the chapel loft. There, you will find a table with a rotary phone and notebook.

What do I do with a wind phone?

Take your time. Breathe, center yourself, & notice your grief…

Who/what do you miss? Is there something or someone you are in the process of losing? Humans, animals, relationships, places?

Dial the rotary phone and let yourself speak into the wind. Speak directly to someone if that helps.
You’re also welcome to write in the yellow notebook with a message to someone, or to share where you are at in the moment. Feel free to read others’ entries as well.

When can I use the wind phone?

The chapel loft/wind phone is open 10am to 5pm Monday through Friday.

If you want to learn more, watch this video about Wind Phones.

Written by Manato Jansen
Director of Residential Community, Pres House Apartments