A Love Letter to Geese

I love the honk of the morning and evening commute. 

But I'm not talking about cars.  

It's an echoing honk that cascades across the sky as I'm getting ready for work. It emerges from afar, arrives above me, and then fades again into the distance. It wafts down from the heavens just as the sun is beginning to set. 

Right now, I'm listening to it on my lunch break. As I sit with the sun slowly warming my hair into gold, just the way I like it, I rest in the sound of Canada and Cackling Geese. 

Their blunt, thick, chest voice provides a metronome for the trilling melody of Red-winged Blackbirds. I feel alive in their life song. The crash of bathing wings against water a snare for their avian album. 

I don't know if they know that at this very moment, I need their raw language. I also don't want to claim they don't know this. 

I am soaked in a very human feeling- the overwhelm of urgency and busyness- and their uninhibited sound reminds me that there is so much more to life than schedules. They remind me of ritual and romance and rest in the moment. 

This is what birdsong can do. It connects us to the sensory experience and through this portal of wild prose it brings us back to the present. There are so many ways to live and the urgent pulse of habituated humanity is not the only one. 

So to combat urgency I urge myself to sit until it fades, watching the contrast of the geese’s buoyant bodies on green and blue water. I observe the dichotomy of the softness in which they drift and the sharpness with which they speak. 

They say it takes 10-20 minutes outside to uplift our mood. We are surrounded by the phytochemicals of trees, the visual rhythms of color and movement, fascination, wild symphonies, and organic life. 

When I say they, I do not mean just an abstract entity, but studies and research by scientists and universities. While listening to birdsong long enough to feel its effects can be enough evidence, the studies often give efficacy and our searching minds permission to believe what our body knows- birdsong is good for us. 

The benefits of birdsong are endless and they can be expanded with intentionality. This ritual of directed attention, this art of noticing is when we do our best to melt urgency, slow down, and attune to open, non-judgmental observation of the wonder around us. 

‍Ways that birdsong improves our life: 

1. Birdsong has been shown to uplift and elevate our moods as well as reduce stress. This comes from the actual sound waves, the attunement to presence, and the time outside and within nature. When we reduce stress and urgency, we also balance our hormones, which contributes to a healthier more equanimous relationship with time and life. 
2. Noticing nature can improve focus, attention, and concentration, cultivating discipline and curiosity within the mind. 
3. In a recent study, scientists collected citizen science data to see how participants felt after hearing birdsong. The study showed that it boosted the mood of those with and without depression. 
4. A study by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan found that being in nature can help with energetic and mental fatigue. Their study explores the idea that there are two types of attention- directed attention and fascination. Directed attention occurs almost daily where we focus on something and intentionally engage our mental processes, while, on the other hand, fascination is a visceral response to novelty, wonder, and curiosity-filled experiences that does not require problem solving in the moment. The latter is often found in natural environments and seeking them out, through experiences like birdsong, can help to restore our minds. 
5. Birdwatching and listening can encourage us to walk, which is one of the best ways to regulate the nervous system, emotions, and circulation. Of course, walking is not required to birdwatch or listen!
6. While outside we breathe in Phytoncides, which are the volatile organic compounds, or "essential oils," emitted by trees. They play a critical role in plant immunity and community and, as it turns out, they can support us in the same. When we walk amongst the trees, breathing in the phytoncides, it helps us, too, to boost our immunity. They encourage natural killer (NK) cells, which are disease-fighting white blood cells,  activate our relaxation response and reduce inflammation. Some specific phytoncides, such as a-pinene and B-pinene, also enhance sleep and host antidepressive properties, respectively. 

Have you explored birdsong as a bridge to reconnection- to self, to the moment, to the relational quality of life? 

When we do, let us release expectations. Birding is a beautifully subjective experience. Different Birds may call to each of us, like how I find solace in Geese song. How their traveling trumpet reminds me of the moving, breathing life that happens beneath and beyond the systemic susserus.

The Birds are not here to solve our problems, but their existence is a portal of possibility. A remembrance of the truth- WE GET TO BE HERE. And in that revelatory reminder, we are invited into the miracle, where expectations melt and, if only briefly, we get to just be. 

Avian alchemy may not be instantaneous, so give it time. Sit with sound. At least for a song, four if you can. At least for a week, every day if you can. 

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