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.
I’m tingling with wonder for so many moments in this, I can’t choose a favorite. Yes to “darkness serves as a womb for beauty.” And yes to your insight about “let nature take its course.” And yes to unspoken, uncomplicated communication. (Could the shared language be love?) As I listened and read your passage about black-white, either-or thinking, I thought, that’s the left brain with its need to sort, name, judge. Fortunately we are blessed with a right brain to communicate with blackbirds while sitting contentedly in the grass. Thank you, as always, for this sweet dose of beauty.
She delivers a beautiful rendition that brought a tear to my eye, tbh.
Paul specifically wrote the song for the black women of the US civil rights movement, so the "dark black night" that the blackbird is singing in can be understood as Jim Crow America.
I have a health condition that often makes me wake up in the middle of the night to adrenaline dumps that make my heart race, and I just woke up to an especially bad one. I started humming “Blackbird” (probably because I was listening to the new cover by Beyoncé yesterday) as humming can help your vagus nerve calm down, and opened my email to find your newsletter. Serendipity! I have been working on holding space for duality in my life and moving away from binary thinking, and I appreciate what you said about labeling things in your life as good or bad. It helped bring an awareness to the way I do that too. I definitely label adrenaline dumps as bad, when they’re actually unpleasant, but morally neutral. Thanks for giving me something to ponder.
"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." This was beautiful, Chloe, and I love how you suggest the image of the One Song of the Universe and then turn us back with "the Blackbirds know well that with a new season must come a new song."
"Death is not coming to get us, Death comes to transform us"
and
"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."
These are the two things that reached out to me here. (Obviously everything reached out to me, finding its way from your spring down to our autumn, but those are the two things with the longest arms).
Some day someone will assemble a book called "All the things Chloe said" and it will be full of rich quotes that make you nod and settle into the deep acceptance of life and nature. Thank you for enriching my morning, Chloe 🤗
PS yesterday we did a Forest Therapy walk around the Royal Botanical Gardens here in Melbourne. It was good, drawing on the Japanese tradition of Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing), which I must admit is a most romantic feeling to think that being beneath the leaves you are being constantly showered with the exhalations of trees.
With unsurpassed beauty she offers a truth to ponder. I could cease tearing at it during my time alive .Then I could neatly cut away the ingrained darkness . I could breathe the word without trepidation. Death would not need a label of ‘the end’. And maybe my last sigh will be sung fearless, in the light. I would add my “Swan song” to the Universe. A worthy goal.
I will try, as I am a never ending ‘work in progress’.
…and there it is, the perfect phrase to encapsulate what I was very clumsily communicating in our email exchange this morning: “darkness serves as a womb for beauty.” 🖤
That binary--good-bad, us-them, dark-light--is so much a part of the human psyche that we rarely tease it out. Thank you for this thoughtful look at how it cuts us off from the actual world and from an understanding of ourselves.
Your essay reminds me of my mom, who was completely colorblind, meaning she saw life in shades of gray, plus black and white. Helping her navigate a world where color is used in so many kinds of signaling--for good or ill--gave me an enduring understanding of how much of life is gradations, not either-or opposites. She was considered legally blind because of her color vision challenges and serious nearsightedness, but she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California-Berkeley and later, magna cum laude with a masters in library science, and flourished as a school librarian. I am grateful for her example of seeing the world in complex ways and refusing to be daunted by her challenges.
I too have a hard time keeping myself from making value judgments, and often, upon spontaneous introspection, discover that I treat myself as apart from everything around me, instead of a part of it. Listening to Sam Harris and Alan Watts has helped somewhat, in that I have a better theoretical understanding of the state of mind I’m looking for. In practice, though, it’s very hard to reach consistently. Thank you for this lovely piece, Chloe.
Wow! What a surprise! I am a new reader too and was really taken off guard by your writing - it is amazing! Your choice or words and the way it is all put together seems like it must have taken a lot of thought and effort and soul searching thinking pondering but yet this essay just flows so smoothly. I love it and everything you said in here resonates with me so clearly nothing I bristle at or can think to add but Bravo my friend. You are lovely! Looking forward to reading more from you!
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful heart and reflections.
The sparrow is the second most populous bird in the world, but only just. They are also native to the lands Jesus walked. They live side by side with humans, so we have all seen one species or another. They even eat whatever they find, preferring seed and insects.
Sparrows are truly common birds. Yet, we have the word of Jesus saying that each is cared for and noted by God. His creation is all special to him and he knows when his creation is hungry, in trouble, sleeping or thirsty. He knows each of these thousands of birds and cares. Even the death of one his creatures does not go unnoticed by him. Isn't that amazing?!
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
areyoutheZeitgeist? the boundaries of life and death are disappearing more and more for me these days - death is a mystery, life seems ever more strange, huge, incomprehensible
your words are a warmth in the coldness of interstellar space
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.
I’m tingling with wonder for so many moments in this, I can’t choose a favorite. Yes to “darkness serves as a womb for beauty.” And yes to your insight about “let nature take its course.” And yes to unspoken, uncomplicated communication. (Could the shared language be love?) As I listened and read your passage about black-white, either-or thinking, I thought, that’s the left brain with its need to sort, name, judge. Fortunately we are blessed with a right brain to communicate with blackbirds while sitting contentedly in the grass. Thank you, as always, for this sweet dose of beauty.
Coincidentally, I already had this song on my mind, as a good friend had just sent me this link of
Beyoncé covering the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhempeEjGUA
She delivers a beautiful rendition that brought a tear to my eye, tbh.
Paul specifically wrote the song for the black women of the US civil rights movement, so the "dark black night" that the blackbird is singing in can be understood as Jim Crow America.
I have a health condition that often makes me wake up in the middle of the night to adrenaline dumps that make my heart race, and I just woke up to an especially bad one. I started humming “Blackbird” (probably because I was listening to the new cover by Beyoncé yesterday) as humming can help your vagus nerve calm down, and opened my email to find your newsletter. Serendipity! I have been working on holding space for duality in my life and moving away from binary thinking, and I appreciate what you said about labeling things in your life as good or bad. It helped bring an awareness to the way I do that too. I definitely label adrenaline dumps as bad, when they’re actually unpleasant, but morally neutral. Thanks for giving me something to ponder.
"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." This was beautiful, Chloe, and I love how you suggest the image of the One Song of the Universe and then turn us back with "the Blackbirds know well that with a new season must come a new song."
This piece made me think of Edward Thomas, that great poet of the countryside, who so often wrote about birds. In his poem The Brook, the blackbird is part of a moment out of time: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53749/the-brook-56d2335518e67?locale=en
I also recall that Thomas died in April 1917, a victim of the slaughter of war, just as the blackbirds were singing the spring into being.
"Death is not coming to get us, Death comes to transform us"
and
"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."
These are the two things that reached out to me here. (Obviously everything reached out to me, finding its way from your spring down to our autumn, but those are the two things with the longest arms).
Some day someone will assemble a book called "All the things Chloe said" and it will be full of rich quotes that make you nod and settle into the deep acceptance of life and nature. Thank you for enriching my morning, Chloe 🤗
PS yesterday we did a Forest Therapy walk around the Royal Botanical Gardens here in Melbourne. It was good, drawing on the Japanese tradition of Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing), which I must admit is a most romantic feeling to think that being beneath the leaves you are being constantly showered with the exhalations of trees.
With unsurpassed beauty she offers a truth to ponder. I could cease tearing at it during my time alive .Then I could neatly cut away the ingrained darkness . I could breathe the word without trepidation. Death would not need a label of ‘the end’. And maybe my last sigh will be sung fearless, in the light. I would add my “Swan song” to the Universe. A worthy goal.
I will try, as I am a never ending ‘work in progress’.
Thank you with all my heart, as always.♥️🪽
(I am off to see if anyone hid a chocolate
egg in my garden…)
…and there it is, the perfect phrase to encapsulate what I was very clumsily communicating in our email exchange this morning: “darkness serves as a womb for beauty.” 🖤
That binary--good-bad, us-them, dark-light--is so much a part of the human psyche that we rarely tease it out. Thank you for this thoughtful look at how it cuts us off from the actual world and from an understanding of ourselves.
Your essay reminds me of my mom, who was completely colorblind, meaning she saw life in shades of gray, plus black and white. Helping her navigate a world where color is used in so many kinds of signaling--for good or ill--gave me an enduring understanding of how much of life is gradations, not either-or opposites. She was considered legally blind because of her color vision challenges and serious nearsightedness, but she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California-Berkeley and later, magna cum laude with a masters in library science, and flourished as a school librarian. I am grateful for her example of seeing the world in complex ways and refusing to be daunted by her challenges.
I too have a hard time keeping myself from making value judgments, and often, upon spontaneous introspection, discover that I treat myself as apart from everything around me, instead of a part of it. Listening to Sam Harris and Alan Watts has helped somewhat, in that I have a better theoretical understanding of the state of mind I’m looking for. In practice, though, it’s very hard to reach consistently. Thank you for this lovely piece, Chloe.
Wow! What a surprise! I am a new reader too and was really taken off guard by your writing - it is amazing! Your choice or words and the way it is all put together seems like it must have taken a lot of thought and effort and soul searching thinking pondering but yet this essay just flows so smoothly. I love it and everything you said in here resonates with me so clearly nothing I bristle at or can think to add but Bravo my friend. You are lovely! Looking forward to reading more from you!
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful heart and reflections.
The sparrow is the second most populous bird in the world, but only just. They are also native to the lands Jesus walked. They live side by side with humans, so we have all seen one species or another. They even eat whatever they find, preferring seed and insects.
Sparrows are truly common birds. Yet, we have the word of Jesus saying that each is cared for and noted by God. His creation is all special to him and he knows when his creation is hungry, in trouble, sleeping or thirsty. He knows each of these thousands of birds and cares. Even the death of one his creatures does not go unnoticed by him. Isn't that amazing?!
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Matthew 10:29~31 🤗
areyoutheZeitgeist? the boundaries of life and death are disappearing more and more for me these days - death is a mystery, life seems ever more strange, huge, incomprehensible
your words are a warmth in the coldness of interstellar space
‘darkness serves as a womb for beauty’ gaahhh! Gorgeous and true as always Chloe 🐦⬛🤍🌿
Thank you for the wonderful correction on "letting nature take its course."🙏🦤🙏🦖🙏