Jonathan Bailey
Field Personnel in Bali, Indonesia
Blessing for Sound
by David Whyte in The Bell and the Blackbird
I thank you,
for the smallest sound,
for the way my ears open
even before my eyes,
as if to remember
the way everything began
with an original, vibrant, note,
and I thank you for this
everyday original music,
always being rehearsed,
always being played,
always being remembered
as something new
and arriving, a tram line
below in the city street,
gull cries, or a ship’s horn
in the distant harbour,
so that in waking I hear voices
even where there is no voice
and invitations where
there is no invitation
so that I can wake with you
by the ocean, in summer
or in the deepest seemingly
quietest winter,
and be with you
so that I can hear you
even with my eyes closed,
even with my heart closed,
even before I fully wake.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that a blessing for sound would be offered by a musician, that working so often with the magical power of music would lead me to the deepest sensitivity to the blessings it offers. However, it is not necessarily so. Frequent exposure to the stimulus of sound tires my ear and mind and deadens the senses. Sometimes I need silence. Pure and without exception. It is in silence that I’m most aware of God. Like Elijah in the cave, I sometimes sense God most keenly when the chaos of life ebbs for a moment. How thankful I am for those times, few though they are.
Whyte’s “Blessing for Sound” reminds me how rare such silence is. His blessing blesses by its clear cry that all life is sound, vibration, resonance between me and you and all creation and “even when there is no voice.” Attending to the sounds of life and even to the echoes of what is no more awakens me to that ever-present invitation to wakefulness and to the greatest blessing it has to offer: the surprise of you sitting beside me.