Sam Lee

Full info https://wildwise.co.uk/songdreaming/

As long as there have been people on this land there has been song, and as long as we dwell upon this land a timeless, uniquely human melody will sound from the confluence of culture and contour.

But what is that sound? From where did those lines of song and story emerge? In what language, to what tune, under what belief and through what gesture? What if there was an ancient indigenous Albion ‘dreamtime’ and what hope have we now in reclaiming any fragments of those tune-trails? Why should we even bother?

In old Ireland they say that we get ‘wise by asking questions’. So to access and activate ‘what lies beneath’, which might be our own deeper wisdom, a trail humming with questions may be just the place to start.

Questions such as these:

If below our feet there may be the footprints of the past, tracks sown by song and the passage of our ancestors, how do we, through recollection, reverie and recitation, invoke and map them and turn them into treasure for our times?
Have we the knowing, imagination and the trust in these invisible pathways to tune into those ancient frequencies?
What impact would divining them have upon our navigation of our collective and individual journeys through today’s shifting landscapes?
Impossible questions demand implausible action and this invitation is to step beyond the rational, evidential and quantifiable into a place of soft meditation with our homeland and forge new paths into the earth and into ourselves.

Chris Salisbury and Sam Lee met one another while both in pursuit of old Devon folk song. Their winding paths even unexpectedly converged in the Kalahari desert last year where they were humbled by some of the oldest (human) songs on planet Earth, sung by the indigenous Ju/‘Hoansi San Bushman people.

Their fascination in these timeless gems passed down through the Oral Tradition came from a similar dedication to nature connection practice and a curiosity in how our ancestors expressed their love of the land through song and story. Over the years these questions have tickled at both their chins of how folk songs and composed, even improvised songs, devotional in their appreciation of our natural world, can work to connect us deeper into the land and our senses. Likewise if nature connection skills and practices can be enhanced through songful expression and open up new patterns in our awareness and help orientate our inner compass.

This 5 days of playful, embodied experimentation and enquiry will afford us the sacred space to recalibrate how we engage with the land and converse with our brother/sister nations of plants, trees and beings. Going beyond mere naming and species identification we will surf the wood-wide-web, ‘truffle hunting’ for ‘songlines’ that may still pulse below us in the organic and cultural substrate of Dartmoor National Park.

You don’t need to be a ‘singer’, but we welcome those with big ears and big hearts for the deep listening and feeling engendered in our interactions with the land. If you have an artistic practice that’s a bonus, but if you harbour aspirations to write, sing, dance or just deepen your intimacy with the natural world, then you will be greeted with joy, by us and all the ‘Others’ who are hungry to hear your true name….

We will be camping in a beautiful private woodland site on Dartmoor. See Essential Information section below for more details.

Well, wow! Wow and thanks is my general message from that wonderful Wildwise week. It was literally the experience I’ve been dreaming of for years. Did not want to return from The Enchanted Wood. So a HUGE thanks both to you and Sam, as well as to those Wise Woods of Wonder.
ROSANNA LOWE
June 2021