Episode 04 - Our Song
The song that is your life
“Have I
created
a clearing
in the dense forest
of my life
Have I waited there
patiently,
until the song
that is my life
falls into my own cupped hands”
My reflection
There is a sweet children’s book called the blue songbird. As this story goes, this blue song bird feels lost because she doesn’t have a song. And since everyone around her seems to have theirs, she leaves home and goes out into the world in search for hers. She travels far and wide, bumping into different birds along the way, always asking them — the crane, the owl, the penguin,— “have you ever heard of a very special thing — a song that only I can sing.” Each bird sings their song, says no about hers, then sends her on her way to another land another place where she bumps into another bird. Until, she meets the crow.
The crow says, yes, fly west as far as you can, and there you will find the song you seek. She heads west and then further west, and then hears, in the distance, a beautiful song — maybe it’s her song… “At last! I made it”, she says, But as she circles around the corner, she notices she has come all the way back home. How can this be — I’ve circled the whole world to find my song back home? In her befuddlement, she tells her family of all the adventures she has had, the places she has seen, of each bird and their tale, and then, suddenly, she and her family notice her voice, her song, “her special thing, a song that only she can sing.”
I feel akin to this song bird. For the first three decades of my life, I was on the road asking many along the way, “have you ever heard of a very special thing — a song that only I can sing.” From volleyball to piano performance to a Masters of Divinity. From two marriages, two divorces, another marriage. From a tiny south western manitoba town called Rosenort, to Winnipeg to Toronto to Europe, to Saskatoon back to a south eastern manitoba farm where I now live. Oh yes, I travelled and hunted well.
And by my mid 50’s, I felt quite secure in my song… thought I was singing it well…
I sang my exceedingly Bonnie song as a volleyball coach and a gardener, as a facilitator with various circles and a spiritual guide for people going through marriage or palliative transition. And my song was only sung well with the particularity of my presence. There was a continuity of spirit between each of these songs which created the resonance of being at home.
Florida Scott Maxwell’s, in her little book, The Measure of My Days writes of the song und that resonates in my home when she uses the word essence:
“The purpose of life,” she writes, “may be to clarify our essence, and everything else is the rich, dull, hard, absorbing chaos that allows the central transmutation. It is unstatable, divine and enough.” Page 129
By my mid 50’s, I felt as if I was living out of my essence, singing my song. I felt at home.
Then I went after that venture that would give me a piece of paper marking my qualifications to do circle.
There I was, feeling like that restless song bird again…wondering “is there a better song out there”, or at the very least, “could I amplify, get a bigger stage for the song I was already singing.”
When “the rejection” came along, this little bird landed deep inside the forest of her confusion. She searched for the clearing that would allow her to see that the title granted, or not, by this institution didn’t change a thing. She noticed that the shameful dehumanizing process of rejection didn’t have the power to change a thing. Nothing could touch her song's source of mystery or capacity or wonder. In that forest, she found her clearing. She stood still. She listened. She heard moments along her 50 something way when she sang her song with clarity and purpose and beauty.
She, that is me: I recognized that I was the singer of my song...it was not a song written or amplified or certified by someone else. It is held in my being, in my hands. Echoing Postlewaite’s poem
the song
that is my life
that falls into my own cupped hands
As I claim this simple but profound truth,
I am not here to interpret or preach the word; I am not here to correct others’ stories, or speak truth into someone’s soul. I am a tender of space where each person, including me, listens for and then sings their particular song.
Presence Ignites Presence:
When you are with the children or the elderly in your life, put away all things electronic, and lay down any agenda. Notice how they live with their senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, intuition. Notice how they invite you to do the same.
Reflective Invitation:
Bonnie said, “When present, I am a witness to the beauty and wonder of what I am doing. I am energized. When I perform, I try to please someone else and get tired.”
Include in your journal a list of those places or things or experiences when you are a performer; when you are witness. It can be as small as cutting vegetables for dinner; as large as being the main speaker at a conference. Place these “witnesses” into a job description and wonder how they are your song in the world.
Podiums. Do you lose yourself by dragging around a podium, places where you perform? Or do you lose yourself by crawling into a metaphorical closet, or basement? Or another piece of furniture? What is your metaphor?
Resources:
Blue Song Bird, vern kousky
Measure of My Days, Florida Scott Maxwell
drinking from the river of light, Mark Nepo
