181. ...to strum tunes for seabirds and swans...
(morning thinking)
Someone like me, with patience and a particular proclivity for early mornings and a fondness for a perch by a rock or specific tree root or dune, (in this case it's a sash and case sill) sat and watched a sunrise ten thousand years ago.
And the day before and the day before that. They'd noticed a pattern to the path of the sunrise. To the position on the horizon where the light broke the surface and started it's journey into the sky.
Maybe they spotted a tern or gull and wondered whether on a certain day in the near future they would be lucky enough to blink in a moment where eyes might open to the sun’s path and the bird’s path in exact alignment with a distant hill so that all three points trisect the view into perfect thirds. Hoping.
Eyes closed, sun's warmth on face then…
Open.
Not this time.
Again.
Eyes closed, sun glows red through eye lids, breeze light across cheeks raised in a gentle smile.
Open.
Not today.
Ok.
They would make a regular habit of hope and watching and see their aspirations almost met on so many occasions. They'd weave meaning into nature and spot fine details in time's passing.
Later that day, perhaps, they'd watch, for a stretch, while hunger kept them alert, the drama and activity around a sapling as insects came and went pursued at times by birds who would in turn be pursued by bigger hairier predators. Always alert to possibility and danger.
Moments like these in our distant past accumulated into magical storytelling, fed dreams, gathered around the edges of significance to form rich seams of belief and narrative. Spirituality would have been born in minds hungry for sorting connotations and tenuous connection into systems that dispelled chaos.
This is how art starts in the evolution of a mind built for relationships.
What do you watch? Chin rested in the soft little cradle on the thumb side of a rested fist. Where do you give musings time to percolate? Do you have a sill or seat? A hummock or hammock or hillside? Where do you sit?
What about your closest friends? Do you know where they like most to muse? Have you asked?
A man just passed on a bike with an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder. I decided in an instant, as he rolled along and passed, that he's off to the sea wall by musselburgh lagoons to strum tunes for seabirds and swans and watch the sun lit ripples tickle their feathers.
What decisions and leaps of imagination will you make about the universe as it spins around you this morning?
Have a wonderful day.
Paul.