Back in early May a bluebird couple claimed the box right outside the piano room window. We watched the female build the nest, going in and out with her grass mustache. Yesterday we got to watch all five young bluebirds fledge - a first for us.
One young one stuck its head out, then its neck, then its shoulders, and then got its two little feet perched and poised on the outside edge of the opening. It jumped into the open air, flapped wildly and managed a 180 as if to say, Oh hell to the no! and clamored back in the box. It was one of the greatest you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me moments I’ve ever witnessed.
But a few minutes later it tried again and dropped down to the ground, speckled and blue like sunlight on water. The parents flew back and forth a few times and it carefully observed. And then lo and behold it discovered it could fly, and careened like a drunken rocket into the boughs of the Eastern white pine.
As we watched the bluebirds build their nest in early May, we recorded and filmed another concert here at home — 16 of our songs from the last few decades that arrived at various points of transition or a longing for transformation.
We called it Our Transition Transmission: Songs for Liminal Spaces and Thin Places.
What surprised us was how easy it was to find songs that fit this theme. Maybe we all need songs on the move, companions for the road ahead, mile markers along the way.
We’d like to invite you to join us online, Sunday, June 13, at 3pm EDT for a one-time livestream of this concert from home. These online gatherings feel like little mini-reunions as folks from around the world tune in for some music and conversation. They’ve been a gift during a season when stages all around the world went dark. It’s not quite like being in the same room together, but it does complete a circle nonetheless.
Facebook Event and streaming link:
If you can’t join us Sunday for the livestream, have no fear: you can own a permanent link to this concert as well as the special performances we filmed and recorded this past Christmas and St. Valentines Day. We’re putting the funds to good use as we continue to renovate our barn music venue and prepare for Nowhere Else Festival.
Your permanent link to all three concerts is available here:
Thanks to all of you who have pitched in so far, and for the kind notes too. It would seem many of us are trying to fledge into what’s next. And there is no going back.
This September 3-5 marks our official return to live music. We’d love to invite you here to the farm for our extended musical family reunion. We have a brilliant lineup of soulful folks. What a moment that will be when the music finally starts in the big tent.
We are setting up the studio in the barn to finish our next few projects — some of which have been simmering away on back burners. So more music coming out later this year.
There’s still a bluebird in our hearts,
PS And yes, happy to report that the bluebirds and one of our nesting tree swallows were brilliantly documented in the concert footage by Jeff and Misty Perholtz of Lifeboat Digital Media.