Introduction from Holly Wilkinson: One offering that the WholeHeart Scholarship Fund supports is self-designed listening sessions for intergenerational and BIPOC community members with the intention of extending welcome, being in solidarity, and increasing collective well-being, dignity, and relational justice. Sometimes, connections begin best at the individual/personal level where relational trust can grow according to its own rhythms.
This post is a gift to the WholeHeart community written by Joelyn, Oja and Aisata, whom I had the honor to work with last summer as part of an independent learning project, “Earth Listening Practices,” supported by WholeHeart and Mount Holyoke College.
Centering listening with Earth, primarily in the landscapes of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, invited embodied knowledge of the whispers and ways of many earth languages.
Introduction from Joelyn Mensah: This past summer we three, Joelyn, Aisata, and Oja, had the profound pleasure of partnering with Holly at WholeHeart to carry out a summer project centering listening practices with the land where we dwell. We discussed how hollow listening practices can be when we leave out a deeply rooted and attentive practice of being and listening with the land.
We wandered for hours in the mountains, growing into knowledge of the many medicines of the land and prepared meals with the foods we harvested while hiking. We learned to sail together with a mentor from the community, practicing navigating the wind, waves, and shimmering sun as we wove through a web of tiny islands and rock formations off the coast of Maine.
The seeds planted within the gardens of our hearts during these summer months have grown quietly in us, weaving roots and unfurling leaves, forming a gentle guiding voice within each of us that carries clear and true.
Short Story: Whispers of Wonders
There was a bird calling back and forth with a beloved through the misty morning air, filling the sky with an aroma akin to sweet bean dumplings. A child filled by a hasty fire of rage, killed the bird with stone and sling, then continued along, stomping, trying to smother flames of anger.
The fog lifted, revealing millions of tiny crystals suspended on leaf, petal and thistle. Dew drops kissed the toes of a wandering tinker, as the tinker came to a standstill before a rare treasure. Teardrops fell like soft rain, mingling with the dew on the earth below, as the tinker knelt and gently lifted the fallen bird. Often mistaken for a common blackbird, this rare kind of being had only been seen twice before by the tinker. Knowing there was to be a feast the next day celebrating the rest moon, the tinker plucked and cleaned the feathers leaving them drying in the breeze, then offered the flesh of the rare bird to friends known far and wide as the alchemists, because the food they shared could transform the heart of any being into gold.
In the afternoon of the rest moon, a child was stomping along, trying to smother embers of anger. The child walked through a yard filled with captivating and slightly odd assemblings, when they were stopped by the sight of feathers suspended on silky twine and shimmering in the sun. The feathers spun gently, their hues whispering stories of magnolia nuts as deep as the night, the velvety purple of freshly roasted cocoa beans, twinkling with chaga cracked open to reveal rusty orange sunset, and crashing with waves of midnight-blue sapphire reflecting the silver moon.
The child turned to see if anyone was watching. As they swayed on their tippy toes, reaching, a most magnificent smell came and wafted the child away. The beings of the village gathered in the streets, following the parade of the rest moon, led by the alchemists with the feast.
A bird, gliding beneath the fullness of the rest moon, cried out the song of one whose beloved is far beyond their reach, searching for some sign of their loved one gone before them. Below, tucked in a hut amongst towering Pine, Cypress, and Oak trees, sat a painter illuminated by candle light. You see, it had been many moons, more than they could even remember, since they had remembered the gold of their heart. But this night, flickers of anger they had been stomping shifted quietly within them, after they had been gifted a magic quill by a gentle tinker.
Wind caressed beneath wing, carrying a lonesome bird adrift, sending the lamenting calls to swirl with the quill and dance with the flames.
