A Bird Does Not Sing Because It Has An Answer

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. (Chinese Proverb) There is no "If - Then". There are no conditions to the singing. Cage a bird and - though saddened by the loss of its freedom to take wing - it will still sing.

This applies to humans as well. I heard on NPR about a Jewish man and woman who found love in a concentration camp during WWII. Miraculously they both survived and were able to marry after the war. While everything around them was bleak and full of depravity and despair, they found a way to sing their song of love.

In Yiddish it is called a nigun, a melody, a tune, a song we are forever trying to remember, to recapture and to sing. In the journey to recapture my nigun, I discovered Kirtan, or sacred chant. I play the harmonium and sing chants in Sanskrit and other languages. The words are songs glorifying the divine. The words repeat themselves over and over and the effect is mesmerizing, heart opening. Shivaya Nama Om, Shivaya Nama Ha. By naming and honoring aspects of the divine, I am also honoring my own divinity, my own sacredness.

A baby in the womb first hears its mother's song. The baby is nourished by the cord connecting her to her mother, and she is also soothed and carried by the song she is surrounded by as she floats and grows. Perhaps it is the emergence of the baby's own song that pulls them from the womb. Gradually her own song takes the place of her mother's. Where will that song take her? What bits of melody will inform her life as she grows?

When we are little babies I believe we hear our own song loud and clear. It is so much a part of us that we do not need to sing it aloud, though some of us may try. As we grow older the needs and expectations of others may soon drown out the sound of our own song, our nigun: so many voices clamoring for our attention; so many outer enticements pulling us away from our center. Still the song keeps on singing deep within, high and low, soft and loud, fast and slow. At night before sleep we can almost hear it. In our dreams we catch snatches of the melody.

As our life unfolds we will look for answers. Why? Why is life so hard? So cruel? So unfair? So short? So long? What does it all mean? Why am I here?

Life's longing for itself is the only answer needed. The only condition to the living of life is this: sing your song, your nigun. Only you can sing your uniquely You song. Only you can hear the melody, the words, the rhythm. Only you know when it is soft or loud, high or low, fast or slow. To hear it and to sing it and to live it, you must listen within, to your inmost place, where the nigun of your life goes on.