On the nature of this thing & why the bird is mad
Many thanks to those of you who have subscribed to the Mad Bird in this early stage. Here's a bit about why I started the Bird and what you can expect to find here.
To be clear, the bird is not so much angry as it is deranged. A tad kooky, a little off. To be fair, though, the bird is sometimes angry.
The bird is one small mad piece of a large mad culture. A fallen-over megalith. A lost and lonely child. A thing so dependent on rational thinking and reasonable claims that it has gone completely sideways in its perpetual search for truth. The bird is not only mad; it is sick — sick of productivity, time obsession, sick of hiding its colors for the sake of sameness.
The mad bird sings at the end of the world. The song is desperate but necessary. It calls for its flock as hightide grows higher.
I started the Mad Bird because I believe two things are true. One: that the world and its inhabitants are in a terrible way — misled by a culture that, in the words of Terrance McKenna, “is not your friend.” Two: that nature is still miraculous and mysterious — and that time in nature can be the source of a mounting movement against the predominant culture of our age, what I call the post-awareness age.
Most of what you can expect here are short essays on the state of the world, on the necessity of time in nature, on solitude, and on living against the hightide of what passes for culture. From time to time, I may share a featured story — usually these are nonfiction, but I’ve been dabbling in the powerful realm of fiction short stories lately too. Also, I write poems, mainly about my love affair with the earth.
I hope to someday publish a book of essays on ways to reconnect with the living world in this time of “post-awareness.” The Mad Bird will hopefully serve as a dumping ground for my research and writing on the subject. I am glad you are here — anyone who is out there reading — and I hope this can be a place of community too.
“Living is so dear,” said Thoreau, and I agree. In a time when so many forces are at work trying to capture our attention, trying to entertain us and so, distract us from ourselves, I am trying to be more careful about who and what I give my attention to. That, maybe more than anything, is the point of this project.
Why is the earth a miracle? Because everything in our environment (artificial and not) is what happens to the energy force driving this universe when it is trapped inside the bubble of an atmosphere. Plant life, animal life, human life, stone, water, and air, as well as whole cities, are the universe looking back at itself, held captive temporarily in the prism (prison) of God’s terrarium. Are we in God’s terrarium? Perhaps she/he/it has evolved and matured from the adolescent stage of the old testament, has perhaps moved on, and just forgot to turn the heat lamp off.
Hello? Anyone there? It’s getting kind of hot in here.
I never fully believed I was the person my family told me I was, growing up in a “normal” place among mainly normal people. I was fascinated with this thing called nature — how all its parts worked to keep the whole game going. I heard my family talk about the holy spirit and early on, assumed they must be talking about the force that animates everything, a force synonymous with nature. What I call spirit is that thing that makes the smell of a cedar tree or the movement of a corn snake or the strikingness of a mountain lake or the laugh of a human being. I find that people who claim to know a lot about these things usually know very little.
The world is still a mystery, and it must always be. “Fire doesn’t burn itself,” said Alan Watts.
This mystery is why poetry was made. Why it was written from the very beginning. And all good writing, to me, is poetry. Writing should point to the mystery of life, to the source of the one true religion, which is called love, called awe, called now. Wherever it points to certainty, it fails, which is why, these days, we have so much information and so little enthusiasm.
The bird is mad because people in general seem to be seeing less and less of the miracle, of the mystery, of life.
Imagine how people’s lives might be changed if, every day, they took the time, maybe 30 minutes, to examine one square foot of the earth. To examine one tiny intricacy, all the little things at work. Do you think people are capable of seeing the miracle in this? Maybe they aren’t. I know at least some of us live with a sort of built-in fascination, so maybe I am writing from a biased place.
The mad bird sings to those who have forgotten that their feet were made for the floor of the earth — as well as to those who remember this. The mad bird’s song says hands were made to touch moss, to splash in creek water, and to rub the dark grooves of bark. Eyes were made to gaze into other eyes, to send unspoken messages of understanding. Bodies were made to be felt. In this time of we-who-are-constantly-entertained, how will we return to simplicity, to playfulness, and to connection with one another and our blessed environment.
Thank you all for being here, and as always, thank you for reading. I hope you have a great week, taking time to connect with someone or someplace.
Amen amen amen!