FEATHERS

Almost exactly one year ago, my wife and I were lucky to stay at a little cottage in Fayetteville, Texas close to the Round Top Festival Institute, featuring one of the world’s most perfect acoustical and architectural concert halls for classical music.  By the way, that night, July 6th, we were so fortunate to hear an incredible performance of the Mahler 9th Symphony (here’s a youtube of that very performance!)

The Fayetteville cottage we stayed in was called “Bird House.” Everywhere one looked were bird things, dishes, sculptures, books, bathroom towels, lamps, all manner of paraphernalia devoted to birds.  They had on the bedside table a book, “Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle” by Thor Hansen, I highly recommend it if you have never explored and are curious how feathers evolved and how they get created.

Of course it was Emily Dickinson who reminded us that “Hope” is the thing with feathers.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

The evocation of birds in music, song and flight has been never been captured better than by the genius of Eric Dolphy:  here are two of his recordings, “Feathers” and “You Don’t Know What Love Is”.

Eric Dolphy

Then there is the enlightened Rumi -

"Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings."