Earliest Notes

it's fleeting for me, I will usually just catch their earliest notes before the morning air begins to fill with sound and I have to distinguish their songs from the slow rush of noise that reaches me. I'm up at 4:00 a.m, an important ritual for me, to wake and meditate in this quietest hour, met only by the dawn chorus of songbirds to greet me.

somehow, 

it seems that even these earliest notes seem to belong to the silence of the morning. 

and that's the true nature of silence, in its deepest sense, that it's not really the absence of sound, but more truly it's the ever present backdrop of reality that allows for vibrations to be heard as an expression of the world. Even the most grating and continuous noise has silence as its home, and to listen closely, mindfully, with bare attention given to its presence - I return to the point where silence seems to break its hold and sounds emerge to the waiting judgement of my mind. It's then that I give labels to what's heard, thinking of the loveliness of dawn chorus, or the annoyance of that first blare of television as someone turns it on only for the habit of its distraction. 

yet silence itself is impartial to every sound.

and this, being the backdrop of reality.

so, I'm already impartial too, dawn chorus no different than blaring noise of television. Or at least so by deepest reality. But there's a preference here as well, just as true as the impartial nature of reality - and my own backdrop of silence gives deep appreciation to songbirds and their earliest notes, dawn chorus, causing the least ripple of vibrations to emerge, and that the scape of silence seems to part with greater pleasure as it allows these sounds to be heard. 

more than likely it's my imagination.

but I wake every morning, 4;00 a.m to catch those earliest notes of dawn chorus...

just to be sure. 

~

Peace, Eric