We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michelle Kaisersatt a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Michelle, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

Life flows. As I come into this chapter of my life, I am witness to serendipity, the power of collaboration and the art of healing.
In the summer months of 2019, Jan, an active participant in a group we both are a part of called Sacred Circle, shared her personal vision of placing a ‘Wind Phone’ in the Arboretum of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter MN. It was her dream to create this as part of her legacy.

Sacred Circle, is a group comprising of hospice nurses, death doulas, and compassionate community members residing in southern Minnesota. Jan presented her dream at one of our monthly gatherings, and it was embraced with sacredness and validation. My part in Sacred Circle is the lived experiences of healing through art. After sharing her dream, I had a dream of my own a month or so later, that caused me to step into a new artistic form I had always dreamed of doing. A large-scale metal sculpture. I knew, collaborating with local artists, this endeavor could be a profound experience that would create a sacred space for healing! I took the leap….and shared my vision with Jan and the group.

First. What is a ‘Wind Phone’?
Sometimes our own pain-filled experience becomes a creative pivot point that ripples through the Universe. The ‘Wind Phone’, birthed in Otsuchi, Japan, was a dream of Itaru Sasaki, who was filled with deep grief after the passing of his cousin in 2010. Itaru’s creation was driven by his heart, and through his creative expression as a garden designer, he placed a traditional telephone booth in his garden surrounded by flowers and foliage. He equipped it with an ‘unplugged’ rotary phone. He would step inside the phone booth, dial a particular phone number and connect with his beloved cousin—in spirit. Only one year later, in 2011, a devastating tsunami killed over 15,000 people in the Tōhoku region of Japan. Mr. Sasaki, understanding grief and healing, offered his garden and his creation of the ‘Wind Phone’ to the public, as an outlet for their grief and trauma. Since then, over 30,000 people world-wide, have taken pilgrimage to Sasaki’s garden phone, to connect their hearts with their loved ones who have crossed over into the spirit realm.

This ‘Wind Phone’ phenomenon has grown in its story—over five-hundred-fold around the globe, as people from all walks of life offer their own rendition of the ‘Wind Phone’.
His dream, Jan’s dream, and my own grief story and dream, joined forces in 2019.

Michelle, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As we travel this journey of life, many tread lightly. Others step into each day with eyes wide open. I am one of the ‘eyes wide open’ sojourners. Creativity has been my lens so to speak, since I was a child. I love to keep my hands busy. Not surprisingly, this passion applies to this day! I have been in the house building world for decades and somewhat simultaneously in the graphics world and arts world as well. In the mid-90’s….working in clay became my ‘after hours’ escape. That creative outlet became more of a corner stone for me in the first decade of the 21st century.

Ahhhh….those years, 2009 to 2012. I am curious…. What were you doing at that time?
Was it a happy time for you? Or was it tumultuous? Were you a youngin’? Or were you an adult?
Many struggled as the economy crashed during this time. Some facing financial challenges and bankruptcies small and large. Myself and my husband, were included in this time of financial struggle. In early 2009, I had just taken the leap into creating and selling sculptural, hand-carved cremation urns. This was a sacred fit for me, as I experienced grief at a very young age and it influenced how I viewed death to my core. Conversations around loss were not unusual for me. During this time, I was selling my urns through word of mouth and was creating a presence on the web. Not only was I creating urns, I was also authoring many reflections about life and death, sprinkled in with backstories about my artwork on a connected writing platform. Because of the ‘financial crisis’ we had to do some juggling, and I took on a job at an Arts Council to fill in the gap. My dream had to be placed on a back burner.

Fast forward to 2017. What developed into a small business offering cremation urns to others, became something I needed for myself, to hold my own husband’s ashes.

After my husbands’ passing, Sacred Circle became my new community. I was one of those compassionate community members embracing art as a way of healing through grief, along side death doulas and hospice nurses.
During this same time, again, ‘eyes wide open’ I received a ‘message’ from my late husband shortly before the arrival of our second grandchild. This was a message I would hold close to my heart for four years before bringing his message out into the world.

Back in 2019 I was sitting with that same Sacred Circle, in a conversation about a ‘Wind Phone’. Jan’s dream to create this gift for community. How would it look? Where would it be placed?
Serendipitously, I awoke one magical night with a vision in my heart, and at our next gathering I shared a rough image to the group of what I had seen, and the project felt more real for everyone. We polished up our vision and presented it to Gustavus Adolphus College. Things did not seem to ‘fall into place’. …however……everything helps everything. Universe has its own timeline!

Only months later, the Pandemic revealed itself. A curve ball thrown at us all. Such a heart-wrenching time, filled with grief and loss….for the world! During this time, the Universe nudged me. It was time to work on publishing my late husbands’ message. I humbly stepped into self-publishing, and created a love-filled message for us all. ‘Dear One A Message of Love, about grief, loss, and the art of healing’ was published in the spring of 2021. The Universe has its own timeline! And here we were, as a planet, experiencing something almost impossible to comprehend. Grief was everywhere.
Then Covid….rebounded again.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My existence has circled around death and grief. We all experience it. However, we step into the conversation around birth much more openly than we do with death. As I continue to evolve, I see that grief is not only about death. It bleeds over into cultural divides, historical genocide, religious doctrine, traumas lived, and lack of connection to earth consciousness. We have far more to heal-alongside death. This is the journey I am now on. Creating and holding sacred space—for all of us on this journey of healing.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

For four years, Sacred Circle had faith and trust that if this ‘Wind Phone’ project was to come into fruition—it would. This is where trust in the Universe came in. Where a power greater than ourselves reminded us time and again, of how serendipity is the Universe at work. This is also where art and healing merge.

During those years of ‘the great pause’, a young Gustavus female hockey player passed from a tragic car accident, and GAC faculty members lost loved ones. Grief plays a part in all our lives. And when we experience grief firsthand, the pain of loss surrounds us. This profound journey illustrates how the Universe plays an integral part in everything. We did not know the depth of meaning these events would reveal. Creating an even more powerful purpose of healing through the phone.

Through patience and in Divine timing…we received the ok to proceed with our interpretation of the ‘Wind Phone’. While we finalized our design, a perfect location revealed itself, and our plans came closer to reality. The sculpture was installed in mid-October, and on November 1, 2024, we dedicated the Phone of the Wind for all who experience loss and grief. Our iteration of the ‘Wind Phone’ has a small plaque under the phone cradle that reads: “This phone is for anyone who would like to call a loved one who has died or is missing. The only connection is to the heart. Whatever you say will be carried on the wind. Whether expressing love, memories, grief, gratitude, or goodbyes— May this phone bring you a healing connection and peace.”

This sacred journey has impacted everyone who has stepped into the space on the Arboretum grounds. Prairie grasses and a setting sun are the backdrop for the sculpture, and it is enveloped by lilacs in an aromatic hug from behind. What was envisioned by all the members of the Sacred Circle group became a living testament to the power of art in healing. For all the hospice nurses, death doulas, and compassionate members, this sculpture connected us—to all of humanity.
I want to acknowledge the many people that helped this project come into fruition. With the encouragement, skills, and support of the Sacred Circle and many local people including Julie Preston Dempster, Robyn Block, Dayton Lawson, Beth Rohrich, the Gustavus Adolphus College Administration; Stephen Bennett, Scott Moeller, Tim Jordan, Gwen Donev, Jeannie Peterson, and Tim VanHoudt and his crew, this Phone of the Wind now has a life of its own.

Thank you for letting me share our story.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thesoulremains.com
• Linkedin: https://linkedin Search for Michelle Kaisersatt | The Soul Remains | Soul Work
• Other: To learn more about Wind Phones, here is a link to area phones. https://www.mywindphone.com/

  Find out more about Sacred Circle, here. https://thesoulremains.com/sacred-circle-resource-library

  To learn more about this Phone of the Wind, visit https://thesoulremains.com/phone-of-the-wind

  For further conversation about the Phone of the Wind and Sacred Circle, contact Michelle@TheSoulRemains.com.

Image Credits

John Kellen at Kellen.com
Don Lipps at MankatoLife.com