Birds, Birdsong, Dawn, Dusk, Women, Healing, Joy~

 

Once upon a time, when women were birds,
there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn
and to sing at dusk
was to heal the world through joy.

~Terry Tempest Williams

When I first read these words by author and earth activist Terry Tempest Williams I was moved to tears. And I was transported. They didn't merely knock on some mysterious door, they flung that door from its hinges; nearly literally picking me up from my mundane every day existence, and taking me to re-membering, and, in Alice In Wonderland style, straight to the heart of the great and profound mystery. 

Birds, birdsong, dawn, dusk, women, healing, joy~ oh my.

Reading the quote again makes me think about a story about birds that I love so much. I've written about it here before but it's been a couple of years, and a story like this deserves to be told again and again~

One day, driving my daughter--who was newly into her now way-too-long journey with chronic illness--to a doctor's appointment, she read aloud a story from a book she was reading called Radical Remissions. It had to do with dawn and trees and photosynthesis and birds... and a man who had a spontaneous remission from "terminal" cancer. Up very early each day due to his illness, he began to observe a pattern that had to do with birds and their singing; specifically that birds began to sing at the same time each morning relative to the sunrise, exactly forty-two minutes before, in fact. Day in and day out, at forty-two minutes before official sunrise, birds began, in the still dark, to sing. Intrigued, the man began to research and he learned that the birds were singing in response to the trees releasing oxygen, the oxygen release triggered by the very first invisible-to-the-eye rays of light from the sun. He began to spend those forty-two minutes outside each morning, day in and day out, in the rich oxygenated air filled with birdsong, oxygen and birds, birds and oxygen for months and later, at his next scheduled scan, no evidence of cancer was found. 

Tears streamed down both my daughter's and my faces, this story transporting us to the extraordinarily enchanting world of our earth and nature and magic and expansive possibility.

Speaking of dawn, I am, after way too many years as a photographer, discovering the golden hour, that magical time when the sun is closest to the horizon, the time just before and just after sunrise and just before and just after sunset when the sun's rays pass through more of earth's atmosphere and soften, when more of the sun's red rays reach us, warming the light with a velvety golden glow. 

But even more than that I am rediscovering myself as a photographer. I've put down my iPhone and bought myself the gear that I need to be the creative photographer I have longed for so long to be. 

And I have birds to thank for that. 

Because I love birds so much, because they effortlessly bring me that so often elusive joy, the all-too-rare delight, the slippery sense of wonder, the same way that photography does, when I find that flower, that tree, that cloud in my view finder, when I go still and it is just me and that moment; and the exquisite glory of nature. I'm surprised only that its taken this long for these two Great Loves to merge. Except that I did not have the equipment, the tools necessary to photograph birds. 

So I started looking at lenses. Then I began to explore newer technology. Then broadened my horizons to something different altogether. And exactly one month ago today I placed my first of many orders. Camera, lenses, miscellaneous accessories. I switched brands, from Nikon to Fujifilm because Fuji makes cameras that remind me of my first camera ever. The one I ultimately chose makes my heart light up and sing, just like that little fixed lens 35mm camera that I bought on layaway at Sears when I was barely into my twenties.

Switching brands meant I needed everything new. And I gave myself that, though it was a precarious journey at first, muddling through the tricky landscapes of old patterns and habits, beliefs about myself, my worth, the world. Encouragement came not only from my therapist, but from beloved friends who see me clearer than I often see myself. And so I've bought what I need to create what yearns to be created; including the artist that I so yearn to be. Creativity, be it photography or writing is for me a spiritual practice and a spiritual path; it is where I meet my own spirit, where my own spirit meets the sacred; It is prayer, it is worship, it is devotion. It is how I express the sacred as I experience it, bringing the formless, the ethereal and intangible, into form. It is my life blood, some days my sanity, always, my well being, and my inspiration to leave the bed each morning. 

My first shots of birds nearly undo me. Sitting on my patio, the melody of the water in the little fountain against the melody of the finches flying in and out of the tree. Waiting. Waiting for one to come into view. Then praying it will sit for a moment, please, just long enough for me to remember what I am learning about this camera, which setting is where, is the shutter speed fast enough, is the exposure right, then pressing the shutter release halfway and the box appearing that brings the bird miraculously into perfect focus, I mean so close, so beautiful; how long I have waited for this moment, not even knowing I as waiting, and then the soft click, click, click of the shutter. 

His little eyes, his expression, the incredible color and texture, the exquisite detail of his tiny feathers. 

Once upon a time when women were birds~