I’m new to the Slash Pine family. So, in many ways this is hello.

I wanted to post this Céleste Boursier-Mougenot video in case you haven’t seen it yet.

I have been thinking about John Cage’s sense that “(Music) is instantaneous and unpredictable” (Themes & Variations). Grateful for the amplification of these finches at the end of a stressful year filled with anxiety about moving, the economy, the job market, earthquakes, hurt paws, oil spills, hateful legislation, and the fact that friends who write beautiful poems struggle to feed their children. At home, far away from home, every day is a struggle to relinquish agency in order to acknowledge poverty as thanksgiving (when I know helplessness is a promise to wakefulness). Like Neil Young sings, “All my changes were there.”

What am I talking about? Keeping the faith. Again, Cage: “Music is permanent; only listening is intermittent (Thoreau)” (Themes & Variations). Amidst all this noise, there is much to be thankful for at the first edge of summertime—the music of Boursier-Mougenot’s finches attends to the arrival of a wider perspective. (An organization that Thoreau calls “Higher Laws.”)

Here’s to what is left of my Evan Williams for Cage’s reminder that “our ears are now in excellent condition” (Themes & Variations).

Nathan