On the Beauty of Birds and the Joy of Seeing
Memory and Vulnerability in the Commons of Sight
"The ability to truly see is a rare and precious skill. Everyone can glance at a bird, a flower, or a tree. Everyone can look at something briefly enough to register its existence and infer it will be of use for us. But not everyone can truly see a tree, a bird, or a flower - for this involves the act of perceiving it, knowing it, beholding it - and enjoying it. Although we can all in theory ‘see’, too often we have no idea about what we are looking at beyond the bare rudimentaries. To most people, the tree on the street corner is just that - a tree. Its species, history, ecology, health, and conditions are all invisible and unknowable to the casual or uniformed observer.” - Hadden Turner
Oh, how my heart rang! For I knew not the treasures of true seeing. There with head tilted to the heavens, I walked and set my gaze upon the trees and asked the birds of morning, “What’s your name?” but all I heard was singing. I longed to know them, truly know them, not as birds, but each by name, to hear the glory of their chorus in that polyphonic sky. And as the booming voice of Whitefield that trumpets in the air, I heard the words of Turner in the chamber of my core: “[This] is a world saturated with beauty!”
Come now, and hear the story of a love that blossomed in my barren soul. For I knew nothing of nature, and the enchanted world. There was a dark and tarry numbness that settled in my bones. For I am human, and I am human seeking more of what I am. As
rightly stated, “It is also human, I would suggest, to detest that numbness, and to desire fresh sight.” Then on I read with eyes lit and a heart forever flamed,“But more so the fault lies with the consumer and the economy who demand low prices from our farmers and fail to value properly our natural spaces. Our countryside is becoming more inaccessible. Our natural history and agricultural literacy is shameful. And our infatuation with technology means we rarely look up to notice our surroundings let alone take the time to learn the names of the trees, birds, and flowers around us. What we do not cherish, we lose, and what we do not see, we do not cherish. It is time we learnt this lesson.” - Hadden Turner
“You are the man!” I heard, to me and no other. And oh, how it hit me with the clarity of stillness. There and there no more, I was swept away in silence; my gut felt the loud and rushing daggers of Niagara.1 In that dark wood I wandered where the sun forever slept, but then arose the fruitful voice of Wendell that was buried in the depths.2 In me there was a longing, a desire for fresh sight and attunement to the world.
I am the man who runs from bees and every tiny flying thing, but virtue demands I walk, albeit trembling. I will go to learn the name of every creature in the sky. I will ask my God for courage when those fears within me lie. That essay deeply moved me and has opened up my eyes. I no longer hear the clatter and the traffic motorized. My ears do hear the horses and the chariots of hymn, those dear and royal voices that swell and sway from limb.
I learned of men who could name and identify trees by the mere listening of sound in breeze or find their way back home from sea by the call of Loons. I heard the didgeridoo player mimic the creatures of land and sky, read of the species of insect classified in myth, song, and dry paintings. I heard the Elder astound the zoologist skilled and share how the eyes of crocodiles shine in the light of torches.
As Lynne Kelly, historian of indigenous cultures observed, “Australian Aboriginal songlines, Native American trails, Inca ceques and many other landscape paths created by indigenous cultures were the result of training their memory. I found no indigenous culture that relied on casual memory and chatter around the campfire to store knowledge of their environment and culture.” As reading I sensed my lack of care for the natural world and began to learn how we drifted from the wisdom ancient old.
For ‘Pro-vision’ we choose Apple over apples and have become malnourished. Somehow we went flying down the river in our boats with our screens strapped to our eyes towards our angst and isolation.3 We are diseased by the distractions of the solitary-self. We prefer the habitat of Goggles, virtual mud pies, and the pixelated foliage. We are like birds who think freedom is being free to clip our wings. But, true freedom has limits, and we must learn to see.
As Ivan Illich once alerted,
“Just as the commons of space are vulnerable, and can be destroyed by the motorization of traffic, so the commons of speech are vulnerable, and can easily be destroyed by the encroachment of modem means of communication.”
But there is another hissing, a vulnerability that slithers in the commons of sight, for we have become increasingly dependent on tools for seeing. We have raped the telos of human eye for profit, greed, kingdoms, and false visions of good. Our eyes vomit the stars of heaven and feast on Star-links. We hate the light, and have become so darkened, we’ve destroyed darkness for the cheap sheen of satellites.
There was a time when human eyes knew of real darkness, not of faint illumination. Where men could look up and spot the flashes of color foreign to the rods of many in the way milkied. Darkness is now a luxury in a land of light pollution. Where did the glory of Van Gogh?4 We went mad, and stripped The Starry Night from heaven’s gallery to pin up ads. As
observed, “The contemporary mission of marketing and advertising has been to expand the available field for such brand projection into new realms. Even the sky itself has been captured.”May we look and listen. The eye too has heart, and we must learn the art of keeping. There is a holding, not of hands but through the grasp of seeing. The mumble of retina, the repetition of gaze, the flesh of vision, and touch of round pupil. But my ears do hear the clatter of symbols, the mathematization of sight, and rhythms of algorithm. Incessant glows, the show of lesser lights, silly fights, and the pressures of being liked.
And oh, how I detest the squareness of my prose; I long for a cubed-tongue, the three-dimensionality of speech. To lie where the wood drakes rest and learn ‘the peace of wild things.’ There is a calmness our soul needs, free of distraction and its claw. I am reminded of
and his words quiet and ever roar,“…on that particular moment at the pond I had only body and binoculars. No camera, no gadget, no glowing screen of any kind. No rain coat, no water bottle, no pencil and notebook. No distractions. And no wind — only calm. Nothing made the branches shake and the leaves tremble except the birds.”
There was I, and there with me. I purchased binoculars, a field guide to birds, and a journal crafted. I will go to the place where lightning split the oak, sit in shades pleasant, and write poems on the Loon.5 I will write even if no one reads, and sow seeds on lined-sheets corporeal. For I discovered a wealth tender, a bright world enchanted.
Let us memorize the birds, each by name and beauty. Not through the overreliance of apps and the snaps of twigged lens.6 Not merely caged in mind as data points to manipulate and use but kept free to fly in heart in the air of tunes sweet. ‘‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers’, let them sing light when your soul swoops to night waters.
I was walking when the ink-filled clouds wrote down rain on lined-streets.7 I looked up and saw darkness, a dark deep as Ox stare, and there I heard the birds singing. And oh, how it hit me, what comforts loud and whirling! And there I did spiral into a silence deep.8
“…it bids us fly and gives us wings” - John Bunyan
PERSONAL UPDATES
I joined a Birdwatching group and I am currently reading two books: 1) Florida Birds: A Field Guide and References by Maehr, and 2) The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman. Thanks Hadden and
for the recommendations.I am memorizing a bird-poem: The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
I left extensive footnotes: I always enjoy reading commentaries from writers as it deepens my appreciate for a work. I wasn’t able to include everything I wanted to share, but perhaps you can mention some other observations or allusions you have noticed in the comments. Thanks for reading!
I intentionally used a rhythmic use of language to imitate the waves of an inward movement. The shape of sound goes up and down as if being tossed and twirled in sea. The upward sound of “gut” reenacts the force which flew me.
I used Dantescan language (‘dark wood’, ‘sun forever slept’) to allude to The Divine Comedy. I shared my journey from the darkness of apathy to the joyous light of seeing. For Dante used a rhyme scheme known as the terza rima: ABA/BCB/CDC, etc., which imitated footsteps, the poem walked as it were along with the poet himself, a pilgrimage from darkness to light. Notice the multiplicity of meaning: (1) a-Rose / bury, (2) arose / buried, (3) arose / Berry: a trio of meaning for the meaning of trio. The number three was important for Dante as he incorporated the terzina: 11 syllables in each line grouped by threes: 11 + 11 + 11 = 33, thereby alluding to the Trinity and ‘unholy trinity’ (lonza, leone, lupa, see Inferno 1.30-48). This intentional use of ‘three L’s for the beasts points to L-ucifero. Lastly, even the name “Berry” was buried in the depths of the sentence itself as it echoed in the forest of allusion.
This is an allusion to “The Vacation” by Wendell Berry that addresses attentiveness to the world and the nature of seeing. I want you to notice his continuous use of “His” throughout the poem. It has a rushing-movement as if imitating the fast and flowing river itself. Perhaps, he emphasized the use of “his” because it is ‘possessive.’ It is a commentary on human inclination, that is the propensity to preserve through tools (‘the camera’). When we are so obsessed with ‘holding on’, ‘capturing’, ‘grasping’ and ‘possessing’ our moments, we lose them, and they slip through our hands like water.
As Paul Bogard noted in “The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light”, Van Gogh lived in a time where he would have seen stars of different colors. In a letter describing his experience at a southern French beach he stated, “In the blue depths [the Milky way] the stars were sparkling, greenish, yellow, white, pink, more brilliant, more sparkling gem-like than at home - even in Paris: opals you might call them, emeralds, lapis lazuli, rubies, sapphires.” For a further commentary on this subject, I recommend the essay, “What Did We Lose When We Lost the Stars” by
‘Loon’ acts as an echo of the previous passage on indigenous cultures: those who found their way back to land from sea. I used this to subtly point to an ‘exodus motif’.
‘Twigged lens’: Sometimes in our snapping there can be a snapping of sorts, that of our moments in nature like twigs. Here are some helpful observations from
in his essay, A Songbird Underwater: “Cameras change the way we are outside. As we take photos in nature, the camera takes nature from us. Even as we seek to preserve the moment, capture it, bring it home to enjoy again later or share with others, the camera steals some of the moment, some of the raw experience, some of the actual nature.”‘Ink-filled clouds / lined-streets’ alludes to ‘sow seeds on lined-sheets.’ As I began reading the book of nature, I learned that it is not only I who writes, but the natural world speaks with a voice real as human speech. The clouds sowed seeds in my soul barren, and I was lifted up like trees from the depths of earth sorrows as I listened to a lesson from the birds on suffering and hope.
The essay started and ended with ‘whirling’ / ‘a silence deep.’ I wanted to draw your attention to the beginning: “Piercing in his ink / ink-filled clouds” Cannons balls (shape of rain drops) shot forth / "wrote down rain’. In both cases, there is speaking: I wanted to emphasize how the singing birds truly comforted my soul dark with bright words. There is more meaning to this structure, but I will leave it at this in order to provide moments for further reflection.
Wonderful writing Ronald! And I am glad you joined a birdwatching club - that is probably the best way to learn the names and ecologies of the wonders around you. I am so glad my writing had the desired effect and has instilled in you this desire to truly see. That is among the best news I have heard for a long time.
Blessings for your journey of discovery - it will be like acquiring a new sense.
Hey enjoyed your recent podcast with Anthony