On Saturday 5 May at 3pm Danu Fox has invited a nationwide simultaneous singing and dowsing of our Mary & Michael ley lines, which stretch from the coasts of Cornwall to Norfolk. People in other parts of the country also wished to take part, so now there are singing and dowsing groups all over the country joining this ceremony of thanksgiving through song.
The intention for this ceremony is to give thanks to our lands and to ask that as a species we come into ’right relationship’ with our planet. Danu has asked the lines, where they enter the UK in the west at Carn les Boel in Cornwall, for chants for everyone to sing, and then after that groups can sing other chants or drum and gong. The chants and all the information for taking part are on the Earth Singers Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Earth-Singers/281119381943225
or you can email Danu directly: mailto:info@songbearmusic.co.uk
To explore what has led to this ceremony and to look at some of the inspiration for Danu’s Earth Singer training here is an extract from an article first published by the Natural Voice Practitioner’s Network:
Natural Voice in the Natural Landscape
“Lets go back to the meaning of the word ‘natural’;
‘existing in or caused by nature’
‘the essential or innate qualities of something’.
The COD definition also refers to
‘all the phenomena of the material world’, and
‘wild (existing in its natural state)’ and
‘natural landscape’ ie not artificial or man-made.
We have become divorced from our natural landscape. So much so that for many of us we have to remember to go outside and get some daylight and fresh air, especially in winter. “Inside’ has become the norm and that goes for where we sing also. Climate plays a large part in this but the changes from hunter-gatherer to agrarian, then later from pagan and shamanistic to formalized religion followed finally by the industrial revolution have taken us step by step away from our natural landscape.
Churches amplified certain frequencies of the human voice, giving the affect of the voice coming from somewhere else, a God in the heights, above and outside of us. We gradually we moved away from using the voice outside in our celebrations and rituals. Originally the beginnings of certain early Christian services took place in part outside and half way into the church porch. But over time that also ceased to happen.
So as God moved inside so did our voices along with our spiritual connection, although many of us continue to feel the connection to the natural world individually to varying degrees. It was accepted that one might be moved by nature and inspired to write poetry or paint but to sing in the open? To sing for the trees or the sacred grove or lake? This was perhaps a little too much like incantations and witchcraft.
So where does that leave us now?
We can recognize the level of disassociation from our environment and where that has led us; climate change and the demise of species and people across the globe now a reality. How can we address this? We need solutions on every level.
One way is to start with ourselves and put our voices back where they first started outside in the natural landscape. We can seek out the resonant spaces in nature as our ancient ancestors did. They found the caves and places where echoes abounded and they felt a presence of ‘spirit’ or a connection to the great mystery of life, the source. They imbued those places with sound, intention, ritual and prayers. They fostered resonant reciprocal relationships with their environments. They sang to a place, they felt it respond. The responses informed the actions and soundings/songs which followed and so it continued. There was an ongoing process of sounding the land (see the Australian Aboriginal Songlines tradition and also those of the Sami in Northern Scandinavia).
In many indigenous cultures it isn’t our right to live on the land. We are part of the land and have a responsibility to maintain the reciprocal relationships necessary for every species to keep living as it should.
Reciprocity was and still is the key. Australian Aborigines benefitted from a home and its nurturance only if they took care of their duties in relation to it. This meant, amongst other things, a continual singing and honoring of their lands through song. The constant resonance, a ‘re-sounding’, kept everything including themselves alive, healthy, vibrant and in balance. By singing their land they also honored their ancestors who had created the land and are still there, sleeping or in another dimension. Past, present and future come together for the land and for the singer. A connection to the ‘source’ or the ‘great mystery’ is experienced. The singer and song become the land and this in turn heals imbalance and separation.
The ultimate punishment for anyone was banishment, a casting out, a separation from their homelands. Nothing could be worse than this, with even death being a lighter option.
Inspired by these traditions my passion is to find ways to reconnect to our lands body, mind and soul. The Earth Singers training came from this passion. It combines singing/ sounding with shamanism, nature awareness, medicine wheel teachings and one’s own practical research at home working with your own territories. This combination reconnects people to where they live in a very rich and rewarding way. It can profoundly change the way you relate to your place of residence.”
For details of forthcoming Earth Singer trainings including a weekend at Tintagel, Cornwall in September go to Danu’s website:
http://www.songbearmusic.co.uk
