Singing to the Earth
My journey towards singing to the Earth began in the 70’s when I was home with small children. I was playing some Bach Inventions one day and slammed the book of music shut, saying, “I’m so tired of playing other people’s music!” It seemed later that that announcement to the Universe opened an inner door and my own music started to flow through me . . . just a wee trickle at first. I started writing down what was coming to me.
The music evolved through the years. First came the piano pieces, then songs with words, which evolved into complicated choral music and then 2- and 3-part songs that big groups could learn quickly and sing easily. I recorded and self-published lots of these songs and shared them at interactive concerts. I gathered people to form The Riversong Singers, a 10-voice choral ensemble, so I could further develop the choral music. The music got to be more and more complex until I discovered that one of the pieces was 17 pages long!
In 1994, during a trip to Alaska, traveling around with a back pack, I found that I couldn’t share my music with people. I couldn’t carry around a keyboard or written music or take my choral ensemble along with me. I came home from that trip determined to find a way to walk into a room of people who don’t necessarily know each other or any of the same songs and be able to facilitate our making meaningful music together with just our voices, and without using instruments or lyric sheets or written music.
Improvisation Choral Singing
I gathered a small group of women together and we began exploring how one might go about creating this interactive kind of music. It was incredibly fun! Everyone had such beautiful, precious, fascinating things inside them which they hadn’t known were there until they went looking, and poked around a bit inside themselves.
We were able to bounce off each other creatively and could meet each other on a much deeper level than you can in a group where the music is directed and coming from outside composers. We soon discovered that it was impossible to sing in these new ways while standing or sitting still, so we incorporated all sorts of spontaneous, creative movement with our singing.
Working/playing this way turned out to be a highly transformative process and I spent several years teaching and facilitating classes and workshops that gave people a very safe and supportive structure within which to explore themselves and expand their abilities to authentically express themselves and co-create with each other.
Birthing EarthSongs - Called to New Zealand
In 2000 I met Barry Brailsford (an inspiring NZ author and storyteller) when he came to the CWG Center in Ashland, Oregon to speak. At the end of our lovely exchange he gifted me with a piece of pounamu or greenstone (a type of jade native to New Zealand). This little stone came alive in my hand and said, “Come to New Zealand! Come to New Zealand!” Shortly after receiving the pounamu, the term EarthSong came to me. I made a few attempts to form an EarthSong ensemble in Ashland, but was unclear about exactly what kind of music we would be singing. It soon became apparent that I needed to visit New Zealand before the EarthSong work could evolve any further.
In late October 2004, the urge to go to New Zealand became so strong that I felt I would die if I didn’t. On Dec. 4, as we began descending to land at the Auckland Airport, it felt like Mama Earth reached up to me on the plane and wrapped huge arms around me in welcome. I sat and sobbed as we touched down, feeling like I had truly come home!
A few hours later I was on Waiheke Island and the magic continued for 4 months as I toured around both islands. I then went home to the States, put everything in storage and returned to New Zealand to live in Sept. 2005.
In most places, as I traveled throughout New Zealand, the land seemed to want me to sing to it. Once I settled on the Otago Peninsula on the South Island, the urge to sing to the Earth became extremely strong. When I started focusing upon singing to, and really communing with the Earth, I started receiving the chants (and occasionally songs with words) that I have come to call EarthSongs. More . . . 
