Giving Life Voice ~ Rhonda Brandrick

Llanmadoch, (The Gower) at dawn. Cymru/Wales

Here we are on the cusp on the fourth Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus. This offering has not only reached thousands of people but people in over 54 countries. What a gift for the world, what a way to come together for the whole of the earth community, to sing and be sung by life. I am in deep awe and appreciation to be writing at my desk and having this chance to reflect. I am delighted to be part of such a gift and entranced by the beauty we are able to create.

I, like many, have been sensing deep change is afoot. It has been a terrible and beautiful time. One that has taken me, and I assume many, to edges unimagined and in it I continue to break down, break through, be defined and redefined from the me I thought I was/am to…? Just when I get to land somewhere that feels a bit like solid ground hey, I’m being asked by mystery to come undone again and reimagine, recollect, remember in order to grow into yet another shape.

The way we see and have known our world, ourselves, myself has changed. Even though I know deep down that change is essential for the new, the unimagined, the yet to be seen and all the life enhancing essential ways to emerge. For me this has been a deeply terrifying and enlivening journey. How it seems the terror and enlivening have to co-exist and that I cannot know the essence of myself, and be part of the great turning, without holding both as truth.

So, there is much I could share with you and as I write I can hear echoes of all kinds of stories of the times that we live in; the ways in which we are all being called to show up, initiate, mature, take responsibility and take a stand for this wonderful and dynamic, only one of its kind in the whole universe (as far as we know) turquoise jewel of a planet.

Here is one story I came across in the past weeks that had me undone again. This quote from an article by Carla Sofina was sent as a stirring to a group of women participating on the cusp of the Earthsongwave Women’s New Moon Council which met monthly through the year.

"Did you know that each year, all adult male humpbacks within each ocean sing the same song? But in each ocean the song is different from the song being sung in other oceans. There’s a Pacific song, an Atlantic song, and so on. And each year the song of each ocean changes. The new songs spread wavelike, a slow-moving fad crossing blue infinities whale-to-whale, all the whales adopting the same changed elements of the song. When songs of Hawaiian humpbacks and Mexico’s Socorro Island humpbacks changed simultaneously, despite a separation spanning 4,800 kilometers of ocean, researchers Ellen Garland and colleagues called this pattern “unparalleled in any other nonhuman animals . . . cultural change at a vast scale.”

How the song will change, how much will change, and how rapidly, humans cannot predict. Somehow together, strangely, the whales create a new song. There’s a lovely metaphor for us in that. Planet Earth constantly thrums with its own song, meeting the melodies being sent and received by all the other living things. Life is vibrant and it generates ripples throughout the air, the sea, and the ground. But whale sounds seem particularly enchanted. Roger Payne wrote of the first time he heard a humpback whale singing: “Normally you don’t hear the size of the ocean . . . but I heard it that night. . . . That’s what whales do; they give the ocean its voice, and the voice they give is ethereal and unearthly.”

As I read this it moved me to tears again and I believe it is not only a metaphor but maybe an invitation for us too, for (unparalleled) cultural change to happen as we participate in song.

With all my being l want whales to know they are heard by us humans, that we are listening. That as we come up to this wonderful time of Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus we could feel into the possibility that whales are showing us, inviting us into another way? Maybe it is a way of entangling us even deeper into the web of life? Maybe we are able to cast the most potent of spells, participating in the great turning? Maybe it’s a way of imaginably throwing a net around this precious earth; cradling the whole planet and each other so that we may all continue to enhance all life’s systems for and with this wondrous turquoise jewel?

Haven’t some of us taken enough? Haven’t I taken enough? So, for me to at least give back to this wise, loving, incredible. beautiful and diverse home is an attempt at offering something and a way of expressing my wise grief and deepening love.

So many humans lost in inner and outer noise cannot hear the world sing. What if we could turn our attention towards the truth, terror and beauty of what is offered every day by the spinning wonder and brilliant brilliance of this planet. What if we could offer something back, reciprocate that song, sing together in a harmony to the oceans that created and birthed our wild bodies? I wonder and can only imagine what might be possible in that symphonic crescendo?

So maybe, just for a moment, if you will, allow this experience of whales to come deeply in, emotionally, sensuously, imaginatively. Notice what happens in your body, to your mind? Imagine and tune into each of the oceans and the different songs being sung by whales and remember that they create a concerto of cultural change. Imagine that they are open to the unbidden, being taken by life, not knowing in which ways they are being shaped or shaping, yet trusting life, trusting cosmos and evolution, trusting their place, their notes, their unique and ever-changing song. Maybe imagine this possibility for your own life and your kin, human and ‘more-than-human’.

Through voicing, life is sung into being and sings. Imagine us on this Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus day standing together at the edge of the sea singing the unbidden songs that life is longing for us to sing. Joining whales, dolphins, blackbird, robin, tree, badger, shark, sky, cosmos in the most delicious and wild symphony.

Imagine that we sing as whales sing because we cannot help but participate in the wild song of life; because life and mystery are spectacularly wise; because it matters to them as they follow deep instinctual intelligence, because maybe they remind us of our own. What if we stand at the edge of the ocean, joining them in participation? Can life burst through and be known in ways that we have never seen, felt or imagined before? Will this ripple flow through our culture, evoking a deepening cultural song?

What if whales in the oceans would leap from the waters in joy and turn somersaults in the air if they sensed that we are on the edge of the oceans at sunrise giving back to the great mystery of life. What if life itself in all its wonder (and), shapes and beauty would join with all the voices of the living world. Or a kind of co-voicing? So, on this Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus morning, as the sun rises for all of life to continue and it rises to grow, shape, heat and create brilliance with this Earth. Imagine, just for a moment what might happen if we were to stand at the edge of the ocean singing and participating in the great symphony of life. We might just be giving life it’s voice in a collective harmony with the ever-emerging Earth symphony.

References:

1. Carl Safina Songs of the Humpback Whales in Minding Nature, Fall 2020, Vol 13, No 3 Center for Humans and Nature.

~~~~~

Rhonda Brandrick is the co-founder of professional accredited training in Ecopsychology and Nature-based practice. For over 5 years she apprenticed with Animas Valley Institute exploring the journey of soul initiation. She has worked with individuals, couples and groups for over 25 years. She is dedicated and devoted to making a difference to human health and the health of the Earth by bringing individuals, communities and culture back to Earth based ways of living. Rhonda loves dancing, drumming, dreaming and is a Mother and Grandmother.

Thank you Rhonda Brandrick for your offering to Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus 2021. Rhonda is also a contact for Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus in England.

If you would like to be involved/participate in the future shapeshifting of the Council Rhonda speaks of, please contact us through www.earthsongwave.com

New Moon Council Magic ~ Jenni York

Talking Pieces

The Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus (ESWDC) of 2020 sang into being a year-long Women's New Moon Council (WNMC) in a wild gathering of fiery dragon, feathers, bell song and sharings of longing, passion and a commitment to deep listening to the calls and songs of Mother Earth. After the first session in April 2020, I dreamed of mixed up, out of place songs with a waking reverie of message sticks, carved with songs and carried under the wings of migratory birds across the planet. What if birds create songlines as they fly?

Flaming headed serpent and cauldron, created to contain offerings to the Council, weaved their alchemical magic to sustain the Council, which as I write, sadly, has just one session left – although perhaps the mystery and song magic of the ESWDC and the WNMC will bring forth other children. We shall see.

Strands, threads of many different themes are woven from around Earth: south to north, west to east, clockwise and counterclockwise, creating a web cradling us in Circle. Making a commitment to attend every session, I feel increasingly enthralled by this dynamic experience where each month, women come together, share our wisdom, song and story and then move apart again. It is as if I am carried on a moon-created tide of coming together and parting, like the ebb and flow of gently lapping ocean waves, like a slow, steady breathing, in and out once a month – each ‘coming together’ creating a node in a vast web, encasing a ‘joining together’ of experience and passion from around the world. What if we are engaged in a new way, perhaps an ancient re-membering of singing with Mother Earth?

Gathering, we first speak in a voice of the land on which we each stand. We bring some being as a talking piece – mine are bones: most often feathers, once the rib bone of a young kangaroo, all from the sacred space where I live. I introduce Grandmother Tree, ring-neck parrot, and an ephemeral wetland to the Council – rich sentient beings of place – ranging alongside all the others from around the globe.

In Council, there are words, silence, dance, movement and of course, song – human voice, birdsong, star song, grief song, joy song. Songs of symbols, patterns, of mysterious, synchronous moments – an example is one Council just after I finish the large planting out of a paddock in a design of three counterclockwise spirals which all meet at a single tree in the centre. Spirals are found in the cave and rock art of Australian Aboriginal peoples and in ancient Celtic art, the patterns of my ancestral heritage, in my DNA and deeply significant for me. The spirals meeting at the central tree form three lines radiating from a single point – three is such a potent number of life on Earth. Our Council this month features a video of a song by Heilung, a Scandinavian group – it is very haunting and as I move to the music and watch, I see spirals and three arrows radiating out from a single point on rocks and on the ground. Shivers race up and down my spine and I experience the synchronicity of form and pattern as affirmation and blessing. Such synchronicity continues to weave in and out, and in November, during a trip ‘on country’ with three Aboriginal Elders, I came across this image – this is just one example of the way this thread of patterns, association and meaning continues.

Pattern

So many story songs of relationship between human and the more-than-human world; of voices from deep wells of emotion; dream songs; songs of imagination and of wild, abandoned duets with land, wind, thunder, lightning, water - with Life in all its manifestations. Symphonies for the pleasure and nourishment of all Creation - ringing out over the course of every month, encircling, cradling, piercing, empowering – delighting our Mother as we delight in Her.

Over the course of the year, my awareness and appreciation of the Dark Moon deepens. As I attend to the waxing and waning Moon each month I rejoice in the approaching dark with its associated increasing brilliance of the stars. Living, as I do, without any ambient light and looking straight into the centre of the Milky Way, even the dark is not completely without light. This year’s solstices and equinoxes and other significant cosmic events during the year - the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn with the Moon and then their proximity, a event not seen for over 400 years, and a Blue Moon – blessings all. Awe and wonder flood my being again and again at these cosmic miracles. This, in turn, increases my appreciation of the WNMC and what it is bringing to each of us. My gaze is skywards in a sustained way that I have not experienced before.

The Moon cycle, with its traverse from light to dark to light, is one of Nature’s mirrors of the life, death, rebirth cycle that I am constantly reflecting on and which so central to all existence on this exquisite Earth. In between the cosmic mirrors of the day cycle and the year cycle – Moon cycle holds a special affinity for us women, aligned as it is with our cycle of bleeding and the ever-present potential for new life. Although no longer fertile this way, for me the Council becomes a means of, an opportunity for, reflective generation in the darkness. What if this WNMC is a portal to an experience of the dark within the womb of the Earth – where we can sing new creation songs?

Ephemeral Wetland

My sense of the significance of the WNMC grows. There has been a call to the Wild, Sacred Feminine emanating from Mother Earth for some years now and it has been increasing in intensity over the past couple of years. I have heard it personally, as have many, many others, from a variety of sources. I have heard its echoes, when reading and listening to the words of indigenous male Elders over a number of years – Arkan Lushwala, Harley Eagle, Bruce Pascoe, Tyson Yunkaporta to name a few. During this WNMC year, I hear Ilarion Merculieff, an elder from Alaska, speak of what he has heard from Mother Earth – a call to women to come together, to heal themselves and within the ceremony of this process, something new will be birthed. Women are being called to go deep into the Earth, become still and listen. What they hear and bring back will heal the world. Men are to hold the space for women to do this work. Ilarion’s words resonate deeply and are very affirming for me. They reflect so much of what has been significant, enriching threads of the WNMC, which in turn has supported me in exploring and deepening my response to this call. It is in the experience - the songs, the words, the threads, the synchronicities, the echoes, the Ancestors, the Land – all harmonising into the songs of my life, nurturing and encouraging me.

My songs are clearer now, less mixed-up – and songlines are being created and sung by all manner of Beings. I ‘know’ them as I slow down, become still and listen.

May the Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus of Thursday April 1, 2021 create a tsunami of song that calls forth an ever-deeper commitment to our wondrous Earth and many more never-before-heard songs of love and adoration to woo our more-than-human kin.

Jenni now lives on 150 acres of bush surrounded by additional nature reserve and crown land in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. The land has high conservation value, being in an area of internationally recognized significant biodiversity. "In this season of Bunuru, I acknowledge the Menang Bibbulmun people as the traditional owners of the land on which I live. I pay my respects to the Elders, past and present and to the wider Bibbulmun community."

Photography by Jenni York

Listening with the Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus of 1 April, 2020, l (Wendy) heard a call to deepen further during the year with a monthly New Moon Council which was born in that same month of April. What became the Women's New Moon Council brought women listening, resonating and singing with this call from around Earth; to listen and respond with Earthsongs; to be aroused by and arouse Earthsongs further; to be curious and surprised about songs emerging and impacts/ripples....and more. This is one experience from Jenni York. Another will follow soon in this feast of an Earthsong and Moonsong year.

Thank you Jenni York for your offering to Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus 2021. Jenni is also a contact for Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus in Western Australia.

If you would like to be involved/participate in the future shapeshifting of this Council, please contact us through www.earthsongwave.com

A Song Of The Gods

Whitesands, East Lothian, Scotland. January 2021

A Song of the Gods

All Winter’s night long

l hear a song,

a single

consistent

gravity

note.

Sea.

All Winter’s night long

I stay awake.

How can l sleep

when the Gods

of Ancients

are roaring

their song

and l feel their note

echoing

in my heart’s

chamber.

How can l not

bow down,

bend my knees

in awe,

praise,

gratitude;

let them sing me.

Wendy Robertson Fyfe

~~~~~

A thousand welcomes into this approach to the 4th Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus. The Gregorian calendar has 1 April on a Thursday this year when you are warmly invited to sing in and participate in the call to dawn’s rising; to participate with this miracle animate Earth turning to meet her longing song with Sun; of warmth and life turning towards Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, or turning towards Autumn and sun’s light leaving as dark returns in the Southern Hemisphere. What if the dawn chorus sings in each day and each season who wouldn’t arrive without them? What if everything depends on such a longing song and the possibility of such a one being met? How might we humans participate in, surrender to, such a song and where might such a song take us?

I’m remembering today an experience in 1995 when l quite literally heard a tree singing as l strode into the world completely in love with her. The tree invited me to sing with her and when l did so, the whole forest sang out in harmony. I continue to sing into this song, even if just one note at times, let it sing me. Life is ignited by such songs, yes? Yes, what if Earth is longing for our song, even inviting us further in the current dissolution this way too; a way of calling to our unique Earth given song that each one of us carries and is born to sing. Here is just such an opportunity to explore your song, sing in, be curious about what may happen, and wonder. Let us then offer our songs back as a feast to the Ancient and Future ones, let us ignite one another as Laura Weaver sings so exquisitely in ‘Sing back the Light”:

(…)

sing back the light because your song ignites my song and the chorus is a swelling ocean of Awakening—and we are just beginning to hear our own roar.

* Sing back the light because this is how we remember— this is how we remember ourselves past this ending into the beginning….

* For in the beginning there was the Word there was the Song and we are here now to sing ourselves Home.

~~~~~

As usual, there will be further offerings in blogs from Earthsong lovers on the approach to Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus. This last year, following a prompt from Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus 2020, a Women’s New Moon Council including women around Earth was created monthly. This Council has come to be a very powerful way for women continuing to listen, hold the dreaming, and sing Earthsongs rippling further into the world; another place for women to stir magic from a cauldron being heated by a flaming seven headed serpent. There will be some blogs from these women too.

The Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus offering is self-organising and there are lots of ideas on the website. There are daily postings on the Facebook page. You are welcome to send contributions. There are contact people for many places around Earth. Please let us know if you can be such a one for the part of the Earth that has you. Create your own offerings and write in with your ideas. Let us know what you plan and we can share. Let us know what you’re offering so we can track. Let us know how your song impacts in Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus morn as you imagine this wave of human song meeting and in/of the world. Sing your own song and not tell another human should this be your way too, share only with the wild world and be in the mystery of it all. If you have ideas for offering a blog, make contact. Participate with your own notes.

Maybe, if you haven’t already, you’ll fall in love with singing for and with Earth/Earth Community and continue to do so….it may take more than a day, or not, to sing your way into a mystery so magnificent that it may begin to sing you more and in surprising ways. Be ignited, ignite others’!

The Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus continues to be a ‘feed the Earth’ and self-organising offering with invitations and experiences being shared. There are no financial transactions and everything is gifted. There are leaflets on the website you can download and print. These are in English, you are so very welcome to contact to create in different languages. Anyone around the world can join in voicing your own way. Currently, as far as l’m aware to date, 1,000’s of people from 54 countries have visited the website and Facebook page. Be sung, that other’s may sing!

www.earthsongwave.com