Nature Reminds Us to Contribute Our Voice
What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.
Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.
~ “What Can I Say” from Swan by Mary Oliver
My body got a bit of a rude awakening last week when my spouse and I marched off for our first ever backcountry camping trip. I’ve camped before but haven’t experienced the sweaty delight of packing in all of my supplies on my back. My body gave a few complaints:
“ Ummm..excuse me?! What are we doing? You don’t have to carry a sleeping mat 12km into the woods…you have a bed AT HOME!”
But soon the protests stopped and I just relished in being a part of nature; breathing in the pine, the blossoming wild flowers and the fresh air skimming off of nearby Lake Minnewanka. We arrived at the campground to a casual warning from a neighbouring camper that a black bear had been seen in the area just moments ago ( gulp). Two small graceful deer roamed about as we set up our tent, seemingly oblivious to the comings and goings of these strange humans swatting fruitlessly at swarms of mosquitos.
The best part about camping is how little there is to do.
There is space.
And it can feel uncomfortable for so many of us who are used to distracting ourselves, grasping our phones and scrolling social media in any moment of silence or discomfort.
Being in nature invites you to presence. To simply BE with what is.
I couldn’t sleep at night (too many thoughts about that black bear cruising around) so I decided to sit and gaze out of our mesh tent window at the lake in the distance.
As I sat, I took in the songs of what felt like hundreds of birds and the soft melody of the grass and tree branches rustling in the light wind. In the furthest distance, I could hear the sound of water lapping against the shore of the lake. All of these voices of nature echoed through a parade of trees; some bent, some stalk straight, some spiky, others flush with rich, full pine branches.
It struck me as I listened to the chorus of nature that every voice was a collaboration.
No bird sought to silence another.
No tree struggled to make itself seen by pushing its neighbour out of the way.
The shimmer of the lake didn’t try to out sparkle the glow of the moon.
Mountain peaks rose and fell side by side, together creating beautiful craggy waves across the skyline.
Every voice, every aspect of nature was a contribution to a bigger whole - to one beautiful display.
Every voice was joyfully expressed in its authenticity.
And it made me think of our voices. And how singing has so often been molded into something solely individualistic and performative. Something that proves a certain ability. Something that is too often anchored in judgement, from self and others :
Good enough
Not good enough
Too much
Not enough
But this is a lie.
Every voice is a contribution.
Every voice is part of this beautiful display of humanity.
What If we offered our voice as a contribution rather than a struggle to prove worthiness? What freedom would that evoke? What capacity to be ourselves and to be vulnerable would unfurl?
Benjamin Zander, the conductor for the Boston POPs eloquently described the freedom of contribution this way:
“Unlike success and failure, contribution has no other side…it is not arrived at by comparison. All at once I found that the fearful question, ‘Is it enough?’ and the even more fearful question, ‘Am I loved for who I am, or for what I have accomplished?’ could both be replaced by the joyful question, ‘How will I be a contribution today?’”
Your voice is a contribution to the beautiful whole. I invite you to offer it.
