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Earthsongwave Conversations

Wendy Robertson Fyfe. Founder, Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus, 2025


Dawn, East Beach, Dunbar, Alba/Scotland, 4 February, 2025. wrf
Dawn, East Beach, Dunbar, Alba/Scotland, 4 February, 2025. wrf

 

Welcome, welcome, welcome to this year’s approach to Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus, a Ceremony now in the 8th year!

 

For those of you new here, Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus was founded in January 2018 through deep listening, revelation and invitation as a way for humans around Earth to consciously participate together creating a wave of human song around Earth at dawn. Humans joining in, participating with Earth Community, the more-than-human-others, seen and unseen, ancestors and future ones wherever we are at dawn on 1 April to create a human wave of song as the sun rises around the globe. It seems particularly important this year to offer our attention to the beauty and songs of the world, the Sun, the Moon, the Planets, the Cosmos ...

 

The Ceremony is a way for us to listen deeply to and with the songs of the others; to wonder/sing our own. We might wonder what the resonances, the impacts might be if we consider a kind of ‘butterfly effect’ in an animate Earth. What if song, also animate, singing into a world of specific and unique Earth lands, creatures, humans, clouds, a person, trees, rivers and seas, beasts and fish and more beyond national boundaries can bring our attention to the utter exquisite beauty wonder of this alive planet Earth. When considered with the human conflict, extractions, unravellings, endings and beginnings currently around the globe, what may emerge? What if our attention is offered in focussing with a way of awakening one morning together wherever and whoever we are in yearly rhythm?

 

Here’s an example of Earthsong revelation, l’ve heard many others from many people. Briefly, in November 1995 when wandering completely in love with the forest and the river, surprisingly, I hear a small spruce tree singing who then invites me to sing particular notes with her, a few at a time. I join in as she adds notes slowly until a full riff emerges. When I sing the full riff, the whole forest sings out in the most exquisite ‘rounds’ in chorus harmony of the same riff singing on and on… and on… Even when leaving, the song rings in the distance to a quiet echo. Those few minutes shift my understanding of life and the trajectory of the rest of it: to follow the song rather than the life laid out to me by the current culture. Surrender and severance needed to do so. Twenty three years later near Durango, Colorado, hearing … listening to a coyote party in the dark … and Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus is dreamed-in by the morning.

 

Each year since we tend towards a particularity of Earthsong. For example, one year we held a yearlong monthly Earthsongwave New Moon Council listening to the voices of the others’ on the land, in dreams, in poetry, in art, for what is required of us, and more. This year we are offering another way below to participate as well as the usual ways you can find on this website.

 

First though, delighted to bring the news that Amy Tuttle is joining the co-conspiring of Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus this year. You will see her posts arriving here as well as on Instagram. She describes herself:

 

“Amy Tuttle, also called Thunder, loves practices of attuning with connections of beauty- between humans and nature. She's dedicated to guiding experiences with a range of themes like: deep connection with nature, clarifying purpose, healing from challenging experiences, and working with life's various transitions. Tuttle considers her practice a simple+deep process of storytelling to transfer meaning, build bridges of communication, engage across differences, and explore building the world together. Tuttle believes the arts can support individuals and communities in personal growth, community-building, and cultural transformation.

 

The call for Amy to Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus is a simple/deep resonance: to sing with the earth and her communities.


Amy Tuttle Thunder
Amy Tuttle Thunder

Welcome Amy Tuttle, Thunder…

 

In our conversations together, we noticed particular threads-songlines emerging. Here are some you might see/hear in our conversations:

 

  1. A deeper desire to widen accessibility and participation across different cultures, to widen and deepen the song, the chorus. Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus has already travelled to 87 countries. How might we invite all voices to join in together, all languages. It may be that some of all language folks are already offering their songs. Please let us know and send in translations to share. Maybe you have some ideas and offerings to send in, to share, or can share this post with those who may be interested.

 

  1. A continuing desire to offer reciprocity, the desire to ‘give back’, feed the Earth rather than extract; to be in healthy relationship as Earth expression. How might we contribute to the aliveness of Earth and Earth songs? Everything here is a gift, an offering to Earth, there is no financial exchange.

 

  1. We noticed how 3 s’s slipped into our conversations with importance: severance, surrender and sacrifice along with 3 w’s: what, who, way is needing severance, surrender and sacrifice. These can all have a kind of negative note about them, particularly surrender and sacrifice currently in relation with dominant religions. We were/are feeling into the necessity of all of these 3 s’s and w’s. For example, seeing outwardly with two eyes to becoming seeing with one eye out to the world, the other eye seeing inside both the inner world and Earth; of two breasts facing out, to becoming one breast facing out to feed the world and one breast in to feed self and Earth. In doing so, we also found depth and intimacy increasing. You too might wonder, for example, if anything and what is needing to be surrendered, sacrificed right now in your life and in the ever consumer/consumption world, that can feed an Earth reciprocity; create hollows, spaces and aliveness of songs breath to sing.

 

You might see/hear song sheets turning up here with these themes and more.

 

There are now thirty beautiful writings and songs in Earthsongwave Conversations. Take a look ~ Highly recommend the beautiful writing/music/visual songs there from a whole myriad of Earthsingers if you haven’t visited yet. More to come this year … let us know if you have any ideas to contribute.

 

You can subscribe here if you don’t want to miss anything: Subscribe

You can message us from here too, or from this website

You can share Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus here


In addition to the website and substack, you can go to Facebook and Instagram for regular updates and Earthsongs.

 

~~~~~

 

Finally, for now, this year we are excited to invite a new Earthsongwave Council on the approach to Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus by way of stirring participation and deep listening for songs singing around Earth. Three of us have come together from different time zones: Jenni York in Western Australia (WST), Wendy Robertson Fyfe in Scotland/Alba (BST) and Amy Tuttle Thunder in Cincinnati (EST). Please check the relevant time zone for your area below. You are warmly invited to participate. You are also welcome to set something up for your people and write any tracking in the comments below or message us. We are also wondering, might there be a pattern, or a request from the others, or a longing, or grief/joy cry to be heard from the Earth, Earth Community, ourselves?



Jenni York
Jenni York

 

“I am privileged to live remotely in the SW of Western Australia on 150 acres of land that chose me in 2019. Here I am surrounded by and tend the more-than-human world. I'm blessed with op

portunities for daily encounters with trees, plants, birds, the resident mob of kangaroos, spiders, the occasional snake and lizard and the many other beings that live here. I also record/track life here. Currently, I'm working towards publishing my writing and poetry.

 

I have participated in Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus since its inception in 2017 and am delighted to join with Wendy and Amy in offering Council as a means of deepening relationship in song with the more-than-human world on April 1. In a previous life I was a clinical psychologist. I have been involved in nature-based practices/training/programmes over some years.” 


Here’s the kind of thing we’re listening for, being called towards and inviting you into. Before we all met, Jenni and l popped in together to discuss ideas/possibility to come in. As we speak, a beautiful tiny robin red-breast arrives at my garden bird bath. Sparrows, Blackbirds, Starlings, are here a lot, sometimes Sparrowhawk, but not so Robin. I feel my heart miss a beat in joy and stop talking on the zoom call to acknowledge him, speaking out loud to him. Jenni then notes that a Scarlet Robin unusually visited her birdbath that very morning. Suddenly there is a felt sense of Robin flying between us like messengers, Western Australia to/from Scotland. We are both so very deeply touched. I have heard of other synchronicities. Tracking what happened afterwards we noticed:

 

* We took the time to pause for beauty touching the heart with two red Robins on the bird table

* We both spoke the meetings with Robin out loud

* Both experiences became linked in our conversation

*We both felt a kind of Earthsongline awe with Robin. Also that Robin is the bird on the Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus image (though we don’t get the blue breast Robin in Scotland/Alba) felt significant. And, what if there is are bird songlines, some ancient cultures already know and remember?

*Wonder miracle. How many such encounters might we walk past without wondering or sharing/speaking out? Let’s see, a wee listen-in anyway. These experiences appear quite common through stories heard.

 

Meeting with Thunder afterwards, she mentions the song of the Coyotes when she was away recently; feeling deeply moved by them, feeling ‘caught’ and stirred … entranced by them. She’s unaware at the time of the relationship between Coyotes and the founding of this yearly ceremony.

 

Such a beauty and ripeness about these experiences. What experiences and encounters might be revealed between us all around Earth? Are you curious enough to join in this Council? Are you longing for such connections?

 

Here is the information on the Councils. There will be two Councils for each of the 3 time zones here; one Council before 1 April to evoke/invite Earthsongs and one afterwards to hear stories and witness. They will be 1.5 hours long. Since Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus is a self-organising Ceremony, you are also welcome to create your own Council, or be in your own conversation with the more-than-human-world with the invitations below, and take notes/record your song; write in comments below or message us with your experience/encounter to be included in the tracking. What if we hear similar songs … the idea is not to sing songs you know, but to listen to the land, your body, for the songs that want to come mysteriously forth, wildsongs.

 

Please contact your area Council holder for Council links and any further information:

 

Time zones along AWST

Pre Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus Council is Wednesday, 26 February, 2-3:30pm AWST

Post Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus Council is Wednesday, 2 April, 2-3:30 AWST

 

Time zones along BST

Pre Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus Council is Thursday, 6 March, 4 - 5.30pm BST

Post Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus Council is Thursday 3 April, 4 - 5.30pm BST

 

Time Zones along EST

Pre Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus Council is Tuesday 4 March, 3 - 4.30pm EST

Post Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus Council is Friday 4 April, 3 - 4.30pm EST

 

Poetry

Here are a few poems to wander with in your heart, your home, garden, park, imagination, wilderness place. You might feel more drawn to one or the other or both poems below. Go with which feels right for you. Choose a quiet time and place, if possible, to read them first of all.

 

When you read them, notice what happens in your body. Linger there with the poetry, words, body as you do so, and then linger longer. Don’t rush through, take your time. Notice any feelings, senses, images, resonances, longings, dreams, memories arising. Take the poem or poems into your life before we meet together in Council. Read these words out at different times of the day … to yourself, to Dreammaker, learn them by heart for when you wander with wild lands, read them out to other people you know/to strangers and see what happens. Let them become song. Lay the poems, or one of them, on your Altar or/and Altar of Earth. Listen to responses including your own. Maybe you hear a particular song from the more-than-human world being sung today? You might find words or sounds, colours, or movements uttering through your own hands, mouth, body. Bring it all with you to Council.


Maybe you are not familiar with Council, if so, what a treat you have coming. Council is a way to deeply listen, speak, be surprised, be listened to/with/from and by the heart, the heart of the world and Mystery. You’ll hear and see how it goes, so just come along.

 

1st poem. It is an honour for Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus to publish and hear Jenni York’s poem here, one from her forthcoming collection of poetry.(You can hear her on the Substack post). We love opening this Earth-wide open invitation listening with a beauty tiny bird with a loud yet oh so sweet voice, with a kind of ‘wren effect’ singing it’s way around. May you follow your song too, as the wren does.

 

Splendid

This morning

a tiny Splendid fairy wren,

slender, dark cobalt tail upright,

perched on the top strand

of a wire fence, opened her small beak

and sang

her song of praise and joy

to the rising sun,

to the wakening land,

to Life itself

 

Against a backdrop of delicate pink roses

set amid bright green foliage,

her tiny body, head back,

fully engaged.

 

A gentle, barely noticeable waft of air

received her notes

and ushered them forth

into the listening world.

 

In that moment,

I sensed

every Being present in this place

paused, their attention captured,

then reached out

to this tiny, precious one

in an embrace of loving delight and recognition.

 

What a blessing,

what a privilege

to bear witness

to this brief moment

of Beauty and Grace.

 

Jenni York 2022


~~~~~

 

2nd poem. Mary Oliver excerpt. We love being brought into presence, being reminded of the voices of the others as holy, patience of listening and slowing down, the urgency of these times …

 

And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me

what they were saying.

Said the river I am part of holiness.

And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered

the moss beneath the water.

 

I'd been to the river before, a few times.

Don't blame the river that nothing happened quickly.

You don't hear such voices in an hour or a day.

You don't hear them at all if selfhood has stuffed your ears.

And it's difficult to hear anything anyway, through

all the traffic, the ambition.

 

Mary Oliver

 

~~~~~

 

Sending Earthsongwave blessings to you and your kin around the Earth. May you sing-in wildly. May you share this ‘other news’ on a deeper frequency far and wide.

 

Wendy



A north cold evening, Wendy at John Muir Country Park, Dunbar, Alba/Scotland







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Updated: Apr 1, 2024

Wendy Robertson Fyfe



The 1st Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus in 2018, Whitesands, Dunbar, Scotland/Alba




This 7th Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus Ceremony is happening as l write, as the dawn arrives from the East perhaps as you read. I’m popping in with just a few words this evening in the Northern Hemisphere in a place where the ‘human’ clocks just went forward an hour into British Summer Time. I’m watching a line of light blue clouds on the horizon in a dusking blue sky with a pink band between darkening into a glow.

 

What has become ever more clear to me over the years since my life-changing experience in 1995 of hearing a tree sing, being invited to sing with the song of the tree, upon doing so the whole forest singing in harmony which was also heard by other people and following Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus over these years is:


*The deva-station (of the Gods and Goddesses) of these times, when open and willing, can lead to revelation of what is ‘under’ like geological layers waiting to push to the surface from the push and pull crush intensity of these times.


*Revelation can lead to the next steps to follow that are needing to be made at this time, ways which cannot come from Earth killing cultures that take resources out of the Earth rather than listen, feed, feed the Earth by way of a different kind of resourcing; that cannot come from a rational planning mind.


*Earth loving devotion, falling in love again with Earth, meeting Earth’s love is one of the way to prepare.


*Innocence in the unimaginable ie l had no idea whatsoever that l would experience a tree singing, be invited in, hear a forest sing in a way that changed my life. The world beyond the ‘human’ world came in unbidden.


*There are Intelligences and Imaginations that are way beyond the ‘human’; that the ‘human’ is inside that intelligence and imagination.


*Self awareness presencing, bringing the fragments of ways of surviving in an Earth killing culture (which also kills humans as part of it) into wholeness towards deepening into soul and mythos in surrender to that Intelligence/Imagination is another approach in opening to revelation. I was invited in ….


*Speaking, writing, dancing, praying, celebrating, art, poetry, dreamwork with deep feeling coming into a full bodied knowing shifts something in a person and the world.


*Creating opportunities to take time to surrender


*What if revelation is the way to creating the next steps for death/birth to come and the direction needed that is not ego-centred or human centred or indeed attached to particular ways. Instead a deep listening with a squint head to what and who else might be with us.


*What if there is a commitment to encouraging revelation as a normal way into these devastating times.


*Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus is a particular invitation arising from revelation. What might arise from the revelation that you, perhaps, are Earth born for in these times.


Meantime, Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus has travelled to 83 countries and 1,000’s of people. Last time l looked over 6,000 folk have visited the Facebook page. A posting on LinkedIn with the article published in Unpsychology Magazine 2019* about this Ceremony was loved by Dan Golding, 9th NASA Chief. That’s a surprise! For me the thing here is 'reach/call' of life through Cosmic resonance and vibration. We never know who is going to show at any time, a Wild God or Goddess even.


The other point here is:


What if there is, as l and other's believe, a particular revelation in each of us that we are born to tend when ripe, with:


Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Goethe

what may happen that, like my experience with the singing tree, is currently beyond the human imagination but, like ‘us’, inside Planetary Imagination.


Sarah West and Kristopher Drummond, our Earthsong conversationalists this year, write of their own experiences, of dance, of singing stone, and impacts, deva-station Goddesses that have taken them too on a very different path in ‘their one wild and precious life.’ (Mary Oliver). The new normal.

 

You are welcomed to send in any experiences of Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus from wherever you are around Earth. I'll be meeting a woman l've never met before down on East Beach in Dunbar. What a wonder!


This Ceremony is a free ‘feed the Earth’ reciprocity offering. It is self-organised at a place wherever you are. There are resources on the website if you need ideas. One way is to be present, listen deeply, imagine what songs there are even if you can’t hear them; allow notes or/and movement to arise through you, sing in, be surprised. Notice, give gratitude.


As l finish writing here, the dusk turns into dark…

now dark ... awaiting ...


Earthsong blessings ~

 

Wendy


*Article 'Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus; Revelation, Manifestation, Invitation Unpsychology Magazine, Earthsongs Edition, 2019



Where Earth's Rock Plates Turned Up, Dunbar

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Kristopher Drummond



Ten Mile Lake, Pinter Mountain Backcountry, Montana, USA




I heard a rock sing


Not in my imagination, not as a metaphor. But actually. If anyone else had been around I know they’d have heard too.


I heard a rock sing. And then I forgot. It was an acute moment - two weeks in the desert, stretching open my senses, trying to heed my dreams and embody my most authentic parts. There was a lot of pain. Shame was everywhere. The invitation was to let the land be a mirror, to find the echoes of the parts of myself that live mostly as possibilities. The land showed me hidden selves and core wounds; the way everything I have to give comes from the deepest ache inside and the vast, untapped possibilities I hold within, and ways my heart wants to soften. 


I heard a rock sing, and that matters more than my fear. Or, at least it should.


I’m wondering this morning about the ways I lose sight of the world I see from the center of meaning. Maybe it’s a common human thing. We go to all this work to find our way, spend thousands of dollars to drink bitter concoctions that take us beyond ourselves or sit for hundreds of hours observing the sensations of the breath on the upper lip. All for a taste of freedom and the possibility of fresh flowing life.


I heard the rock sing and felt my mind fighting back, struggling against the song. Rising and popping like a bubble on the surface of my psyche, it was an apprenticeship to the woman inside, the feminine, this presence who comes in my dreams and dances and invites me to feel. The woman filled with eros, who wants to create and feel and weep and fuck and isn’t too concerned about the gender of who she’s fucking. It’s the loss of control implied in something like that - the affront to all the certainty I’ve spent my life pretending I have. It’s the horrifying recognition that I don’t actually choose who I am.


If I said yes all the way to the bottom of everything that I am, would the rocks always be singing? Would life become the kind of song I feel deep in my bones it can be? What would I do about taxes?


I don’t really think about taxes too much, that’s probably something to look at, but the sentence gets my point across. The rock sang and gave me so much to be - ways of becoming, shapeshifting, embodying that would take years if it were a full time job. The nervous system has to stretch for things like this. Lots of therapy hours. Walking up to the edge, softening, leaping; conversations with people and shame and body image issues. De-conditioning my ideas about most things - particularly what it means to be human. It means dying, weeping, confusion, confession, endings, beginnings, moving long distances, breakups, sleep deprivation, humbling confrontations with my own bullshit. It means jumping into a river and kicking up my feet and trying not to clutch at roots dangling from the shore when the scenery changes.


I live in a temperate rainforest now. The songs are softer. These mountains themselves feel feminine - entangled pulsing green shapeshifting mounds of fertility, seasonal rhythmic flowerings and dyings, food and medicine and poison sprouting in synchrony and blue ghost fireflies mapping the undergrowth through steamy summer nights. These mountains teach me about boundaries - poison ivy as a guardian, holly as the edge dweller, rhododendron as one who knows about taking up space. And then all the boundaries that get crossed, that maybe never existed; vines crawling along the arms of trees, mosses sprawling like spilled paint and mushrooms ecstatically feasting upon death. Herbs of every season, rising and falling, the forest reshaping itself with the full moon, owls and coyotes and bears still roaming these wilds overrun with people; the southeast coast of the United States, a place I never thought I’d be.


Montana, where I was born and lived the first 30 years of my life, could be described as a “masculine” place. It taught me a good many things about certain ways to be a man, most of which involved not feeling, all of which implied staying in control. It was there that I learned to not have needs, to work hard 12 hour days with a shovel for $10 an hour, reshaping the landscape into cheap residential housing units and buying my boss a boat. It was there I learned that it was okay to let my eyes roam and objectify women walking past the construction site, and it was there I learned to not hold hands with another boy, to not move my body in certain ways, to keep the tears held inside.


It was there too that I fell in love with mountains, with the true wild and the penetrating silence of in-tact ecology, the somatic primordial fear of a grizzly encounter, the stories etched into half-broken arrowheads I found along river banks. I learned from my dad that men can be poets in their spare time and from my grandpa that creativity is a blessing. Eventually I learned from other men that we can sit together in a circle and feel fully and be strong at the same time, that we can challenge and wrestle and curse and also let down our guards. The land that is “Montana” has so much to say about resilience, about endurance, about fortitude. It sings a lonely song, and jagged peaks towering above the pine forests point toward the wide star-splashed infinity that our lives play out within.


What I think I’m realizing is that I’m all of it - soft mounded Appalachian flow and jagged fierce Rocky solitude. I contain a woman in my manhood, I can finally say it. She likes to dance, and sometimes I will do so right before I go practice martial arts and shoot pool with my friends. Somehow I know that my fascination with fighting doesn’t negate the way I sometimes want to be little spoon. Life without the feminine and the way she lives in me now - the constant reshaping and the tenderness and the way I get to feel the world, the possibility of being soft and strong and undefined, is unthinkable.


Rocks sing. Even though I’ve abandoned objectivity, I’d bet on it. Half dead trees will transport willing travelers to the underworld, one-legged grasshoppers will look you in the eye and lend you some of their trust. If you really engage the conversation, rotting stumps will allay your worries about what’s on the other side of life and the soft dark soil will remind you that you’ve never left home. It’s all true, none of it is the truth. The only requirement for this kind of conversation is a willingness to be remade, repeatedly.


The deeper I walk into the world, the more that seems to be at stake in finding a shape and sticking to it. In my image of myself, in the “career path” I’m on, the requirements of crafting a professional disposition, cultivating a matching wardrobe, writing with “my” voice, in adhering to the pop culture insistence on defining and defending my identity as the most important task, I hear the voice of the over-culture shouting down all that can’t be controlled. In the voice that says “be yourself,” the one I’ve worked to heed in the noun I’ve strained to establish, I now wonder which self, which part in which contexts. What does it mean to that self if another rock sings or a sunset watched too closely melts an iceberg in my chest and undoes all those years of hard work, to quote Ram Dass, “becoming a somebody.” When I follow the flow, I am undoubtedly more myself. But from the outside, it appears the opposite.


What’s true is the wildness of the world. Wild, the etymology of which leads to "in the natural state, uncultivated, untamed, undomesticated, uncontrolled.” The song of stones will fuck up the central self in the wildest ways and require unachievable acts, turning life into an inescapable myth we can’t evade. When we open our ears to the song, everything becomes an echo. That little part of the conversation you overhear from the guy walking past on his cell phone, the book you happen to pick up in the bookstore, the person you are helplessly magnetized to be in a relationship with. The way you know that they aren’t accidents, even when it doesn’t make any “sense.” Science, progress, materialism, capitalism, they all claim, with ear-splitting volume, The Truth. The wild quietly and simply offers what’s true. No nouns, no center, no promises. Just this eternal song and the choice of whether or not to sing along.


~~~~~


An opportunity to sing along together on Monday 1 April with other humans around Earth creating a wave of song with Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus


~~~~~


Kristopher Drummond is a poet, wilderness guide, and expressive arts therapist-in training living in western North Carolina. His work and life are dedicated to personal and collective homecoming.




Kristopher Drummond, Isle of Iona, Inner Hebrides, Alba/Scotland



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