Green Hills of Tyrol Set
“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” - Gandalf, from The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien
There were no birds or blooming flowers. The sky held only clouds. The reeds and trees, green in the sunny months, were sleeping under the brown and grey covers they had pulled over themselves against the cold. A drizzly rain, ceòthach in Gàidhlig, was starting to fall.
Somber. Sentimental. Even sad. You see enough seasons come and go, and you become acutely aware of what they involve: birth, death, growth, dormancy, joy, sadness, like the seasons themselves, only not so predictable. As I’ve aged, I’ve learned the obvious lesson that time develops all things in infinite ways, and destroys them in infinite others. I cope by submission to the unstoppable. Meanwhile I attempt to look for productive ways to access value - there’s always value, even covered in grey - and music is a path to it that’s always open.
Music is a universal translator of value. It takes all sorts of images, ideas, emotions, events, time itself, and describes them so we can comprehend and endure. The two bagpipe tunes I played for the video linked below translate even deep sadness into productivity and progress, at least for me. Through it I submit to melancholy or grief in a way that develops me, but doesn’t destroy me.
And in the grey expanse, there were bits of brightness and growth, more stark in their isolation among the drab background than they would’ve been in abundance. At the end of an hour’s walk around the Blue Point Nature Preserve on New York’s Long Island, a statue of a turtle stood upon a rock. Its head was raised, and medallions hung around its neck. It said something about slow and steady perseverance, in joy or sadness, and the rewards it brings.
