Earth Pathways Showcase

A hare breaks cover
and runs the length of the field
like Spring freed from the thrall of Winter.
Two red kites whistle overhead,
two ravens twirl upside down
their wing tips lightly touching
in a ritual dance of ancient mating.
The winds are gusting cold,
the blue sky is patchy,
my joints feel stiff
and my intentions for the year are sketchy.
But the snake is out of her hole.
The snowdrops, now Cinderella rags
are passing on the mantle to the wild daffodils
and I am here
before breakfast
running the field with hare,
on that wing.

On That Wing © Debra Hall

I live in a small rented cottage with my husband on a remote estate of native trees, hill lochs and mountains, beside the long distance walk, the Southern Upland Way. From our front doorstep to our homemade gratitude bench is a path I walk every day. As soon I put my foot to the ground I feel relief.

When we talk about loss of species what we also mean is the kinship we can’t do without: ravens in the park, their fierce intelligence and jaunty walks; a dragonfly warming her wings on a sunny wall, her three hundred million years of ancestry; deer down from the hill browsing, bluebells after a night of rain that send us home from the Spring woods elated; a blackbird standing sentinel on the blossoming blackthorn under a fine crescent moon conjuring a love song from the heart of the Earth; smells in the hedgerows at Midsummer that we want to crawl into and peer out of. The Green Man soothsaying his enigmatic wisdom in what we need more than words, fresh leaves sprouting from his mouth and ears. Ecocide still whines and scratches at the door as we sneak outside to lace up our boots. But these encounters in the cool of first light or lingering warmth of late evening are pockets of light that leave us feeling consecrated.

My Daily Earthwalk © Debra Hall

On my walk home Hare appears
like the moon in an afternoon sky
I feel her before I look up
and see her
uncanny in profile
her all-knowing amber eyes, kohl-lined
her haunches like a woman’s.
Like a pop up shop she will be gone
before I get used to her.
She doesn’t have time for despair.
She has a bigger heart chamber than other creatures
and in folklore is protector of all wild animals.
She belongs to the old stories that stoke the fire
and bless the hearth.
On a bigger arc than our lives will witness
beyond faith, deep space, the witch’s broom nebula
(where wise ones have always gone for a brew,
always will) is the Unchanging
where nothing can stop the final word being
Love.

Hare © Debra Hall 2020

Once upon a time, time was humane. Sane, spacious. Time was the phases of the moon, the Earth’s tilt towards and away from the epicurean sun. It was the patterns of the stars. It was whole, a measure of soul. It engendered balance and wonder. Four thousand years later time is linear, a mind-made bully. ‘Alarm’ clocks keep our nervous systems in a state of fight or flight, and our immune systems inflamed.

Slowing down to organise our lives around the seasons and cycles is not a luxury extra. It is a radical necessity. The global climate crisis cannot be solved by external solutions, artificial intelligence or new technologies. Solutions need to be led by the Earth on her terms. The festival days are our soul’s watering holes where we ritually recalibrate. They are how we bring in all the tender ways of the sacred. They infuse our energy with joy and gratitude, making us more effective.

On the festival days themselves we leave our homes as if on paws, on the wing for a feast of noticing what advice the ancestors want to tell us through which herbs, birds, animals, stones, trees. The indigenous Grandmothers of all communities know this. It is how they become the Earth and the Earth becomes them, why we must seek them out and listen.

The Earth’s Time © Debra Hall

She says: I am the World dancer, the igniter,
Snake Goddess, Great Goddess, womb of all becoming,
the skins I shed are epochs, millennia.
I am Pachamama, Universal Mother,
holding the soul of the Earth I gave birth to, safe.
I am the fertile void looking out from the eyes
of every sentient being.
I am the eternal flow of giving and receiving.
I am Matrix, Creatrix, Generatrix.
I am the unified field of consciousness everything shares.
I am Vision and Invocation,
Seer, Shaman and Soul-maker.
The womb is my drum, the moon is my drum,
the sun and earth and stars are my drum.
I am also woman, this woman
dancing on a patch of earth in my garden.
Dancing so my soul can experience a thousand inscapes,
dancing so my spirit can be penetrated by hope,
dancing for my next step forward.
I am the answer to the call to live everything.
I am the life of life, Love itself, the ground.

World Dancer © Debra Hall 2019

Midwinter
nature rests
in quiet darkness,
darkest of darkness,
a pause, a stilling, the end of a breath,
life lies beneath the earth,
resting in darkness.

Awaiting the sun’s return
together on this dawn hill
anything is possible
especially love.

Joyful, the sun returns
over the dawn hill
everything is possible
everything is Love.

Winter Solstice Song © Debra Hall

May this moment reach in and find you
May fear and pain never bind you
May kindness touch you and guide you
May your friends love you and mind you
May the earth nourish and uphold you
May the air breathe and expand you
May fire heat and ignite you
May water cleanse you and flow you
May the moon illume and soothe you
May silence still and refine you
May spring quicken, inspire you
May summer blossom and feast you
May autumn ripen and harvest you
May winter deepen and rest you
May your heart cherish and open you
May your soul sing you and dance you
And may death always remind you
To live the vastness inside you

Earth Blessing Song © Debra Hall 2016

It was snowdrop time, the end of winter and the very first tender stirrings of spring. The moon was a bright crescent sliver high in the afternoon sky. Snowdrops were scattered in clumps across the hard compacted ground like tiny votive lights, promising the return of warmth and new life. The lengthening days were brimming over with the magic of possibility. It was another chance for a fresh start, for everyone.

Every colour known to nature was waiting patiently beneath the ground: the velvety soft yellow of primroses, the elated blues of spring and summer skies, the bridal white of hawthorn blossom, rosehip and rowan- berry reds, the golds, russets and oranges of leaves in autumn and every shade of grass-green that a hungry old horse has ever seen. All were rolling, snaking, undulating and blending beneath the earth, poised to take over from the ever-dependable evergreens and recolour the land.

In a cave below the hillside, Bridie had been sleeping beneath the huge fur coat of Sol, the winter she-bear. She lay still in the dark... listening. She opened one eye and pushed her fingers and toes into the loamy earth. It was definitely warming up. The shortest days, the darkest nights, the deepest dreams were done.

Imbolc – Gateway into Spring (excerpt from Bridie’s Story) © Debra Hall