bird song at night.

Wake up ruffled in the middle of the night.

Maybe from a bad dream that reached unbearable fever pitch, or from a blanket that has you entangled. Bleary-eyed and in the daze of half-waking, you settle back into the mattress, and hope that sleep will come quickly. Hope that particular kind of silent, late-night dread that hits in these early hours will not derail your chance at blissful rest.

And then you hear it.

A clear bell, sharp as glass and incredibly sweet. Cool stream for the tired thirst of your ears. Bird song that pierces through the quiet, the solitude, the overwhelming dark of the night.
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Hearing a bird singing out into the night is one of my favourite sounds. The way the clarity and sweetness of the sound cuts through the silence is just so incredibly beautiful and striking. The excerpts, quotes and images that I want to start sharing here are in a way similar. They are words and artworks and expressions that cut through the pain, boredom, loneliness and mediocrity that we can sometimes perceive as colouring life, and remind us of what is good, true, wise, loving and joyful. They are sometimes surprising, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes painful in that they elucidate just how long we have been estranged from their truth. They may not always make perfect intellectual sense, or may seem so obvious as to not warrant their expression at all, but like the bird song, they all confirm Rumi's thought that "the soul is here for its own joy."