This post was written by Lydia Brown, Matthew and Emma Nelson, long-time members of the Pachamama Alliance Rochester Area Community in New York. 

Rootsongs is a monthly Earth listening gathering offered through our local Pachamama group in Rochester, New York. It’s an adaptation of an adaptation: born from the “Sanctuary of the Wild” gatherings, themselves inspired by Victoria Loorz’s Church of the Wild movement. When those gatherings went into hibernation this past spring, they composted the soil for a new seed. Rootsongs sprouted in May and we’ve hosted two gatherings so far.

Each Rootsongs ceremony is a simple but potent ritual of Earth connection. We begin by singing together, then spend 20 minutes wandering until we feel a call from a more-than-human being. We sit with that being, offering gratitude and a listening heart. Then we gather again, share reflections, and close with song. The whole gathering lasts about 1.5 to 2 hours and takes place in a local Olmstead park.

Why this park? Because it’s where we live. My wife and I, with our toddler, have spent many weekends and weeknights strolling, playing, lounging, laughing, and crying there. At our first gathering in May the lilacs were in bloom, and at our gathering in June the rhododendrons revealed their cotton candy magnificence. Underneath the beauty, there is also grief. We know this is not how our bioregion—Western New York (aka the unceded territory of the Huadenosaunee people)—appeared to beings who have inhabited it through the millennia. Nor is it necessarily how it wishes to be now especially as invasives, like Black swallow-wort, march in their legions across open fields that were once dense forest. Even though it’s a curated landscape—far from how this land once looked—it holds deep meaning for us. We’ve spent time with the trees here: oaks, pines, maples, chestnuts. We’ve found that, even if they are not native to this bioregion, there is still so much they have to offer and much that we have to offer them in return. 

This is a form of what Indigenous cultures refer to as sacred reciprocity. This bidirectionality—giving and receiving loving attention—has been powerful for our own ecological awakenings, so we wanted to share this with others. Through ritual, song, and listening, we seek to shift from an extractive mindset ("What can this place give me?") to a reciprocal relationship: "How can we live in right relationship with the land we inhabit, even when that land is colonized and altered?"

Two elements make Rootsongs especially unique: song and children. Song draws us together and carries us deeper—beyond words—much like poetry or dance.  We’re grateful to have a songtender with deep eco-spiritual roots who helps lead our ceremonies. Children, too, are vital. They remind us of deep time, and we get to model new/old ways of being with the Earth—such as listening to the land—a capacity that has been lost to so many in our culture. As parents of a toddler, we’ve felt the importance of including families often excluded from these spaces. At our first gathering, our child was the only one present. At the second, other parents came with their little ones. Two of us stay back with the younger children while the parents have the freedom to take part in the ritual. If the children are old enough they take part as well. It’s a joy to make these gatherings more accessible for families, and participants of all ages have expressed their delight to have children as part of the group.

We are still growing into this ceremony as we humbly learn how to make beautiful, imperfect offerings in a broken world. But we hold deep gratitude for the chance to gather in ritual space, to listen, and to give thanks. And we sense that the Earth is grateful too.