Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
Last Spring, David rushed outside to break up a scuffle between a pair of male Blackbirds who looked as though they were fighting to the Death. The Blackbirds parted ways, but one stayed perched on a branch nearby, with one of his legs at an angle which it never should have been. He could still fly, so we had no chance of catching him, but he and David developed quite the bond over the following weeks.
In the early mornings David would put seeds down and then stand or sit on the lawn to keep watch as Beaky (we named him Beaky) stood next to him, eating—seemingly in acknowledgement of the unspoken pact they shared; that David would now look out for him. It’s interesting, how two beings who do not share a spoken language can enjoy such uncomplicated communication.
As David and I were reminiscing about Beaky, he wondered aloud as to whether his intervening was the right thing to do, whether some might think that he should have ‘let nature take it’s course’—a phrase at which I bristle, because it posits ‘us’ as being separate from nature, a notion which seems to cause untold misery and destruction. If we are to militantly let nature take it’s course, we’d best stop availing ourselves of modern medicine, and start dying en masse of sepsis again.
We are inundated by Blackbirds at home. So much so that, shamefully, they can sometimes go almost unnoticed—but, not now. Now it is Spring, and there are mates to be attracted and so the male Blackbirds are singing eloquent songs of their strength, virility and ample territory. David & I were trying to have a conversation in the garden the other day and actually had to move because we couldn’t hear ourselves over a Blackbird, so eager was he to sing of his readiness for fatherhood.
I have never heard a Blackbird singing in the dead of night, though I believe Paul McCartney did and I believe that it spoke to him of a voice and a poetry birthed from within struggle. I don’t pretend to understand the phenomena around poems and profundity often sprouting out of the depths of anguish, though it certainly seems that, time and again, darkness serves as a womb for beauty.
And yet, we still struggle with the archetypal fear of the dark, of the unknown, of Death. The meeting of (and the inevitable brawl between) the human ego and mortality plays out in such interesting ways. There can only ever be one winner, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. Death is not coming to get us, Death comes to transform us, but it is easy to label Death as ‘bad’ because then it is categorised and we no longer need to engage with it (until, of course, it decides to engage with us).
I often notice the subtle but near constant state of value judgement which a part of my psyche is engaged in; ‘tulips’ good, ‘traffic’ bad, ‘David’ good, ‘politicians’ bad, ‘kisses’ good (very good), ‘headache’ bad.
I start to see more clearly the parts of me which need there to be two clear sides to everything—for there to be a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ so that I might align myself with the ‘good’, and in doing so assure myself that I, too, am good.
There is a deep part of me that is trapped in the amber of a belief that if I am good I will be safe, that if I am good my mother will not die—that everything is ultimately black and white, and bad things do not happen to good people. Encased in the falsehood of this golden resin, I do not hear myself as I repeat, “It wasn’t your fault”.
The belief that the Universe, the One Song, might use some binary classifier to sort things neatly into good and bad so that karmic tabs can be kept, seems ridiculous—and yet it is surprisingly hard to shake. Perhaps because sitting in the complex truth of our deeply nuanced, and ultimately chaotic, reality is so fiercely uncomfortable.
That said, Spring, a season rich in miracles, is here—and the Blackbirds know well that with a new season must come a new song. So, I endeavour to allow reality to seep into my consciousness unhindered by label and quick assessment, so that I might, on my deathbed, sing a more truthful Swan song.
Yours in aimless flight…
I am a new reader, and have found a treasure in your writing. Could anyone speak more directly to my heart right now? I don’t think so.
Birds and Death, intertwined. Last year, my 25-year-old daughter died. She was a force of joy and light in the world. She taught me to notice and love birds. We spent joyful hours volunteering at a bird rehab, talking about birds, laughing at their antics and personalities.
Your writing is beautiful, filled with power and insight.
This week’s essay resonates so deeply.
“…time and again, darkness serves as a womb for beauty”.
That line hit me hard. In the early months of my grief I would never have believed anything good could come from my daughter’s death. But over time grief has allowed me to see more beauty in the world, especially in nature. Grief has changed my heart. And I now see those changes as a testament to the power of her life.
Like you, I have never heard a blackbird sing in the dead of night, but I have heard a solitary mockingbird sing on series of balmy Florida midnights. The magic of that song in the quiet darkness, the mockingbird’s message, remain with me.
Thank you for creating this peaceful place of beautiful writing.
We are not apart from Nature; we are deep inside it, as much as the blackbirds are.
The idea that humans are outside Nature comes from the scientific method, where scientists are supposed to act as objective observers. Well, quantum physics threw all that out the window, saying this was not possible.
Humans are neither objective nor neutral observers. We are the same as the birds, except the birds know more. Humans have much to learn.