Birdsong – Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane
This week on the Wednesday Blog, I extol the virtues of listening to our bedfellows in nature.
For all our pretenses of difference from the natural world as political animals in Aristotle’s words we remain a part of the great fabric of the Cosmos itself. In those moments when we find ourselves at a loss for words, for what to do in our lives, I suggest remembering that no matter how political we may be, we are all still animals. We all still are creatures created through the process of evolution and natural selection after many generations of formation to become the species we are today. Our very nature is tied with this long distant memory of Eden, of a time when our ancestors still lived amid the flowers, the vines, and all living things.
We remember less the perfection, which seems remote to our sensibilities like some sort of a nebulous dream that will burn up as soon as the Sun of our rational minds awaken in the morning, and more the shame that ended that dream. We’ve covered ourselves all too well, with our trappings of civility, our industry, our commerce, and our shows of strength. What remains of that dream that may once have been our reality? It is but a shadow cast by a passing cloud upon the land below where we live, seeking a truth we can’t be sure is real?
Yet in those moments when I am most distressed, most beaten down by life and work, all those things I do, I try to remind myself to go sit outside a while and listen to the birds. Their joyous singing tells of another time when we too were free of the cares that we’ve burdened ourselves with. Birdsong is to us an echo of a lost world, just as the stars burning bright high above us are an echo of worlds, we imagine we might one day come to know and understand. In the great moments of sorrow and trouble it’s best to return to the purest form of joy there is. The simplest voice often has the finest chorus in this great cosmic play of life.
So, take a moment to go out today and listen to the birds and all the other wild things, for at some level we have more in common than we lack. I for one long for a day when I can sit in a garden, close my eyes, and listen.
Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane 