Awash in Birdsong: Finding Joy and Meaning in the Quiet of Quarantine
Almost two weeks ago — it was a Monday — I let the dog out and stepped into the morning light. It was Spring-appropriate warm, a gentle breeze stirred the treetops, the air smelled slightly of pollen. And all I heard was birdsong. Boisterous, cheerful birdsong.
It hit me: this seasonal chorus of chirps would normally be drowned out by cars starting, busses picking up neighborhood kids, and the din of traffic from a main boulevard less than a mile away from my home.
Instead, with us humans mostly tucked away, it was just breeze and birdsong.
It reminded me of a passage in Mark Nepo’s “Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What is Sacred.” I read this book with my maternal grandmother a few years back, often from our favorite perch on my mom’s country porch as watched the seasons change. This was one of our favorite passages.
“Consider how some days we wander into a wash of birdsong and are filled with the quiet music of the Universe. But no matter how we linger, the birdsong fades and we must enter our day. Other days, the birds seem to come out of nowhere, from behind buildings or under bridges, and their song covers us with an invisible mist that reminds us: life is so much more than the machinery of our tasks. But they swoop on, taking their sweet medicine with them. Either way, we are refreshed and left with the work of listening: to keep the song that comes out of nowhere alive in what we do, wherever life leads us.
Truth often appears to us like the song of these birds. We wander into a wash of it and, no matter how we linger, it fades. On other days, truth seems to come out of nowhere to remind us how rare it is to be here at all. Then off it goes with its refreshing medicine and we are left with the work of keeping the song of truth alive in the days that remain. This lifelong conversation with love, wonder and truth is counterpoint with pain, loss, and obstacles is how we dilate and constrict our way into the essence of our aliveness.”
Take a moment. Maybe you close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, allow these words to settle into your consciousness and echo through your body.
“... life is so much more than the machinery of our tasks.”
Perhaps life isn’t so complicated after all. We humans just make it a big, complicated, conflicting tangle of tasks. And in this time of quiet quarantine, perhaps all each of us really needs to do is listen, sit back and receive: birdsong, wisdom, joy, purpose within and without.
I hope you take time today, away from the din of news, social media, stir-crazy family members, work and personal projects to sit, awash in freeze and birdsong, held by Nature and all that Is.