THE EARTH SPEAKS

A story about our Sacred Planet in a time of vulnerability for all. This is a journey of listening to the earth's heartbeat, perceiving her frequencies and making a commitment to live consciously. Join me as I seek to harmonise with her eco-system through dance, word and sketches.

The running water feels like soft rain on my heart

Big, fat drops melting away the hard lines of town confines

I feel like I'm perched inside the belly of the Great Mother

So vast is the expanse, so all-encompassing is the breath

As I inhale, small as I am

I feel her enormity, a part of me

The sun seeps through one side of me

The cool air from the valley kisses my other side

Alive, my skin excites like a giddy child

The longer I sit here, the more I see...

Her shapes, her form, her endless surprises

I feel blessed beyond comprehension

Yet to comprehend is less important

Than to behold this dearest of moments, unfolding.

Amber Gabrielle, March 2020

Earth Day 2020, Dance of Reverence

As part of Earth Day 2020, I performed this dance live (on Facebook)

Motif Dance Sequence: Forming the languange

This short sequence highlights a lot fo the motif work- that is, the dance language that I've begun to assemble based on the land forms, the energy/frequency that I channel in these mountains. This structured improv will develop into a dance with context and a storyline as I progress in making the Earth Speaks 2020 production.

The last of the gentle sun hits the mountain crests

And washes it, with golds and tawny browns

Soft against the purple mauve of its deep creases

The Stillness is infinite

I feel buoyed by a lightness of being

By the fullness of which I am ensconced in this beauty

Suspended in silence, cast in evening light

Clarity of mind pervades all things upon the Mt. tops

Like big tongues rolling down the peaks to the valleys

A ginormous wonderland

The dots that are houses, that are buildings

Look like ants from here...so small

Yet when I'm here I feel as big as the mountains that surround them

I feel as huge as the energy that presides in the towers of the molten sediment

Energy that transpires through all living things.

I stop and I scent the air

It's so sweet, it's so clear

As I breathe I can feel purity, love, depth, honesty washing through me

There is nothing but truth here

The folds of the hills so surprising

They tuck and roll and mould in an endless myriad of formations

I wonder what grows in there

I wonder what tiny souls live within these mt. folds

I take another deep sip of air...

It's hard to describe something which is so absolute

Is it the lake below that I scent or the small patches of snow on high?

Is it the insects chattering through the grass seeds or the soil beneath?

Is it the residue of the sun rising from the rocks?

Or the animal that passed through them perhaps only moments ago?

I take another huge sip of air

And as I breath I plant my feet firmly into the soil

I feel gratitude surround me, penetrate my every cell

I feel connected to her this Great Mother

I feel her movement inside me

Perceiving the litheness of her body

And these beautiful turns and curls

As if she is caught in many fragments of dance

Freeze-frame you see a movement, freeze-frame you see yet another

She is elusive, can only be seen when you really cleanse the lens

How can I take this beauty with me?

To the busyness and the bustle of my ant land?

How can I bring the hugeness?

The sense that I am part of all that is

When things so insignificant take me into loops of nothingness

The vast emptiness, the vacuous space of endless chatter

Of noise, of thinking this, of thinking that

Of not knowing, but believing somehow that the clanging of drums in my head

Is more real than the sound of thunder

More real than the quiet of this mt. stillness

So I take my final breath of air before I descend the mountain

I fill my lungs, I fill my belly, I fill my feet

And with this thought, I take this space

I promise myself to bring a little of this purity into my world.

Dedicated to my father, Dale Grant Stephens, with love

-Amber Gabrielle Stephens 10.4.20