Pachabel Canon in D with Starlings Starlings Starlings
One of the most beautiful audio recordings I've heard of this piece
The syncopation of the swooping, turning, flowing flock
couldn't be more perfect if it were choreographed
There are 200 million in North America descended from 60 to 100 birds released
in Central Park, New York by Eugene Schieffelin. He was president of the infamous American Acclimatization Society
which tried to introduce every bird species mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare to North America in 1890, and this, unfortunately,
turned into a terrible environmental disaster.
read more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Starling
That Said Meet 'Damar'
The Common Starling is a noisy bird uttering a wide variety of both melodic and mechanical-sounding sounds, including a distinctive "wolf whistle".
Starlings are mimics, like many of its family.
In captivity, Starlings will learn to imitate all types of sounds and speech earning them the nickname "poor-man's Myna". Songs are more commonly sung by males, although females also sing. Songs consist of a mixture of mimicry, clicks, wheezes, chattering, whistles, rattles, and piping notes. Besides song,11 other calls have been described, including a Flock Call, Threat Call, Attack Call, Snarl Call, and Copulation Call.
Birds chatter while roosting and bathing. Even when a flock of starlings is completely silent, the synchronized movements of the flock make a distinctive whooshing sound
I will tell you about my friend recently so ill her value to me reawakened with a ferocity that shook me off center. Now I can see I was stuck in a time warp.
In that same way that love is the biggest surprise, I realized how much she meant to me, and all that she represented to me of my past , of my expectations, of reasons. I became free, free of the fear of loss, safe in the knowledge that loss is inevitable.
How fascinating it is, that a threat manifested can produce enormous insights, a chance to become more aware, to change, and to accept what does not change. All these little miracles of the ordinary so extraordinary when illuminated.
I am recalling that moment in an earlier visit, late Spring, sitting outside amongst the trees, facing each other, chatting, something about mortality but the details are lost.
A dark veridian green hummingbird flew between us and hovered briefly, turning first towards her, then towards me, then gone like an apparition leaving a pulsing magnetic field between us. We were dumbstruck in the afterglow.
Our eyes were tethered together at the spot where a tiny creature caused everything to shift. After another moment of intense silence, we laughed. We laughed, oh, we laughed. We laughed and laughed. We laughed until it hurt.
constructing a "Silent-Muse Saturday" post for next week.
I'm also devoting time to hand work on a 'Magic Feather' patch-design finally ready for stitching.
Feather Applique
Design Tracing
Overview
I like a sound-track background when I'm working like this, to occupy my wandering mind, while my hands act independently on a chosen task. In the country, nature provides one constant, variable stream of audio information dawn to dawn. In this City, I provide my own with the aid of a headset. Sometimes Bach will do it, the mathematically endless variations on a theme ones. But 'David Darling' never fails me This cut leads on to a string of his compositions if you just let it play on.
Perhaps, sans media, silent, except for City noises,
I'll get to a little trimming over at the garden,
if the weather allows for some sunlight interludes between these scattered storms.
..."Once Upon A Time, a fine, feathery time, in a particular year, long, long, very long ago, in a land called 'Delight', located, so far as I can tell, somewhere between the Provinces of 'Despair' and 'Elation'. There, on the heels of a terrible snowstorm in late January, an egg--thought to be infertile, abandoned by it's parents, who flew South at the necessary time--quite suddenly cracked! The chick that finally emerged was bald, as newborns sometimes are, except, it had a curious tuft of bright blue fuzz at the top of it's head."
..."The nest, having been blown to the ground, was now under fallen fir branches that formed a water-proof dome around it. A family of field mice, who took opportunistic lodging there, had fortified the Inside; packed it up with animal fur, dried grass and thistle down, as well as bits of cloth. Thus insulated, it was much warmer than the surrounding landscape. They watched the newborn struggle with great attention. Meanwhile, a human egg was arriving at a similar moment. The fetus, suspended in its mothers womb, was jolted violently, by a sudden storm. The walls of it's home trembled. Then, in a great whooshing cacophony of sound, buckets of blood penetrated the amniotic atmosphere, and there was an accompanying strong contraction. The space itself pushed the child forward forcefully, through the birth passage, and out into the bright, cold world."
August 15th Pix Elated Thoughts
August 16th The story concludes for now...
..."Later that year, as Spring broke into Summer, that full grown blue jay called out to it's own chicks to return to their nest from where they had been gleaning seeds their mice cousins dropped. Nearby, the six month-old child heard the call as though it were meant for her. She had a strong affinity for the sound, an imprint that would mean something personal, intimate, and elemental throughout her life. Each time she heard it, it meant either that she longed to be home. or that she was, in some sense, home again. The jays shrill alarm call, its melodically thrilling song call, and its defense screech, all, pierced her equally, crossing every boundary of time and place, to become the same call as when first she'd heard it.
It spoke to her of the seasons, of arrivals and partings, heartbreaks and joys. It was talisman and doppelganger, spirit guide and shadow, her compass. It stood for her truest self - wild, untamed, at the center of it's own natural logic, neither good nor evil - "There's my Jay." she thought, "She flies to me wherever I am." And so it was, that in one place she remembered all other places, and in all places she was at home."
August 17th Materials overview
"Keep it simple."
I have the theme.
August 18th
To do...
...Separate threads, and thread a needle-Deposit travel check-pick up nutritional supplements-Transfer photographs-Edit the "Crossing Boundaries" story-Edit again-Edit to finish.
Finalize the construction of blog posts for the first set of weekly FeatherMuse Fridays, SpiritMuse Sundays and MusicMuse Mondays.
Question: what about Saturday Muse, Tuesday Muse,
Wednesday Muse, and Thursday Muse?
Answer: Everything in it's own time. One day at a time, One stitch at a time. Tonight there will be yoga practice to reset my clock, and tomorrow is another day.
INSPIRATION
Jude Hill's "Magic Feather Project" set my Muses rolling. She is a generous teacher, an accomplished crafts-person and inspiration for many.
JANUARY I OFTEN RE-READ THIS STANLEY KUNITZ "When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence..." A special Holiday gift from my Massachusetts 'family' http://mscomfortzone.blogspot.com/2011/01/from-wild-braid.html
DECEMBER
2010 ONE OF THE FIRST POSTS MY 'SIGNATURE' PHOTOGRAPH An iconic image, and one I will repeat in drawings and designs.
There's a URL to Jeremy Irons reading Wordsworth before I learned
