Singing

A sigh. I caught this notion on the way, and rapidly took the readiest, poor words to hold it fast, so that it might not again fly away. But it has died in these dry words, and hangs and flaps about in them and now I hardly know, when I look upon it, how I could have had such happiness when I caught this bird. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Gay Science, 298)

There is a way that language will lay itself out, building, as it is spoken or written, a structure which responds to itself in its complexity, which works much in the same way as a song or a poem, always bringing you back… back where? To some sort of cusp—a horizon where the language first emerged out of stillness.

To capture a moving fluid moment with solid words would seem to cut off aspects of the whole, to impoverish it, dry and restricting. We say "bird" but to see and be with the bird is not in the word "bird" we use to refer to it. To think of the world as only a world of words is to try to put into certain frequencies a manifold song, to cage the bird. And as Alan Watts said: "life is like music in this: if any note or phrase is held for longer than its appointed time, the melody is lost." Each word rings forth with its own song, so if we think the words we use are themselves the meanings which we communicate, it is often frustrating, even if we roughly accomplish some sort of response that at surface seems like an agreed meaning. This is to be caught up in one's own tune, without being attuned to the rest of the world around.

Everything we do and everything we say rings forth, and it takes a certain sensitivity and a patient stillness to see the way these ringings intersect and play off of each other. It takes a letting things be as they are to hear the harmonies as they ring forth, and they are always ringing forth—there is no way to stop, freeze everything, and see where the next chord is going to hit. To refer again to the words of our friend the Englishman: "There is nothing you can catch hold of, nothing other than a most lively fact, as much alive as the passing moment which can never be made to stay. And a bird is a bird; you hear its song, but you cannot seize the notes to make them continue" (Alan Watts, "Zen").

What shall the reaction be, to fuss about it and beg for the peal to stop, even just for a brief moment, so we can get our bearings? Or shall we with joy be a part of the play, accepting this ceaseless motion? The moment to listen is here, and if the song stops, there is nothing to listen to. Go ahead, listen. Do you hear it?