Join us for a ritual of environmental protection and letter writing for our local Zena Highwoods with Filipinx sound artist and nature recordist Zaneta.
In this sound ritual, participants will immerse in the forest soundscapes of the Zena Highwoods and be guided into deep dreaming and journeying with the land, tapping into shared visions of a thriving wilderness.
Filled with these dreams and energies of the forest, we will sound care with our voices and our words, writing channeled letters to the Town of Ulster Planning Board for environmental protection of the Zena Highwoods. This is sacred ecological care in action at the grassroots level. Listening to our local forest in ritual and channeling energies of care and protection into tangible environmental action.
Participants are invited to co-create a community altar for the forest and bring offerings of love, art, beauty, care, and dreams for the forest in any way they feel called. Food, poems, art, photos, mementos, sprigs of herbs from a beloved garden, or blessed waters are just a few examples of potential offerings.
We will also be writing email letters to be sent to the Town of Ulster for environmental action and protection. Participants are welcome to bring a computer or journal to draft letters to be sent before February 10th, the next major Ulster Planning Board meeting.
Why the Land Needs Our Voices
At the heart of this project is the Zena Highwoods, a vital wildlife corridor of pristine wetlands and deep woods that connects thousands of acres of forest in the Eastern Catskills and is home to over 270 species of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects, and plants.
Despite being designated as a Critical Environmental Area by the NYSDEC, this land is in critical danger of development. In 2026, private developers are attempting to build luxury homes and private roads, and have even proposed a helipad and pickleball courts through some of the last undeveloped, connecting lands in the Eastern Catskills.
Currently, there is a call for local residents to write emails to the Town of Ulster Planning Board asking them to demand a full environmental impact review of proposed development in the Zena Highwoods. Letters help show community investment in protection of land and wildlife, and hold local officials accountable.
To learn more about environmental protection efforts, visit Stop Zena Development.
The Larger Project
This event features recordings from a larger project called Invitations from the Land: the Zena Highwoods, a year-long album of environmental seasonal soundscapes recorded in the Zena Highwoods and accompanying book of listening practices, ecological prompts, species illustrations and identification, stories of the forest, paintings, and forest transmissions, to invite listeners to explore their personal relationship with local ecology and climate care.
This project was created in ritual and collaboration with the forest, along environmental consultation with the Woodstock Land Conservancy, and the album and book will be released in a live premiere in Woodstock, NY September 2026
ABOUT THE ARTIST-PRACTITIONER
Zaneta (they/them) is a Filipinx interdisciplinary sound artist, medium, and nature recordist, whose work brings communities into close and loving relationship with their local wilderness through listening, sounding, and ritual as sacred expressions of ecological stewardship and care.
Drawing from the work of their lola sa tuhód (great-grandmother) as a hilot healer in Iloilo, Philippines, and her multi-modal ways of communing with the land, Zaneta weaves local field recordings, environmental studies, activism, sound art, community art and story gathering, painting, ritual, mediumship, and vocal channeling to create experiences of deep communion with the more-than-human world. Experiences that build conscious connection to local lands and wildlife and support personal stewardship through ongoing community exchanges between land and people.
Their work also examines how listening and sounding, as inherently relational and reciprocal experiences, are essential eco-social practices that not only raise awareness of our close connections to non-human kin, but cultivate a unique sense of empathy and interconnectedness that is foundational to stewardship, and ultimately plays a vital role in environmental futures.
Zaneta’s work has been presented in spaces such as the Brooklyn Museum, Los Angeles Natural History Museum, the Climate Imaginarium on Governor’s Island, and featured on WKNY Radio Kingston, and Wave Farm Radio.
Their past projects Sacred Seasons (2020) and Where Land Meets Sky: Geophonic Transmissions for the Body (2022), were awarded the Brooklyn Arts Council grants, and they were a 2025 Strange Foundation Residency Artist.
Zaneta currently serves as the environmental artist-in-residence at Marydell Faith and Life Center at Hook Mountain in Nyack, NY. They also teach field recording, listening, and land communing workshops in the Hudson Valley.
Their upcoming project, Invitations from the Land: the Zena Highwoods (2025), was created in partnership with the Woodstock Land Conservancy and in collaboration with the Zena Highwoods, and will be premiering on WGXC Wave Farm Radio December 21, 2025, with the album and book released with a live premiere in Woodstock, September 2026.