Illness, Wellness, Hawaii, and Birdsong

This is a picture from Kauai's north shore, the view from where I was staying when my oldest daughter became ill last September and I had to leave after only two and a half days.

But this is actually a story about birds-- well, birds and illness and wellness and how deeply touching life in its most raw forms can be.

For weeks after my unplanned whirlwind return home, when I was at the ER, at doctor's offices and labs, taking care of her, I very often didn't know where I was. It was like somewhere over the Pacific on the rushed flight home I had slipped through an invisible crack in space and time; in the middle of the fear and unknown and stress and cold clinical smells, I could still see Hawaii. I could still feel her. I could smell her. Every part of her that I love with my whole heart; her surf, her tropical winds, her flora, her sand beneath my feet, my body held in her deep, warm ocean, all still palpable.

But what I remember most, what I missed the most in those first few weeks, was the birdsong. The absolute cacophony, the riotous near magical symphony that is those island birds beginning at dawn and into the early morning hours. If I close my eyes and am really quiet, I can hear it still, like a jukebox of melodies lodged inside my being.

Fast forward almost nine months. My daughter is still ill, with what is now believed to be chronic Lyme disease, which can be difficult to diagnose but that explains all of her many, weird, random symptoms, and the fact that her life as she knew it has been obliterated. She has been catapulted into her own healing journey and I am awed daily by how she is handling the wholly unknown of it all.

Which brings me back to birds. One morning, driving her to an appointment, tears stream down both of our faces as she reads me a story from a book called Radical Remissions about a man who had a spontaneous remission from "terminal" cancer that had to do with dawn and trees and photosynthesis, and YES, birds. It's a spectacular story where he noticed that birds began to sing at the same time each morning relative to the sunrise, exactly forty-two minutes before, and in researching, he learned that the birds were singing in response to the trees releasing oxygen at the first rays of light. He began to spend those forty-two minutes outside each and every morning, day in and day out, oxygen and birds, birds and oxygen, and months later, when he had a scheduled scan, his cancer was gone.

I am so blown away by this story. Then it hits me. She, my daughter, cannot take a walk. She can barely walk between her bedroom and the kitchen, and then needs to lay down to recover. But I can. Not only that, but I am awake, always, before sunrise. I can walk for both of us. So I begin walking before and as the sun rises. I walk beside the redwoods and the birch, sometimes with the crescent moon peeking between their tops, beneath the oak trees and willows and liquid amber that line and dot the spaces where I live and I listen to the beautiful birdsong. Yes, it does pale in comparison to the absolute host of birds where I was staying on Kauai but what I hear here, while tamer, is sweet and elegant and lovely; to even compare does it all a serious disservice. One bird in particular, the common purple finch, has captured my attention. Small birds, they place themselves at the highest points possible, the tops of all the tall chimneys, the highest little twig on the ornamentals and they sing their hearts out, and because they are oriented in a circle around the large grassy area near my home, it is like a concert in the round and it is enchanting.

Birds and birdsong and trees and how all of nature is such a complex mystery moves me intensely. Recently I learned another part of the story. Yes, the birds begin to sing in response to the oxygen the trees release at the very first light, and also, the frequency of the birdsong creates a vibration in the leaves of the trees which causes its stomata (breathing holes) to open more fully to receive moisture and nutrients. Full miraculous circle.

Wow. Not being at all scientifically minded, I can't say this for certain, but it does strike me that perhaps not only the leaves on trees respond to the vibrations of birdsong, but also, the cells of animals, including us, and that is why being out in the oxygenated air and the vibration of the birdsong is so invigorating. That maybe this was in fact part of what helped heal the man in the story.

Now we come full circle - again - as it reminds me of a wonderful book I once read about our cells (Secrets of Your Cells, Sondra Barret, PhD) and how our cells have strings, like a violin or a cello, and our cells love it when their strings vibrate. It is their destiny. It is what keeps them healthy and thriving. And what makes them vibrate are things like movement and music and dance and singing and chanting; and maybe - most likely even - birdsong.