The Wind Phone

“Where words unsaid can finally be spoken.”

While exploring the property at the Institute for Mentalphysics / Joshua Tree Retreat Center, my friend Suné and I stumbled upon a hand-crafted sign staked into the desert sand. Whitewashed with blue lettering, it simply read: “Wind Phone” - centered by a painted heart, and an arrow pointing us in its direction.

Curious, we followed the gravel path dusted with desert flora to a small makeshift kiosk keeping company with a rather large Joshua Tree atop a knoll.

Inside the kiosk, it felt more shrine than structure - filled with photographs, precious stones, and small personal trinkets left behind by prior visitors. These offerings surrounded a disconnected yellow rotary phone, placed there as a way to communicate with those no longer with us.

Tucked beside the phone was a laminated letter from its donor, Colin Campbell, describing the Wind Phone’s origin there at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center and its connection to him personally.

In 2019, grieving parents Colin Campbell and Gail Lerner installed a Wind Phone in their backyard after their children, Ruby and Hart, were killed by a drunk driver. Though the phone is disconnected, it “logs many calls.” They found such solace in the ritual of speaking to their children that they opened it to others — what Campbell calls a cosmic connection.

The original wind phone - kaze no denwa - was created in 2010 by Japanese garden designer Itaru Sasaki in Ōtsuchi, Japan. He installed a disconnected rotary phone in a booth in his garden to cope with the death of his cousin. After the 2011 tsunami devastated the region, thousands visited to “call” loved ones lost in the disaster.

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“They are shrines of resilience - intentional spaces where grief can move. Where words unsaid can finally be spoken. Where the wind carries what the living still need to express.”

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My Experience

After our initial discovery - only a short distance from our Homestead Modern Bungalow - Suné and I decided to return separately, privately, so we could each have our own experience.

I went first.

In the quiet of late afternoon, I walked back to the kiosk and sat down, awkward and self-conscious at first, trying to settle into the energy and pay silent respect to the artifacts left by those who had come before me.

I wanted to talk to my mom. (And my dad.) But mostly my mom. There was unfinished business. Things left unsaid.

As the youngest of seven, I often felt the soft pulse of her maternal energy fading by the time it reached me. I learned early to navigate life by instinct - to fend for myself in ways I didn’t fully understand until much later.

By the time I had language for the questions I needed to ask her, clarity about how our relationship shaped my own patterns in love and belonging, her health had already declined. The window for those conversations had quietly closed.

These were the thoughts that surfaced as I sat down to have that conversation, hoping perhaps for answers, even if they arrived not as words, but as “felt” messages in the desert breeze or the low rustle of brush nearby, moving in response to the wind.

I picked up the receiver and dialed my childhood phone number, the one my mother still used until she moved into a care facility in the Palisades, not far from where we grew up.

2… 1… 3… 4… 5… 4…

The slow turn of the rotary dial felt almost ceremonial - placing my finger in each number, waiting as the wheel completed its full, unhurried return before I could move on.

Receiver tight against my ear, I knew the phone was disconnected - and still, I half expected a dial tone. A ring. A voice. Something answering back.

Instead - I heard the wind.

Like holding a conch shell to your ear, listening for whispers from beyond.

Everyone’s experience will be uniquely their own, so I won’t attempt to define it for others, except to say that the act itself is a potent reminder: the energy of those we love, who have passed, remains close. Simply reaching out holds meaning.

I didn’t receive the answers I once believed I needed. No voice returned through the receiver.

What came instead was quieter - a softening. A sense that the questions I carry are not meant to be solved in a single exchange, even a cosmic one, but lived into over time.

Perhaps the answers are still unfolding - in the way I choose, in the way I love, in the way I experience my life and living.

The wind did not speak back. But somehow, I understood the conversation we had.

And it left me with a sense of peace.

When I was younger, my mother never ended our phone calls with “goodbye.” Instead, she would pause and simply say:

“Call when you can”

It was her way of leaving the line open.

And now, in this small booth in the desert - receiver pressed to my ear - our conversation continues…

My mother, Glenna. 1924-2024

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Visiting the Wind Phone at the Institute of Mentalphysics / Joshua Tree Retreat Center

• Location: 59700 29 Palms Hwy, Joshua Tree, CA

• Placement: Situated behind the Lotus Meditation Building.

• Hours: Access is 24/7

• Cost: Free to visit

• Tips: Visitors often bring small, thoughtful offerings like stones, notes, photos.

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If you are considering creating a Wind Phone in your area, here are a few things to note: Creating a community Wind Phone involves placing a disconnected rotary phone in a quiet, accessible, and serene, ideally sheltered, location - such as a garden, park, or library - allowing people to “call” deceased loved ones.

Key steps include:

• securing permission from the local authorities or landowners

• gathering community support

• creating a peaceful, private, free to use space for connecting and grieving.