One of the richest, most joyous experiences of my life thus far, incarnating at this time in this skin, is the opportunity to partner myriad other forms of sentience – physical, non-physical, interdimensional, far-distant stellar – toward a shared vision of planetary consciousness. Yes, in the human sphere I have wholeheartedly engaged my ‘respiratory quotient’ of tasks – the age-, time- and culturally-framed journeys of learning, loving, mothering; nurturing, facilitating, serving, educating. But a point came where I had the chance to expand, exponentially, my sphere of conscious interconnectivity, hands held on a shimmering diagram-of-equals, a plane-of-consistence with all manner of worldworkers a-task for Gaia.

While much of my ‘apprenticeship’ in self-sovereign solidarity with a community of like- minded (subtle and not-so) practitioners took place in the trial and error school of ‘intuition’ and ‘back-to-the-drawing-board’ reflection, a longer-than project of ‘Gaianeering’ evolved out of my explorations with David and Jeremy’s ‘Card Deck of the Sidhe’ and companion text (‘Conversations’). A partnership – of ‘Sidhe, Star and Stone’ (with little me) – is documented in a book available from Lorian Press (‘Awakening’). But my purpose herein is to share a delightful anecdote of synchronistic happenstance in our more recent history.

See, we work ‘Blue’. It’s as simple and colour-chromed as that. A full spectrum of (subtle) blues – glacial through midnight, between source, sea and source. My Sidhe companions of the ‘Way of Love’, whom I call Amici (friends), live in a ‘blue’d’ world; our work is undertaken on behalf of Gaia, our crystalline-at-core ‘Blue Planet’; the ‘starblood’ in our (shared ancestral) veins presents as ‘blue’, and the ‘liquid light’ we flow through the watersheds of the world (leyline’d – land, sea, sky) likewise. Meanwhile, a blue ‘fire’ inhabits the most potently energetic stellar presences of our ‘TeamSky’ family while in the heart of ‘TeamBerg’ (i.e. mountains), ‘blue-starred’ latency is just itching to manifest.

In developing our practices to weave (blue’d) Light between Star and Stone, vertically, horizontally, working five directions and elements, the Amici and I were guided by several wisdoms Mariel shared with David in ‘Conversations’, including: ‘(A mountain) is a major conduit through which the energies of stars and earth meet … (it) is for us not a geographical feature as much as a presence and an energy field’ and ‘You are in touch with the life within matter in ways we are not … We know the voices of starlight but you hear the voices of the fire within earth and matter.’

These wisdoms self-generated as Song – singing up the connection between stellar energies and the ‘stars within the earth’ in the spirit of the Aboriginal Dreaming songlines of my down under homeland; the simple fact is ‘an unsung Land is a dead Land’ in their mythology, and to which I equally attest. I may have acquired a second homeland in the meantime (Heidi’s Alps, tinkling cowbells and all), but Song is no less entrenched in this (yodelling) part of world. It may be a different quality to the ‘silence’ which purrs in the peace-sunk subtle bones here at the heart of Europe, but its resonance speaks as purely and unmediated to my inner ear.

Mariel told David: ‘You stand for the earth in its cosmic environment, mediators between stars and planet and midwives to the fullness of Gaia that emerges from this relationship …

We bring the stars to earth. But we can only bring them so far; there is a threshold we cannot cross, but you can, if you will dance the stars inward and outward with us’.

Our shared singing has taken myriad forms over the years, most latterly weaving a thread of Peace Love Light across the land – 470kms, tuned to my footfalls – to re-connect spirit and geology, ‘quarry and stars’, with blessing shells sourced from my (Pacific) eastern sea wild origins plopped into rivers lakes and streams along the way. Each tasting sweet water for the first time, I can almost hear the burbled ‘yum’ from these salty sea dogs embracing their ‘shock of (new) blue’. A case of hemispheric living at its best, horizont-verticality engaged in spheric planetary clarity, I feel like a bowerbird building his bower to attract the Beloved – each shiny (blue’d) treasure adding ‘star-power’ in its own measure ...

As anyone who interacts with Sidhe can attest, they work hard but their dedication to task is joy-infused, laughter-inflected, innocence-fed, celebration-abundant. I tap into their energy through such joy (whimsy, Bardic poetry and silly songs inclusive), a lightness-of-being infilling body and mind, a ‘grounded fluidity’ (as Mariel suggests we embrace) to be mergent with the wonders of our glorious world. ‘Tis a connection to Beauty we humans oft-bury beneath layers of scrutiny and sobriety. Indeed, each time I become too earnest in my approach, nervous at looming deadlines, or worried about failing at (shared) task, more often than not a practical joke is played to jog me out of the pit of my own despair, to make me laugh aloud, remind me of the ‘Sky Child’s’ wide-eyed, open-mouthed joy to incarnate – here, now – as witness, participant and co-creator in Gaia’s evolution. Each of us is a necessary part of the puzzle, each of us has a part to play in the unfoldment, and I am grateful for my Sidhe collaborators’ support (and prodding) each step of the way.

So it was when prepping a 2018 Autumn Equinox ceremony. I found I had run out of time to write a next ‘Song of the Blue’ as in previous years in honour of the occasion. Each seasonal marker has its own signature songs and texts in our practice, and during this Harvest Moon season of (my personal) all seasons’ close, I had reaped too much; the cupboard was dusty and bare. Fresh out of ideas, I sat on the bed (having done a Marcel Proust much of the day with pen and paper in hand), and sighed. ‘Well’, I said to the collective of presences in the room, ‘I got nothing. My creative gene is all done in. Sorry …’

Suddenly popping into my mind was: ‘Song sung blue, everybody knows one …’

‘Ha-ha,’ I said to MagicMan (principal joker in our Stone Circle crew). ‘Point is I don’t know one, nor do I have time to do one!’ (They must think I’m such a grump.)

Yet, it stuck – as I walked downstairs, as I made brekky (at 3pm). I began humming the tune, I googled its provenance (Neil Diamond, 1972, riffing off Mozart’s 21st). I looked at the lyrics and discovered they’d been written as therapy for a dose of ‘the blues’. What if (I wondered with Faerie-like glee, no doubt with little MagicMan digs in ribs along the way) we appropriated the tune, shifted the dial (from human-centric to planetary-inclusive) and write a song of pure joy for our ‘Blue Planet’, Gaia? Within the blink of an eye, the lyrics seemingly wrote themselves; our ceremony could conclude on the right celebratory ‘note’. Thanks be!

But the story isn’t over yet. Still in Harvest Moon season, I am blessed to celebrate my birthday. As with each year, I collect family members and drag them up a mountain (if the weather gods are kind). But which mountain? A perennial favourite or? By sheer coincidence (or not) I stumbled onto a small item in a random magazine about a remote valley’s attempts to increase tourism by hosting an international biennale of LandArt. The pic to accompany the 10-liner was of a sculpture placed atop a mountain peak; a woman, naked, blue, ‘listening’ to the Earth. Here, I said to the boys. This is where we’re going; I’m going to sing with this ‘Blue Lady’ – together we’re going to sing Gaia’s Blue Planet Blues …

Very fortunately my little piece of ‘performance art’ in response to Lita Albuquerque’s ‘Transparent Earth’ installation could take place, even if I was rather breathless in song. I don’t know much about meteorology; perhaps my Sidhe companions are more savvy (or have better access to the powers than my meagre prayers), because this one day turned out to be the most perfect blue-skied light-breezed autumn’s day possible to scale a mountain. The previous day icy-winded, cloud-scudded; on the following we suddenly had snow down to 1300m. Lita’s ‘Blue Lady’ (at 2300m) was thereafter shrouded in a thick woollen cloak of white. But at the exact moment she needed to be, she was Blue and together we sang true …