extraneous

Yesterday I enjoyed a birding walk along the Sand Creek Trail, a local path that follows thick hedgerows bordering cultivated fields, community gardens and the athletic complexes of a nearby college. Hedgerows make for interesting birding because they form a threshold between woodland and open field, and quite often there is a greater diversity of creatures here in these ecological borderlands, including birds.

One challenge with birding along this particular trail, however, is that a section of it borders the busy traffic artery of I-135. If you look closely at the image above you can catch just a glimpse of the interstate's cement through a gap in the foliage.

The highway makes birding difficult because of the incredible noise generated by steel-belted tires on asphalt. Birding this time of year, after the trees and shrubs have leafed out, is done more by ear than eye. As I traveled this section of trail yesterday my ear caught a faint, familiar song. At first, all I could hear was road noise, and I found that my first impulse was to focus on it--it was the most obvious and obnoxious sound--and I felt a growing frustration and resistance to the din. Then, I decided to just try and listen first for the bird.

I took some deep breaths, caught the faint song, and simply allowed my attention rest there. Very gradually the outer noise of the highway faded to background, the inner noise of my frustration quieted, and the sound of the bird became more clear. At first I thought the bird was flying closer, and that the traffic on the highway had lessened, but that was not the case. The traffic was rolling by thick and fast as ever, and the bird remained some distance away, but now its rich, clear whistle was more defined and I could tell it was one of my favorite birds, a Tufted titmouse.

All that had changed was my intention and focus. There was a releasing that happened in that moment, a letting go of extraneous noise, and a corresponding choice to focus differently. The result was greater simplicity and increased clarity.

There is so much extraneous noise in this world and in our daily lives--not just sound but also visual noise, noisy activity, noisy information, etc. Some of this noise is external and some is internal. Our rapid-fire minds struggle to process the incessant input and sometimes it can be quite overwhelming to discern what is worthy of our attention and reflection.

The temptation may be to resist that which we deem unnecessary and unwelcome; but we soon find that the resistance has a confounding way of amplifying the very things we may want to be relieved of. What is needed is a shift of the heart, an intentional shift of focus that directs the intention toward that which is most essential, most truthful, most life-giving, and most worthy of our loving awareness.

'Tis a gift to be simple
'tis a gift to be free,
'tis a gift to come down where we ought to be . . .

(from "Simple Gifts" by Joseph Brackett)