Red-winged Blackbird : Our Lives’ Soundtrack
Red-winged Blackbird
This is a Red-winged Blackbird. They’re everywhere here. And on this beautiful morning, they are singing and singing. Of course there are numerous other birds here, but it’s these blackbirds that compose the soundtrack for this space. They’re the ones that lay down an ever-present and recurring melody against which the other birdsong and rustling of small creatures in the tall grass takes place. Standing with eyes closed, just listening, just absorbing, the mind attempts to filter and categorize the music. We first grasp the recurring theme and then place the “grace notes,” atop it. Without disparaging those other birds’ songs, still it would be impossible to describe this place without giving primacy to the blackbirds.
Torah is a song. By this I don’t mean only that it is intended to be chanted rather than read. Like all songs, Torah has a certain structure, choruses and verses, repeating themes and elements. It rises to heights, descends to depths, and any modern anthem can find structural commonality. But more viscerally, Torah conveys both rational and emotional meaning. Even not understanding the Hebrew, one absorbs the sense of ancient ritual. One connects to the lineage of ancestors’ shared observance. One appreciates Torah’s pinnacle position within a service, how everything else is intended for preparation and appreciation. There is a clear - undeniable - sense that this is our foundation, atop which everything else sits.
What is the soundtrack of our lives? The music that suffuses our days, that provides guidance and inspiration? Sets the tone for our lived experience? What is the rhythm that provides context and meaning for the various actions we overlay against it? Perhaps the first step is a quiet pause. Eyes closed. Just listen. Are we aware of what’s transpiring in our background? Can we surface the “ambient” and make it more prominent? Critically, each of us is given the agency to choose that music for ourselves. We have innumerable opportunities to compose our song and when it’s necessary, to change it. The blackbirds’ song was the defining element of my morning’s exploration. What song we choose is the defining element of ourselves.