I’ve been thinking these days about the impulse to mimic, praise, and basically participate in the processes of the natural world through music. Some of the first human music arose out of this desire to play with thunder, to answer the sea, to whisper back to the trees, and to enter a conversation with birds or wolves, whales or bumblebees. I like to think it was more the
One spring in recent years I was playing the piano with the window open and a fresh breeze coming in to cool me. A small green iridescent bug alighted on the screen and began to move rhythmically. He seemed to be struggling to accomplish something – I could not tell what from my giant’s eye view – and I found my fingers improvising a dance to accompany him. He shook and shrugged, moving his wings and whole body, and I played and studied and smiled at him, willing a good outcome for whatever process he had undertaken. It wasn’t too much later when he slipped out of his wings – as though they were a back-pack or a harness – and walked away entirely off the edge of the screen. I was delighted and called that little piece of song – “Music to Transform By” in his honor. It may seem silly or too whimsical (though that seems hard to imagine!), but I felt that the music had somehow cheered him and helped him.
Now as winter comes sailing into this part of the world, I think about the sounds the world is making and inviting us to make in response. The wind alone speaks dozens of musical languages. The different snows that wait, hush, fall, and settle sing hundreds of pitches. Ice! How many voices does ice use to speak?
My hope is to listen with my whole self and to translate some of that music in the most reverent, grateful, humble, and honoring way I possibly can.
