The Call of the Land
I hear the land.
It whispers to me, bids me come.
Listen closely, do you hear it too? What’s that?
No, you say?
Ssh. Listen again. Not with your ears, silly. Oh, of course you can’t help but hear the song of the robin or the clear melody of the blackbird as they call out their lusty songs, even as darkness holds sway, and the clock moves through the early morning hours. But what use of clocks has the land? Here, at this moment, time is measured in the passage of the stars across the sky, the glimmer of the sickle moon and the brightening in the east.
But I’m rambling.
Let me show you how to listen, not with your ears.
First, you have to be quiet, so quiet until your own heart sounds loud and your breath like the wind. Quieten your mind and leave the stress of the day behind. Leave people behind and the world of man. Not for long, don’t be alarmed, but just long enough to hear. People can’t help but get in the way. It’s what they do, taking up space, always demanding, never once knowing the sensation of their heart beating in tune with the earth and the land around them, their breath the wind that moves through the boughs and makes the trees sway and creak. That’s for later. Now, though, silence your words, your thoughts. Let them go.
How does that feel? Good, I expect.
There is a blessed release in not having to speak, to think, of just being. The letting go of expectations, others and our own.
Now it’s time to feel, to listen with your skin, with your heart and soul. Feel the cool morning air on your bare skin. It dampens this early in the year and is cold, but within it there is something else, the moisture that will soon alight on grass and catch in the spider's web, that will dampen skin and cling to hair and the scent of the incoming spring mingled with the delicious, forbidden musk of the night. Can you feel your body delight in the thrill of the cool dark? Does it sing as goosebumps rise and nipples stiffen?
Yes, that’s it, take down your hair, let the wind delight in it, let yourself become a little more wild.
And what of the ground you stand upon with bare feet. Do you feel it yield and give beneath your weight? The softness of the moss covered ground, the steadfastness of what lies beneath. Listen closely, can you hear its beating heart? Feel it rise up through the ground, a slow rhythmic pulse that joins with your own beating heart, a siren song that’s alluring.
Yes! That’s it! Let your body sway now that it has picked up the throbbing pulse, the beat of the land.
Listen to the accompaniment of the robin and blackbird. You’ve heard their song.
No, keep your eyes closed.
Feel their song, let it make your heart ache with the beauty of it. How close they are, here and there, perched in the boughs above our heads. Hear the replies that echo across the sky, no vaulted arch did ever amplify the sounds as beautifully as the dark morning sky. Does it fill your body with a tingling sensation? And the dog that barks now, feel that too, a melancholic addition that enhances the beauty of the moment even as it threatens to pull us back into the realms of men and work and the lie of the civilised world. Not yet, but soon.
But the call of the land, once heard, lingers still.
You feel it now, don’t you, can hear it rush in your very blood. Do not be afraid, you’ll get used to it soon. Every moment that passes it will rise and grow, a crescendo that keeps on crescendoing, growing ever louder like the roar of the storm tormented sea, until you give in to it and dance its song on moon lighted moors and shrouded woods and lonely places forgotten by most, but that is for later. Tonight’s lesson’s done. Away with you now, the dawn is almost upon us, look how the light grows in the east. Time to creep back indoors, to climb back beneath the sheets with dew cloaked skin and wildness in your heart.
What about me?
I’ll linger a while longer, I think, for the land's song is different for us all. It still whispers to me, bids me come, see in the day, bear witness to the newness of it.
Stay with me, it whispers, just a little while longer still.
EMMA KATHRYN
Emma Kathryn, practises traditional British witchcraft, Vodou and Obeah, a mixture representing her heritage. She lives in the sticks with her family where she reads tarot, practises witchcraft and drink copious amounts of coffee.
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