I Heard Mother Earth - The Literature of Music

I Heard Mother Earth

The Literature of Music Series Chapter One

The theme for this week is the song “Earth Sounds” by the amazing performer Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh – I have included the link, and I highly recommend that you listen to it while reading. He performs his music by utilizing amazing vocals to create a sound that seems to reach something deep inside you that you didn’t realize was there. In this case, listening to the brief but beautiful song repeatedly, a tale of remembrance, and of regret finally formed within my mind. I hope that you enjoy this week’s translation of music to words.

Earth Sounds: Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh

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I walk now as I did then, with feet bare and long soft grass brushing against my ankle. The trees rustle in the breeze, filled with the sounds of life. I can hear them; the birds singing their beautiful songs, as if harmonizing with the rushing stream and the shifting leaves. So many voices, all singing the same song, the same words. The song of the earth, or Mother Earth. She who provided, cared and loved.

Her voice was always there, the undercurrent that guided the tones of all her children. Her music was an energy that fed me when I walked upon her soil. There had been those amongst the people who once called me a druid. They built religions around the great mother, but I did not join them. She was mother not god, and deserved not our worship but our love, care and respect. Others called me delusional. I cared not much for them, either. All I cared to hear was her voice, her song.

I have not walked with bare feet in many years, nor have I felt the grass against my ankle or the shade of the trees. To walk barefoot now would risk burning the very skin from my feet, the hard and cracked dirt baked hot in the merciless sun. The only shade I have known for a long time has been only artificial. I cannot even recall when last I had heard the wind singing in the leaves, the sounds of birds, or the rushing of a stream… sometimes I fear I might have forgotten the song altogether.

There had been a place, once, where I had heard her singing clearest of all. High at the top of a waterfall, the rushing water created a crescendo that was accompanied by every piece of nature, every child of the earth, that heard it. Atop this waterfall I had sat many a day, listening to the mother singing for hours on end. I had wanted no more than that, content only to listen. I had loved mother earth… but never once had I taken it upon myself to speak for her. Would it have been pointless? Perhaps… simply another voice amongst the ignored masses. But now I could not help but wonder… if I had, would mine have been the one voice that finally tipped the balance?

I would never receive an answer. I’ve made peace with that.

I sit here now, on the ledge of what used to me my place of communion with the mother. I have spent many months making my pilgrimage here, through the harsh conditions that was now my home. The world is silent.

I can almost hear her voice again, for the briefest of moments… a memory so strong that I can feel the shade, hear the sounds, feel the dampness of the river. For a moment… I can hear my mother singing, calling me back to that time so long ago lost…

With a final breath, I join her in silence.

Vex Vaudlain