Earth Pathways Showcase

We are the ones who tend the fire
Keeping the glow of hope alight
Like the scarlet berries the Holly bears
Rich food for the birds at Midwinter’s height.
When skies are grey and the world awash
With conflicts and wars and lack of trust,
We are the ones in our deepest hearts
Who burn with the love the Earth awaits.
We are the ones we are waiting for.

We Are the Ones © Jehanne Mehta 2019

There is life in your feet when you walk on the greenway
You can dance up the flowers and regrow the trees
And the pulse of the soil feels the beat of your dancing
And the flows of the earth feel the warmth of your feet
There is life in your hands when you walk on the greenway
At your touch feel the stirring of sap in the stones
Feel the trees pulling free to peer over your shoulder
And the fields of the air spreading widening wings
For someone is emerging when you walk on the greenway
A widening smile ripples into the air
Feel the tingle of shoots reaching out from your fingers
Unfurling of delicate leaves in your hair
For the changes begin when you walk on the greenway
The roots reconnect with the sky and the stars
And your heart is the ear that is tuned to the earth’s way
And you are the song she is listening for
Will you walk on the greenway, walk on the greenway,
Walk on the greenway with me?

The Greenway (song lyric) © Jehanne Mehta

Come you spirits of the Earth
And show us how to work with you
That the Earth may be healed

Come you spirits of the waters
And show us how to work with you
That the waters may flow with life

Come you spirits of the air
And show us how to work with you
That the air may reverberate with the sound of the word

Come you spirits of the light and of the fire
And show us how to work with you
That in the light may be born the flame of love

And come all you spirits of those who have died
And show us how to work with you
That the Earth may be transformed
Through the power of that love.

Invocation to the Elemental Beings © Jehanne Mehta

This is the time of the mothering dark,
the crow black mantle of earth in winter.
She is withdrawing her flame to the centre,
holding it close like a secret treasure.
The meadows are white and the last leaves are tumbling.
Small birds flock together for forage is scarce.
The way now is down, waking each to a kindling,
kindling of love in the fire of the heart.

The Mothering Dark © Jehanne Mehta

We are interwoven with the wild, always. The untapped edges of ourselves creep into the underside of our consciousness. Brambles and goosegrass, sticky with unstoppable affection, tendrils of clematis, bryony and sweet honeysuckle, entangle in the unmapped reaches of our souls, where the Earth speaks in green whispers of the deeplight we have forgotten. Opening the ears of our hearts we hear the melodies of flowers and know the golden palms of the sun behind the sun, dispensing blessings on our upturned faces.

There is an endless sky beyond the sky, roots reaching deeper than rocks, where luminous seeds are awakening, and a wild laughter, encoiled around the spindle of our spines.

We are the garden where the deeplight emerges laughing, hand in hand with the wild edges of the world.

Wild Edges © Jehanne Mehta 2015

This place is ancient, a place where the roads meet,
Showing lines in the landscape that were laid down by stars.
The wisdom the earth has been holding in secret
Begins to be known again as the years pass.

This place is ancient, a place where the trees grew;
The groves of great yew trees and later of oak,
Where creation was honoured by the old ones, the wise ones
And this place still remembers the words that they spoke.

This place is ancient: great stones mark the sunrise,
The moonrise and star-rise, the cycles of time,
Where the land holds the key to the wide cosmic dance
And we learn where we came from and how to return.

But this place here is new, it is under construction -
Far stronger than stone is the love that we share.
This place is inward. It points to the future.
This place is a temple because we meet here.

This Place (song lyric) © Jehanne Mehta 2009

I am beech, ash and oak
I am the giants with no name
You fell me with fire and the saw
I am healer to the air
Twin brother to the rain.
Call me Lord in the Green
Call me Lord in the Green

Cutting off at ground level
Cutting off at the root
Shut out the vertical dimension
You lose sight of the wood
You lose sight of the wood
Smooth over the surface
But there’s no depth to the soil
Cut out the vertical dimension
Close the door into your soul
Close the door into your soul

Strip the leaves from the branches
Burn the branches to ashes
Pluck out your own feathers
Pluck off your own wings
Unfasten the weather
Unfasten the wind
Inherit the hurricane When you cut me down
I tree, sheltering, Lord in the Green
I tree, living wood, Lord in the Green

I am king in my country
Taking care of the ground
Where I am gone it will be hard so hard
To put any new roots down
To put any new roots down
I hold the dyke against the desert
I catch the stars in my limbs
There are creatures that curl
In the crook of my arm
Where the wild bird stoops and sings
Where the wild bird sings

In leaf wave and wild wind
I will speak to your soul
I will remind you of the one great tree
That is the frame of the world
The living frame of the world
Planting wherever you wander
At every turn in your path
Restore the vertical dimension
Become the roots of the Earth
The new roots of the Earth

I am beech, ash and oak
I am the giants with no name
You fell me with fire and the saw
I am healer to the air
Twin brother to the rain
Call me Lord in the Green
Call me Lord in the Green

Lord in the Green (Song lyric) © Jehanne Mehta

Far below in skeletal depths
you are one with the rocks and crystals.
The intricate branchings on your bones
mirror the layers
of Earth’s histories and her strictures.

Hidden seismographic sense
seeps into awareness,
when she shudders in her turnings,
shaking your mortal rhythms. . .
and you join in her sleepless vigil,
unknowing of her deeps within you.

Is this a memory of our ancient kinship?
Or a calling to
a new kind of knowing, where
from rocks and clay
to subsoil, soil and living crust
to roots, branches and unfolding leaf
we feel Earth’s pulse,
each of us embodying her ancient life
as true as human breath and heartbeat,
still informing all futures we could ever dream of
(though electro-death could mask them)
out of the glowing sun,
out of her tumultuous,
hope-engendering and ever-living.
centre.

Skeletal depths (Song lyric) © Jehanne Mehta 2017

Chorus:

Where the bees sing in the apple trees, the rowan and the pear,
With oak and ash and hazel bush and blackthorn everywhere,
In thickets laced with bramblethorn, where the small birds loudly sing,
The ancient trees of Albion still blossom in the spring,
Yes the ancient trees of Albion still blossom in the spring.

We need to look with different eyes, learn to listen with the heart,
Between the roar of the busy roads, to prise the world apart.
Beyond the towers and radio masts, the steel and brick and glass,
Another land is still awake and waits to welcome us.
But surveillance of another kind is active everywhere,
Where the Green Man peers through your windowpane
with flowers in his hair.
He knows your every thought and whim. He knows your very deeds,
Where you sprayed the toxins on the land to destroy the living weeds,
Where you sprayed the toxins on the land to destroy the living weeds.

Chorus

Oh, lay aside your mobile phone, your tablet and your screen
And look how every branch and twig is spiked with shoots of green.
From the hawthorn and the holly tree, the willow and the birch,
The secret sun is bursting out as far as it can reach.
And before we go let’s not forget the ancient yews of old,
With their roots and runes and mysteries and their purses full of gold.
Come gather in community among the budding leaves,
And we shall find ourselves again in the circle of the trees,
Yes we shall find ourselves again in the circle of the trees.

Chorus

The Ancient trees of Albion (Song lyric) © Jehanne Mehta

The last pear...
It hangs, perfect, a golden drop of ripeness,
swinging with the autumn gales
but still attached, among the yellowing leaves...
such fullness
even with your eyes
you can feel the rounded weight of it,
as if your hands held it
cupped in gratitude.

Every morning we look for it.
Has it dropped yet.
smashing onto the terrace below
its beauty, its bounty, gone at last?
And still it hangs there, daring the weather,
a single festival of nature’s offerings,
ephemeral manifestation of all that is sweet and
freely given,
an earth blessing.

The Last Pear © Jehanne Mehta 2017

“What are they doing
so rapidly to-ing and fro-ing
in and out of the tall grasses?”
The dance of butterflies at high summer
is mystery to us.

There is more than one gate
into otherworlds:
the space between numbered station platforms perhaps;
the soft swish of fur coats and out,
through the other side of the ancient wardrobe;
the invisible crack in sheer rock,
opened at the smite of a wand.

And this:

in the old cemetery amid grey stone crosses,
where ripe timothy, cock’s foot and fescue
dip their seed heads down over trefoil, yellow rattle
and pyramid orchids,
here, the weaving of butterflies
swift, intense, directed,
is the creating
of a silvery web, an entrance
into the ethers
that we do not see,
complex, ravelled, intangling, diaphanous
lifting our reverent hearts to a beyond
we can only sense
in the ineffable silence of the dance.

Marbled whites, speckled woods
ringlets, meadow browns,
gatekeepers of the invisible.

The Silence of Butterflies © Jehanne Mehta 2017