the language of eartheart

 

political / economic language saturates our daily lives but it is our choice whether we speak it or not. It is a language of shares, investments, insurance, security, profit and loss leading to winners and losers. Words make stories in which everything is a commodity, measured in terms of productivity progress and usefulness. A language that denies Nature Feelings the Earth and Love.

The orchestra is playing. It began at dawn with great open bellied laughing, then slightly more  melodic tunes ,peeps whistles whips and trills until it is riotous in the sweetest possible way. The songs continue as I drink my pot of tea, eat toast, follow me as I meditate, dress, sweep the kitchen floor , brightly busily slowly, tuned in to the day they chirp cheep chatter and warble.

This symphony is full of purpose expressing vital news marking the patterns of their lives of the Forest around them; sunrise, egg hatching, a flowering, a seeding, storm alerts, approaching snake goanna human, matings, deaths, sunset, all is jotted in the Forest ledger, all a note played in the orchestra of Birdom. Everywhere wrens honeyeaters magpies thrushes pigeons tawny frogmouths, skinks wombats wallabies and bandicoots are communicating the Radiance of Life on Earth.

Thunder cracks open the swollen skies, runs away over to the Mountain and races back again. I am lying on the couch reading when the thunder and lightning Beings skip into the room whip crackling the air, chuck a bright flare of light and startle me.

Rain has a huge vocabulary, a vast repertoire of moods sounds and feelings . There is the song for splashing, for plopping fat drops, tapping on window panes, a pelting drumbeat on the iron roof, a windy slapping against the tree trunks and a gushing gurgling rushing flooding along creeks tracks and drains.

Some days it broods far above, squatting on the Mountain wearing  a grey beret. Cloud mist drifts around inviting the faintest speck of moisture on the cheek. Other days rain scarpers out to sea with barely a backward glance, where it visits Mother Ocean and shares a cuppa. In its own sweet time it returns to the valley rejuvenated committed to the business at hand and delivers a soft shower or a teeming heavy pelting drama.

Why would we think that Water is not cognizant, that Earth is not aware, that Air is not tuned in, that Fire does not know us? We are forged from the Elements , related to every drop, every breath, every molecule.Exif_JPEG_420

There is a Song for the ghost mushroom, the elder flower, pittosporum , titree, lavender  of scent and beauty , bee foraging , bioluminescence ,oils and medicine. I inhale , take them into my body – a draught of pure sun drenched essence Sings in me.

The dialect of frogs – croaks cricks stutters bonks hops and leaps in  communication with Earth and reed, Water and soft mud, hibernation dreaming, forecasters of rain and water quality.

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The ripe summer peach is a rich feltness in my mouth, dribbles along my fingers and chin singing of tree limb and bough, of bud blossoms leaves fruit and birds nests, sun, rain, wind and days measured in ripeness and angles of the sun and spiders that weave between branches , worms burrowing in the roots and squealing children that swing up on branches and chuck pips at each other .

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Hard working ants push up the soil – a drainage technique for them that informs me rain is coming.

Every Being has language, every Being shares their Story .

Stop !  listen and learn a language older than the stock market, older than open cut mines, older then human intervention.

This language of Nature, of Life is ancient, a lineage that holds Creation in its Song. One day we entered the story inventing our words / myths around the camp fire, Songs of respect and awe, humility and gratitude until we dug up the uranium, clearfelled the forests and greedy gobbled dry the rivers.

It was then we changed the words to deny Beauty . It was then we allowed fork tongue speak of rational logic to lock out the weeds and sunflowers that nod as you walk past, the cloud that stoops to peer in through the window, the dripping tap in the kitchen saying hey I am Water, we are Kin. It was then a Forest became a compartment and the share price of google was more important than the River the Platypus and the Child.

Now we are going forward determining outcomes while the Raven sits on the wire, keen eye piercing , aaahh aaahhh aaahhh.

Probably time to embrace the full embodied experience of connection, time to learn the language of the Heart that communicates with all Beings.

Time to come home.

Come back to Earth.

x

 

 

 

 

 

 

hungry for home

summer solstice looms up

the days long and buttery with sun light penetrating deep into the forest that has been activated by intense heat and much rain.

I am home after three weeks in New Zealand staying with dad and hanging about with sister  nieces  nephews and cousins. being a bit of a ‘black sheep’ in my family my ways seem strange and weird to them. they politely wonder when I will grow up and get a real toilet that flushes and consider it odd that I take my own bags shopping and refuse the plastic bags on offer when they are free ‘you know’. the restrictions they perceive I live with on a solar-powered energy system seem crazy when electrical appliances are so numerous so handy and so time-saving.

I cannot explain myself – planet earth is a far off idea and the role of spirit in our lives has yet to be proven. my family embraces newer bigger better in their modest middle class way – nice people, loving and kind people but like the ditch that separates us our ideologies are not a good fit. still we muddle along while I am there, enjoy each other and hold the peace.

I brought the rain back across the ditch  and it stayed its hand until on the day we left Canberra to drive home.

and then the heavens opened.

in the back seat was me and Kingston john plus red dog and all his friends. he was bravely and excitedly making the journey to grandmas and granddad without mum and dad . in the front seat was Elsie rose and guide dog Chloe with John as driver . the car was chock-a-block and I had a mountain of stuff at my feet and piled all around me. the little fella was not well and we had a very disturbed night at our friends place with aches and pains all over the place. I hoped he would improve once we got home to the forest.

leaving our friends Kingston noted that one of red dogs companions called wait for it ‘building site penquin’ was missing and despite a search party effort by Glenda an rob he did not show up. with a teary lad we said goodbye.we backtracked across the city to pick up Elsie and Chloe who had also been visiting – the sky was threatening and black. as we packed her stuff into the car thunder ripped thru the air and rain poured down.

not the least bit daunted but hungry for home we sallied forth thru a darkened city slick with water.  the car decided to muck up acting all sluggish. after getting every red light possible and a lot of cussing John decided we had to head back to our friends place. we were lost in a shrouded foggy world – cars moving slowly wipers at full speed sheets of water across the roads… it was eerie and disconcerting. then the car came good and a communal sigh of relief was exhaled. we headed onto the highway out-of-town at which point a wiper on the driver’s side went missing in action.

that stopped us in our tracks and so we sat on the side of the road with no visibility in torrential rain wondering what the blinkers was going on?

Kingston clutched red dog tightly and fretted repeating often I just want to go to your place grandma. we ate some bread shared some water and waited……….

it eased ever so slightly and without the wiper working  john turns us back to rob and glens driving with the window down so I  get wet in the back seat . a tighten up of the screw restored the wiper and a spot of lunch a cuppa some rescue remedy restored us.. well except for Kingston who didn’t want to eat and kept complaining about a sore mouth.the good news was that ‘building site penquin’ had been found and tied to a chair so he couldn’t run away anymore. there was a touching reunion and he rejoined his friends while we debated pushing  for home or staying in town another night and reconnecting the boy with his parents .often when sick only mum will do but he is a very accomodating little fella and didn’t seem all that fussed.

and so it was after a very long day of intense rain and exceptional driving skills in which a three-hour journey warped into an all day affair we arrived on the south coast and knew by the rise of the rivers and creeks that it would be unlikely to get in our causeway. we dropped elsie off home and continued on out to our valley seeing water in places never seen before. we realised that we dont usually drive around when it is teaming down.

it is flooded says Kingston intrigued by our disappeared causeway. yep there is no way home tonight we tell him as we sit staring at this river over our road.  back to aunty’s we go.

well one cannot argue that the signs weren’t in our face the whole day . our neighbour recorded 17 inches of rain and this became the first time in 30 years that we have been flooded out and unable to get in home.

after another rough night with a lad that needed to sit on the dunny every 5 minutes Sunday dawned sunny and around lunchtime we attempted home again. the causeway was now passable and three and half weeks after I had left I made it back to the forest.

I am always pleasantly surprised and relieved to find that my reality is waiting for me when I return. that the wallabies are still snucking up onto the verandahs when we aren’t looking, the swallows are teaching their second batch of bairns to fly and forage and the garden is a wild glory after so much rain .any idea of paths and boundaries are fast disappearing.

how is it I live in one world ‘over there’ and then return to something so similar and yet so very different.– a bed is a bed love is love and yet something indefinable intangible and undeniable sings to me here in this great island land – the dreaming plucks at my hearts strings and brings me joyously back into myself.

I have just read that .5% of australians are classified as homeless and those are the ones that show up on stats and it is  estimated that perhaps as many that again  are also without shelter.

I am one of the lucky ones and for that I am immensely grateful.