Breathe. As I write this post a day in advance, the headlines continue to deliver awful news -- not just about the continuing horrific toll of this virus but about the rampant bigotry and xenophobia of this administration and this president, who has now declared his intention to suspend all immigration to the country.
I have a lot of feelings about this, as you might imagine. But (I remind myself): breathe. There's space for this anger, and there will be time to fight battles; but today, in honor of Earth Day (by the time this gets posted), I choose to pay attention to other things. To the morning sun pouring in through the windows, and the pink blossoms on the trees; my older cat dozing inconveniently on my lap as I type; the birdsong that greets me and my wife as we wake each day (now that we've decided to stop making NPR our morning alarm, since the birds have much more cheerful news to share on their twitter platform). The other day a fat and astonishingly red cardinal lit on the branch outside our bedroom window and just sat there for several minutes, announcing its presence to me and looking quite satisfied with itself, before flitting off. And I was reminded that much of the planet's life goes on, as creatures return to the spaces we've retreated from and shyly or boldly declare themselves: completely unconcerned with the ways we humans are hurting each other, and perhaps grateful for this reprieve from our clamor and toxicity. The world's gone quiet; and in the silence, maybe we can catch a glimpse of what will truly endure.
Here's a lovely song that my friend and reader Daniel introduced me to. "The Lost Words Blessing" is part of a cycle of songs created by eight UK-based musicians in response to The Lost Words, a gorgeously illustrated "spell book" by writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Jackie Morris. The authors lament the removal of several "nature words" from a popular British children's dictionary, and resist the growing disconnect between people and the natural world by celebrating selected creatures and plants, using poetry and art to conjure them to vivid life. With movingly evocative music, the artists of the Spell Song project do the same:
Walk through the world with care, my love
And sing the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
The song's video shows the project's creative process (and, ultimately, its reception by audiences) as musicians Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Kerry Andrew, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter, and Jim Molyneux, along with book artist Jackie Morris, share ideas and spark off each other to craft sublime sounds and images:
Lyrics here.
I love the quietness of this, the music emerging from birdsong (I sense a theme here), the notion of naming -- and singing the name -- as a means of making the thing real. It calls to mind our most fundamental and ancient narratives: the naming of the animals in Genesis, or the Dreamtime in Aboriginal Australian traditions, when creator-spirits walked the land and sang the world into being. The naming makes the named thing seen, and forges a connection with us; perhaps this affords some small measure of protection from the obliviousness and ignorance with which we injure so much of the world. As author Macfarlane says, "We find it hard to love what we cannot give a name to. And what we do not love, we will not save."
And even what cannot be saved can at least still be named before it vanishes, for naming is a form of witnessing: these things once were here. This, too, is resistance.
Even as the hour grows bleaker,
be the singer and the speaker
And in city and in forest,
let the larks become your chorus
And when every hope is gone,
let the raven call you home.
BONUS: You can hear the rest of the Spell Songs on this YouTube playlist. They're all hauntingly beautiful and I highly recommend them.
Find out more about the Spell Songs project here.
Here's a beautiful video of Jackie Morris creating an otter painting in real time, as she recites the otter poem from the Lost Words book to bring the animal into being:
A short excerpt from a BBC feature with Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, describing the impetus behind the book:
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Listen to the Spotify playlist here.
Watch the YouTube playlist here.