There’s so much to be said for a good morning: my granny used to say, “Morning hours are golden hours”, in terms of the sheer possibility and illumination that can be found in these precious early times. And in the summer, there can be a particular sweetness to the mornings, don’t you find?
In that spirit, I'd like to offer you one of my favorite personal practices. This wasn't taught to me by anyone in particular, and you may already do something like it on your own. Still, I'd like to share it with you because it brings me such joy—in a light as air way—and a certain kind of peace.
I call it the meditation of the birds and I came upon it years ago when I first started practicing yoga. I knew pretty early on that yoga was something I wanted to do for myself at home, as well as in class, so I started doing a bit of asana in my bedroom in the morning before work.
It felt great, but I would sometimes find it hard to let go in savasana, final resting pose. I still do, actually, and that's why I love it when the meditation of the birds comes to me.
I remember lying on my bedroom floor in savasana one summer morning and becoming aware of the birdsong outside my window. I wasn’t living in some bucolic retreat at the time, far from it—I lived in a shared apartment in Williamsburg, a "cool" and accordingly noisy part of Brooklyn.
But I heard the birds and I let myself just listen. Just listen. And as I let myself become absorbed in the sound—in, essentially, a world so, so, so much larger than my whirling mind-thoughts and the notion that I am my body—I felt myself physically let go. My body felt relieved. My muscles relaxed, there was this quality of melting. As if my mind said, “Well, what am I, anyway, other than just here?”
There are many explanations for why just turning one's awareness to the birds is so peaceful. Partly I think the random-seemingness of their chirping holds our attention in a way that a steadier, more predictable sound would not. Partly it's the sheer joy of existing in weather that's warm enough for birdsong. And truly, I think there's something so profound in the simple acknowledgement of nature, of the craziness of these wild creatures which fly around the sky and call out from the trees.
I've always loved the author John Steinbeck, and have read and reread his books for years. Among my favorites is a large tome which simply collects together the letters he wrote in his life; they are (unsurprisingly) beautiful. The book is called Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, and I bought my copy a decade or so ago from Steinbeck House, the author’s former home in Salinas. It is very well thumbed at this point!
Around this time of discovering yoga, I was rereading the book. A little bit, I think, because it is funny to have moved to a whole ’nother country and be away from one’s home, and Steinbeck’s books bring me a particular kind of comfort.
I was reading the letters Steinbeck wrote when he and his wife moved to Glastonbury, England, for a year in 1959, towards the last part of his life, to work on a modern day retelling of the legend of King Arthur. They lived in a very old cottage, in a very simple way, and he was happy there. Happy in a profound, peaceful way. This is what he wrote to his friend, the publisher Elizabeth Otis:
“Meanwhile I can’t describe the joy. In the mornings I get up early to have a time to listen to the birds. It’s a busy time for them. Sometimes for over an hour I do nothing but look and listen and out of this comes a luxury of rest and peace and something I can only describe as in-ness. And then when the birds have finished and the countryside goes about its business, I come up to my little room to work. And the interval between sitting and writing grows shorter every day.”
I'm pretty sure I shed a tear to read this. At the realization of the universality and simplicity of such things as inner peace, and the specialness of a morning—what Steinbeck describes later as “the processional of the sun”. The discovery of profound inner rest.
The meditation of the birds. I think we can call it what we like. Either way, I hope you are having some fine summer mornings.
In that spirit, I'd like to offer you one of my favorite personal practices. This wasn't taught to me by anyone in particular, and you may already do something like it on your own. Still, I'd like to share it with you because it brings me such joy—in a light as air way—and a certain kind of peace.
I call it the meditation of the birds and I came upon it years ago when I first started practicing yoga. I knew pretty early on that yoga was something I wanted to do for myself at home, as well as in class, so I started doing a bit of asana in my bedroom in the morning before work.
It felt great, but I would sometimes find it hard to let go in savasana, final resting pose. I still do, actually, and that's why I love it when the meditation of the birds comes to me.
I remember lying on my bedroom floor in savasana one summer morning and becoming aware of the birdsong outside my window. I wasn’t living in some bucolic retreat at the time, far from it—I lived in a shared apartment in Williamsburg, a "cool" and accordingly noisy part of Brooklyn.
But I heard the birds and I let myself just listen. Just listen. And as I let myself become absorbed in the sound—in, essentially, a world so, so, so much larger than my whirling mind-thoughts and the notion that I am my body—I felt myself physically let go. My body felt relieved. My muscles relaxed, there was this quality of melting. As if my mind said, “Well, what am I, anyway, other than just here?”
There are many explanations for why just turning one's awareness to the birds is so peaceful. Partly I think the random-seemingness of their chirping holds our attention in a way that a steadier, more predictable sound would not. Partly it's the sheer joy of existing in weather that's warm enough for birdsong. And truly, I think there's something so profound in the simple acknowledgement of nature, of the craziness of these wild creatures which fly around the sky and call out from the trees.
I've always loved the author John Steinbeck, and have read and reread his books for years. Among my favorites is a large tome which simply collects together the letters he wrote in his life; they are (unsurprisingly) beautiful. The book is called Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, and I bought my copy a decade or so ago from Steinbeck House, the author’s former home in Salinas. It is very well thumbed at this point!
Around this time of discovering yoga, I was rereading the book. A little bit, I think, because it is funny to have moved to a whole ’nother country and be away from one’s home, and Steinbeck’s books bring me a particular kind of comfort.
I was reading the letters Steinbeck wrote when he and his wife moved to Glastonbury, England, for a year in 1959, towards the last part of his life, to work on a modern day retelling of the legend of King Arthur. They lived in a very old cottage, in a very simple way, and he was happy there. Happy in a profound, peaceful way. This is what he wrote to his friend, the publisher Elizabeth Otis:
“Meanwhile I can’t describe the joy. In the mornings I get up early to have a time to listen to the birds. It’s a busy time for them. Sometimes for over an hour I do nothing but look and listen and out of this comes a luxury of rest and peace and something I can only describe as in-ness. And then when the birds have finished and the countryside goes about its business, I come up to my little room to work. And the interval between sitting and writing grows shorter every day.”
I'm pretty sure I shed a tear to read this. At the realization of the universality and simplicity of such things as inner peace, and the specialness of a morning—what Steinbeck describes later as “the processional of the sun”. The discovery of profound inner rest.
The meditation of the birds. I think we can call it what we like. Either way, I hope you are having some fine summer mornings.
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