A Widdershins EarthSong; Pilgrimages in Reweaving The Web Of Holographic Reciprocity Between The Worlds
Wendy Robertson Fyfe
Sunrise: a wedding band … a bar note ~ 1 April, 2025, Whitesands Carboniferous Fossil Beach, East Lothian, Alba wrf
This final Earthsongwave Conversation for the Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus website will be part of laying down that website bow on 22 November, closing the portal and completing the circle of this particular manifestation. I’ll also be bringing forth some of the songs of 2025’s Ceremony stories that were heard through this year’s Councils post Ceremony, other meetings and emails. You might like choose your moment, grab a cuppa, put on some favourite quiet music to take time to read this beauty. Though note the website is coming down tomorrow so if you wanted to take a look at that before it closes.
It is eight years since the website portal for Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus was founded, held, opened and tended for Earthsongs to channel through and round Earth’s Community in 2017. Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus was a self-organising ceremony on 1 April yearly inviting humans to listen deeply and sing-in with the dawn chorus sunrise around the world creating a wave of human’s joining with the songs of birds, waves, trees, opening buds and petals, stone, soil, animals, heartcrack griefs, terror, joys, gratitudes, praises, and celebrations of a new day in the cosmos.
The ceremony was inspired and called forth by an experience with a singing sitka spruce tree along The Findhorn River in Scotland/Alba inviting me to join in the song in the mid nineties. When doing so, the whole forest sang in harmonic rounds. By the way, sitka spruce wood is used in the making of violins and cellos. My wondering … what would happen if such experiences, in whatever shape and form they take, with other humans were sung around Earth in these particular times to invite aliveness and revelation in this miracle planet, miracle life. In 2017, listening to the coyotes singing in the wee small hours in Colorado, this audacious vision, or was it Earth’s audacious dream, arrived almost complete by the waking morn. Who would dare such a preposterous thing! Over the years, the ways and understandings of this Ceremony became clearer, deeper, wider. Likely more to learn yet.
As it turns out, Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus travelled to 1,000s of humans around the world through the website and Facebook page; to over 94 human defined country boundaries crossing historical, political and economic divides and intrusions to what, l, and many l imagine, is a deeper truer knowing in human indigenous experiencing as an invisible chord with earth and cosmos that was cut. On the one hand, l think of ‘numbers’ like seeds scattering from spears and arrows to the heart in the far distance. On the other hand there were also ways enabling a more intimate shared known experiencing of the magical re-enchantment, re-awakening, enlivening and reweaving of the broken web between the human and more-than-other-than human worlds, Earth and Cosmos.
Thirty six conversations have generously been offered from particular visionaries/’audaries’ around Earth on the approaches to the yearly Earthsongwave whilst spaces for such voices grow. Each voice here, deepening our understanding, heartbreak, passion, love and more alongside offerings on the website of particular prose ie Imaginal Butterfly Effect, Geneen Marie Haugen, USA, and stories such as A Song Of Iran, Brigit PourRamazan. Alongside, there were songs of other beings and creatures, a chorus of voices and also further resources such as books, films, and poetry list. People offered themselves as local contacts so that the local and global could connect if and when requested. Many voices, maybe yours, participated in human and more-other-than human realms as ‘human’ perhaps embodying a more expansive inclusion of the ‘we’ ‘human’ means. Deepest gratitude ~
The Ceremony also invited different offerings including an international yearlong New Moon Earthsong Council which led to a two year Grandmothers Council. Afterall, there isn’t that big a step between Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus and Grandmothering a culture. This year’s deepening Councils were invited before and after 1st April enabling further intimacy in reweaving the broken web between human aspect of/and Earth Community.
All Earthsongs were offered by everyone as a gift (except website hosting and domain) by way of reciprocity with Earth; to feed Earth, to feed the holy, to feed Mystery. In this, a way of widdershins, as in going ‘against the way’, of the current dominant colonised and colonising culture’s extractive taking away, from Earth and Earth Community (including humans). One way of widdershins here is remembering Earth as animate, impossibly imaginative, and in community also with cosmic kin; that we humans are of Earth and Earth’s dreamsong; a whole living holographic reciprocity of movement and song with and between the seen and unseen, heard and unheard, with ancestors and future ones, human and more-other-than (other as in Gods and Goddesses, Mystery) around Earth; of myth and dream pilgrimaging towards … well, mystery knows even in the who’s participating when and how in offerings and receiving and to whom is in the feast. It’s a different conversation for sure.
Of course, to be present with a sunrise, or as April Tierney put it ‘Facing East’, is also to face the opposite direction from the sun’s movement (or, rather Earth’s movement). l imagine people facing east in the mornings long before clocks were invented. I use widdershins in the title here also to highlight the whole Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus as widdershins, as moving ‘against the way’ into reweaving the holes between the worlds, as Sara McFarland also noted, into the unknown shapes yet to emerge, maybe like salmon swimming home upstream to lay the eggs of life they’ll never see. I/we may never know where this Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus has gone or will go.
As the current cultures unravel and compost, more of us are remembering to listen with deeper hearing, well, deepening all the senses, to live in our priceless magical, enchanted, deep feeling ways of tending Mystery, Earth, each other; of songs, mythos, dream, deep imagination, conversations between the species, poetry, prayer and more. Following the way of soul pilgrimage. The conversation l’m writing now, could not have been written or had readership/listenership in the mid 1990’s. May the effect flutter on …
~~~~~
Honouring The Dawn Water, Djartgarro Beeliar - Canning River (Swan River),
From the last Earthsongwave on 1 April 2025, I’m finding delight today in seeing and hearing the voices as l read again the deepening experiences, stories, songs and revelations of this year’s Ceremony. Particularly this year weaving again with Amy Tuttle in North America/Turtle Island and Jenni York (In this season of Djeran, 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.) in Western Australia. The following notes weave something of the song notes from the post-ceremony Councils in Scotland/Alba and Western Australia. Whilst Council voices are usually held only within the Council itself, there was feeling among us for the voices to be shared and ripple out. These are just a few voices, though maybe there will be resonant notes with you wherever you are:
“I sit in the forest, drumming..
moved by the colours in the sky and clouds -
soft pink in the blue grey, which deepen into a
deep rose before lightening into a pale gold which
transforms into an ever richer deep gold. The golden
rays stream through the leaves of the tree tops and
gradually the dawn light spreads across the land. My
drumming is accompanied by multiple birds singing
their greeting to the new day. My own wild song joins in
and l feel joy and gratitude to be alive and joining the
wave of songs sweeping westward. Deep connections -
and perhaps the blessings of the Ancestors of this land.
Later that morning I remember a song by Lloyd Fell -
written with inspiration and sharing from three
Aboriginal men - the song is
“I can hear my colours singing”.
Jenni
~~~
“Listening, noise buzzing in the garden, standing,
astounded by the music/sounds everywhere,
seagulls wheeling with song, trees, birds far and near.
Takes my breath away; listening for a while, quite a while,
lost as to where l fit; then found l was whistling; head
surprised by mouth, then aware heart was beating
like a drum and realising no need for me to do anything
apart from letting my body move with my heart. …
l’m a human being that these sounds and this heart are
joining the song; then quietly start humming and gently
singing and the song, something about creation singing
together, the word that keeps repeating is
‘together, together, together’ and l’m watching Holly
listening … she’s wandering and wagging her tail. I catch
sight of her in position not seen before in middle of garden
sitting in a peculiar way, a collie, usually ears up listening
alert. But not here, she’s slouched sitting, not making a sound,
a strange position, just listening, like deeply listening; sounds
are just going on, birds from every corner striking up their songs,
l’m there with all, part of it, all together, together …
Shona, Lake District, England
~~~
“We rose just before 6am to the beautiful sounds of the magpies singing in the distance. In the clear air of the Porongorups they sounded amazing. It was like a call to us to join them, so we dressed and headed down a little road into the bush and tall trees. We sang both familiar songs and then a spontaneous response to the beautiful bush land and being in the fresh air and peace of this unique area. I felt I could see my song flying onward over the hills, on and on as part of the huge chorus. We both felt we were part of a bigger wave of song surging forward across the land, over the sea and onwards around the globe. This dawn chorus had become a sacred movement of which we were a tiny part and which the birds were leading in their delight over the earth.”
Jenny and Chris, Western Australia
~~~
Mike remembers a story he was of a blind girl who can’t see in the dark but imagines a bee as ‘this big’ with her hands wide showing enormous.
“The darkness is fading. Over the years I’ve grown to like the dark and to want the dark, and not as a … people talk about the darkness as being a fear of something there. It’s a beautiful cloak of the dark, a velvet darkness when I can’t see my hand. It’s like, wow. My body is there but I don’t have the light to show me my body is there so I’m just in this space which is incredible to … we’re all in this space anyway but not see myself is wow, exciting. I’m excited with the birds and it’s familiar, not only because I hear a lot, but a depth of familiar in family, together, connected like the blind girl finding a way to be known that we didn’t know of her … nature’s simplicity … and art which is also this experience in the dawn together. Trusting ‘All is being attended to’.” Scotland/Alba
~~~
“… Perspective shifts. If a hundred years was a minute this tree would be seen popping up like a fresh daisy.
People walking and running around the lake with dogs, babies, partners. Long-legged spoonbills steadily gathering their breakfast from the muddy lake bed. Flocks of swifts dancing in zig-zags to catch theirs from the air. Six white-tailed black cockatoos fly over, calling among their group on their way to somewhere. A pair of pink and grey galahs groom each other at the top of a lamp post. Six ducks sit quietly on the grass, while a pair of muskovies wander, yarning before flying a couple of rounds of the lake. Grebes duck under and up, under and up as they fish. Seagulls float gently by themselves till a surprise has them lifting in a synchronised wave over the trees and away. Light catches a plane high above, a silver metal bird cruising through the busy swifts from where I’m looking. …”
Glenys, Manford Park where traditional songs move through her, with river as lover, and many birdsongs ripple across the noise of traffic and morning bustle in the park, Western Australia
~~~
“Singing. The sounds of birds,
standing drooling,
‘a stew of sounds’,
listening to each one and
being drawn out …
memories: going to work
about to put on bike helmet
and had to wait 10 mins with glory
of sounds. With a peripheral vision
incase something not seen … words …
music … I can hear and feel and understand.
Words I sometimes find … I don’t know …
music touches instantly,
music teaches instantly.
John, Lake District, England
~~~
342 million years ago apart from the airplane vapour trail and iron mooring ring as fastening a moment in time. Whitesands, Carboniferous Fossil Beach, East Lothian, Scotland. wrf
“As I step outside my door … I smell a new smell. I’ve stepped outside this door uncountable times and yet here is a new smell of dawn arriving, a kind of musty sweet freshness. I follow a call to a place along the coast where carboniferous soil is also fossil hollowed in places where trees were uprooted/taken.
On the curving stretch of beach, a raven close by this human singing before the sea, before dawn and before him, head tilted, curious; stays for a long while as light and colours shift.
I wander along to the carboniferous rock. The sun begins to appear above the sea’s horizon. There is a space between the sunrise and low clouds. He’s lingering there becoming the shape of a gold band ring; a marrying of the worlds. He’s lingering there; a bar sounding. My heart opens wide in the note, in the miracle of the moment, of every moment.
I wander further round the curve, with a slightly different angle to sun. Where the seagrass is too, the sun is yet to rise and I see the sunrise again in this place that could almost be any time over eons, coal seams visible just below the soil surface. How can I not bow in praise of ancient and new, of continuing and momentary presence.”
Wendy, Whitesands, East Lothian, Scotland/Alba
~~~
Eilidh offers their way of creative poetic call and response with birch. “Our body held by the tree trunk, and the music began ~ each voice felt within as a note on a xylaphone”
This is the spiral of notes~ as they sung:
~~~
The Council continued in deepening conversation in Western Australia. In Scotland we returned to another deeper round of Council with even more deliciousness as more connections remembered in “welcome” dreaming and forgotten memories of experiences entering with questions like: “I saw a star, a single star in the zenith gently fading, like should I go out while the stars are fading and join them together? What sound do stars make? How do they sing to us? (John) Leading into chain threads of memory; of standing stones in Ardnamurchan and walking widdershins in a deeply felt energetic conversation. His memory led to my hearing the title of this last post of Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus as widdershins ringing.
Shona now notices that when joining in such Councils, “Where is my place … when joining in … it was happening for me. When l join in Councils my heart is very aware that it’s here”. She quotes “Man’s learned to listen so that his heart may join the universal chorus.” Elizabeth Sherrill
So it is that we make different connecting song threads within and with each other as our sharing deepens bringing further aliveness and wonder in ourselves and into these places in the world with notes we might otherwise miss. As l’ve heard said, the world needs our aliveness. Maybe a completely different kind of activism, ceremonies. Often too obvious to mention, yet …
I wonder what further song threads will be made in you as you read here.
One of these threads that struck Jenni when we met post-Councils was the image of the gold band/bar (see above). She’d been up in the early hours that morning participating in a drumming course, drumming the I Ching which is in flat solid full/half bars! We all know and experience these mysterious unplanned moments, don’t we? Like when Jenni and l met in Sage Canyon, Colorado, where l spoke of the vision of Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus with a small group of people for the first time and manifesting visions. Love when these mysterious and synchronistic moments also happen the other side of the world and wonder about all the ones that are there all the time but we don’t know it;).
Regarding these Councils Jenni and l note that it is the simplicity of everybody’s ‘own’ knowing when offered invitation, pause to listen, to pay attention, and with space to speak; that Mystery is at work in everyone’s life regardless of whether they know it or not. Everyone is moved, surprised by their experience, hearing others’ and being heard. Listening for what/who’s next … inviting ever deeper intimacy.
Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus was also a way to invite experiencing embodiment becoming embodied, being embodied as an aspect of Earth ecology and attunement. Of course, one of the invitations of Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus was not only to be in this ceremony once a year, but to live it into daily life, to live into widdershins where magic happens. Which way do you choose, daily?
~~~
Artwork contributed by Doug Van Houten in 2018
Tomorrow l will be in ceremony of grief, gratitude, praise and celebration of beauty. I will be releasing this song-spear-arrow of Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus into the world. Praise and gratitude to the songs of the sitka spruce forest, coyotes, the last ever male Kauai ‘O’o, whales, stone, atoms, terror, moon, butterfly, snow leopard, boar, cauldron, snowdrops, imbolc, yew, robin, earth, the Gods and Goddesses, elk, longing, canyon, breeze, oxygen, the dark, toad, bird song, mass extinction, rivers, mosses, kangaroos, wild singing, ocean, the dark, indigo bunting, beauty, hydrogen, my brother Roger who was a musician passing through the veils from Australia during these years, of the silenced and murdered ones by the colonising powers, the ones who didn’t forget, the remembering and reminding ones, tending songlines and land’s aliveness, song-dancing, eucalyptus trees, the dawn, jarrah, hooded black cloak, machines, monster, stars, ephemeral wetland, feathers, bones, walking, waves, a holy song … … … … and, as Shona received, “together, together, together.”
Maybe if you feel a resonance, you too might hear a call to ceremony in your song-full way of releasing Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus into and with the songs of the Earth, increasing the resonance song.
I’d like to write a book so that all these beautiful contributions made and offered can still linger in a place to be read and find their way in and with other music and contributions of Earthsongs and widdershins. We’ll see where we are taken … This particular portal is now closing.
I’ll lay the website portal down with a ‘human’ quote from Báyò Akómoláfé that Hilary Leighton sent earlier this year:
“The point of the departed arrow is not merely to pierce the bullseye and carry the trophy: the point of the arrow is to sing the wind and remake the world in the brevity of flight. There are things we must do, sayings we must say, thoughts we must think, that look nothing like the images of success that have so thoroughly possessed our visions of justice.”
and from the blackbird (and herring gull) song before the dawn on 2 April, 2025
Blessings ~
Wendy Robertson Fyfe/Pi’A/Holy Woman