Postcards from The Hedge - Dispatch 8 - The Music of What Happens
“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”
- Robin Wall Kimmerer
Braiding Sweetgrass:
Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge
and the Teachings of Plants
Welcome to our eight dispatch of Postcards from the Hedge. This month's care package has been prepared by our founder Kathy and our core faculty Maria Scordialos & Vanessa Reid.
Dear Ones,
This Postcard from the Hedge bears the last fruits of the Summer. And comes to you from Glendalough in Ireland, Axladitsa in Greece and Montreal, Canada,
As the Wheel turns we find ourselves halfway between Lughnasa and the Autumn Equinox. We are immersed and saturated in Harvest Season - a time of appreciation of the Earth and her bounty. We can see, taste and savour the fruits of the season. We can feel this reciprocal relationship and sacred bond with the Earth. This is a time to honour all that we have been gifted. The wild heather or fraoch is blooming here in Wicklow casting a stunning spectrum of purple, lavender and fushsia pink all around the Glen.
Eight years in September 2013 ago we produced a large -scale series of cultural events called Rites of Passage at The Trailblazery. This is where our first Hedge School Series was born. Maria Scordialos joined us from Greece and Vanessa Reid from Canada. You can watch their trailblazing moments below. Little did we know that we would join forces in 2020 to lead a virtual Hedge School for a global learning community.
We are also harvesting here at the Hedge School. We are pausing to listen to the music of what happens and witness what wants to unfold. We are pausing to appreciate, collect, glean and gather the fruits of our harvest
In the Fenian cycle of Irish mythology , Fionn Mac Cumhaill was a mythical hunter-warrior and leader of the ancient Fianna (also known as the soldiers of destiny). One day, the story goes, a discussion arose among the followers of the legendary hero as to what was the finest music in the world.
"The cuckoo calling from the tallest tree in the hedge," said one. "The ring of a spear on a shield," said another. Others named their favourite music - the belling of a stag across water, the song of a lark, the laughter of a girl.
"Tell us chief," asked one of the men, "What do you think?"
"The music of what happens," said Fionn, "that is the finest music in the world."
Here in Ireland, I am following the pull of something ancient that has been calling me for some time. We will be announcing an exciting new offering here next week . Tá sceitimíní áthas orm - I am in rapturous excitement.
Watch this space....
From Maria -
Apollo, still brings the sun each day, yet he rides a little lower, which means we are moving towards the time to harvest the grapes and then the olives. In parts of Greece, however, this year’s harvest will not happen as over 300,000 acres were burned across the country, the worse in north Evia, our second largest island (150,000 acres burned), ravaging pine forests, olive trees, crops, homes, livestock, pets & wild animals. People and communities who have been stewarding land and forests are left mourning, in deep grief, some wondering how they will make a living. Money from the government, plans to reforest with low burning trees and place wind farms with cement bases are threats to the regeneration that naturally will take place so that the ecosystem can thrive again. Now, we should not be meddling with the Earth, instead, it is time for people to turn to one another and engage in the work that reconnects as Joanna Macy has coined. It is time to harvest from our despair, and empower ourselves to continue stewarding the land, live with it, listen to how to rebuild, replant, repair and replenish
From Vanessa -
In Montreal today, the tilt of the light has shifted telling us that, soon, the blooms of summer will shed. The trees will offer one last stand of glory before the darker days of our famously long winters arrive. We can count on these seasonal cycles. Except, we are seeing floods, fires, droughts and hail in such extremes that we, and our current infrastructures, are simply not prepared. Our seasons are out of sync.
The world is in a swirling. These are revolutionary times. And with every revolution, Death dances hand-in-hand with the emergence of the new Life. It seems the pandemic has brought death right to the front room of our collective lives and psyches. This is a liminal time. Where are we? Where are we going? Who are we becoming? We need to learn collectively how to navigate massive unknowns and unpredictability. Our human and natural worlds are, and will, be encountering unfathomable change - and we are being called to show up to meet discomfort and possibility in new and edgy ways.
This is not work we do alone. And so we turn to each other. Fluency in the death-life-rebirth cycle is an initiation and these are meant to be in - and for - community. We have discovered through Hedge School that when we turn to each other, and our kin in the wild world and greater mysteries, we are able to ask the questions that break our hearts and relieve our souls’ longing. It’s a powerful thing to ask. Even more so, to be open to receive, and then move in the world in new ways. And as we reconnect with our roots, rituals, rites, our strengths and our shadows we can, as our Guide Pat McCabe says, take our rightful place in the sacred order of things.
Enjoy these golden days - may the light be yours.
Beannachtaí
Kathy, Maria , Vanessa and all at the Hedge School
Hedge School Highlights
Put on the kettle, make a cuppa and watch some golden moments from our Hedge School musicians and performers who remind us to mind ourselves, each other and this place we call home
Recommended Resources
Here are a few watching and listening pieces inspired by the Hedge School to mind you in the days ahead:
♪ Listen: For you ears
Robin Wall Kimmerer | Sounds True
✦ Smell: For your nose
&RITUAL oil blend in this sumptuous Moon Box
✯ Watch: For your eyes
Maria Scordialos for Rites of Passage The Trailblazery, 2013
Vanessa Reid for Rites of Passage The Trailblazery, 2013
Stephen Jenkinson on The Meaning of Death
Vanesa Reid on Conscious Closure and the Wild Life of Dying
Read: For your heart
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants | Robin Wall Kimmerer
How to do Mythology Properly | Sharon Blackie
The Boyhood of Fionn | Sacred Texts
“He was a king, a seer and a poet. https://sharonblackie.net/how-to-do-mythology-properly/He was a lord with a manifold and great train. He was our magician, our knowledgable one, our soothsayer. All that he did was sweet with him. And, however ye deem my testimony of Fionn excessive, and, although ye hold my praising overstrained, nevertheless, and by the King that is above me, he was three times better than all I say”
✬ Connect: For your Soul
"The Work that Reconnects helps people discover and experience their innate connections with each other and the self-healing powers of the web of life, transforming despair and overwhelm into inspired, collaborative action"
- Joanna Macy | Work That Reconnects