• Hofhuizen

For Whom Do the Birds Sing?

Sometimes it is during the hardest and most challenging circumstances of our lives that we are most deeply surprised and touched by beauty. During the Israeli bombardment of Beirut in 1982, the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish was stunned by the persistence of the birds that never ceased to take advantage of early morning to break into song.
“They’ve kept the tradition of neutral song ever since they found themselves alone with the first glimmer of light,” he wrote. “For whom do they sing in the crush of these rockets? They sing to heal their nature of a night that has passed…. The birds clear their own space in the smoke of that burning city, and the zigzagging arrows of sound wrap themselves around the shells and point to an earth safe under the sky.”
The steadfastness of the birds reminded the author that a normal life had existed once in that troubled place and perhaps could exist again someday. What hard time in your life did one of nature’s “traditions” pull you out of darkness for a joyful moment or two?

Trebbe Johnson
Trebbe JohnsonFounder
Trebbe is the author of The World Is a Waiting Lover and 101 Ways to Make Guerrilla Beauty. Her new book, Radical Joy for Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty, will be published in Fall 2018 by North Atlantic Books. Her articles about people’s emotional and spiritual relationship with nature have appeared in Orion, Sierra, Ecopsychology, The Ecologist, The Nation, Harper’s and other magazines. She lives with her husband, Andrew Gardner, in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, a region currently under exploitation by natural gas companies.

Image Credit:

  • Hofhuizen: "The Painted Bird" by Willem Hofhuizen

MORE RADICAL JOY REVEALED

More Revealed

SUBSCRIBE

JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER

Radical Joy Revealed is a weekly message of inspiration about finding and making beauty in wounded places.

2019-03-12T12:22:04-07:00

Give the gift of Radical Joy!

Donate
© Copyright 2012 -  Hosting by NEXUS.works   |   ALL RIGHTS RESERVED   |   POWERED BY WORDPRESS
FacebookInstagram
This website uses cookies and third party services. See our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy for more information. Settings Ok

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to track your path through our website. To assist in protecting your privacy, we anonymize the last 4 of the IP address.

Tracking Cookies

To monitor and help enhance your visit while on the website.

Host Accounts

We offer a individuals private member access as Hosts when they register. We offer Host newsletters and the ability to manage Earth Exchange Events & Stories that Hosts will author and help manage. We ask for basic information from Hosts to join. We additionally ask the Host to provide detailed information about their events and preparations. This includes images and narratives about their event and any Stories told about the Exchange Events hosted.