Listen

April 1, 2020

With cars off the road, planes grounded, and construction halted, everything else suddenly seems much louder.  All those background noises which my brain had tuned out.  The foghorn, miles away.  The freight train at 3 a.m.  The cats making clicking sounds in their sleep.  The wind.  The rain.  The heat blowing from the vents.

And the birds – who are alerting us to the start of spring, even though it’s still freezing outside.  Birds are everywhere, and they are wild with song.  There are coos and chirps, and real tweets, and cheeps.  There is singing and pecking and cawing and clucking.  There is an orchestra of winds, strings, brass, and drums.  Right outside my windows.

Listening to the birds offers a form of mindfulness free and accessible to all.  If you add the pleasure of watching them, you can be enraptured by their colors, social interactions, labors, and diversity.  Watching and listening to birds brings us into the present moment, away from worry and fear, away from our troubles.  If birds are singing, there is hope.

This blog post originally appeared on the Carthage College website. It has been republished with permission.