3) A place of Safety

I define “safe” as: a sanctuary, filled with love and familiarity.

Nests are safe places. With that in mind, take a moment to think of a place that you feel safe in. Perhaps you are met with a feeling of security, comfort and little stress. You might experience a sense of calm, an absence of threat or danger leading to the ability to fall into a meditative state of flow. Connotations of warmth, cosiness and intimacy might also follow as you picture this place. Bliss!

Here are my safe places which evoke the above sensations, similar to a nest in nature:

  1. My Gran’s Govan front room with its wall to wall clutter.

  2. My Dad’s pristine clean front passenger seat.

  3. The two old, tattered seats by the fireplace at The Nith Hotel in Glencaple, Dumfries.

  4. My cupboard home studio

My Musical Nest!

My Musical Nest!

Each of these environments share common signifiers and connotations of nurture and care - and maybe, at times, even the luxury of aloneness. Scottish poet-laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s poignant “Safe Sounds” poem offers insight to what one may aurally encounter at a human level:

You like safe sounds:
the dogs lapping at their bowls;
the pop of a cork on a bottle of plonk
as your mother cooks;
the Match of the Day theme tune
and Doctor Who-oo-oo.

Safe sounds:
your name called, two happy syllables
from the bottom to the top of the house;
your daft ring tone; the low gargle
of hot water in bubbles. Half asleep
in the drifting boat of your bed,
you like to hear the big trees
sound like the sea instead.
(Duffy, C. 2017)

In this blog post, I will reveal my thoughts on the safety that nests provide through an original composition inspired by the Long-Tailed Tit’s nesting behaviour from the previous blog post. I will share a choreographic gift I received I will then return to a long time muse of mine, the arctic tern or in Icelandic “Kria” who practice safety with cunning and defensive tenacity.

To begin, I wanted to capture the beauty of the Long Tailed Tit’s practice of nest building that I ended the last post on. I have been letting their careful, generous dance percolate in my mind as I admire this learned behaviour, this artistic craft. To capture the conversations the pair of nest builders we having, I decided to collaborate with Cellist Sarah McWhinney to devise a short piece of music that encapsulates their chatter. This short fragment is a jazzy, mixolydian playful experiment that I see in two distinct parts - making and then consolidating - which is distinctly related to how I observed the birds in practice. In this composition, Sarah’s cello is layered over the sound of my nesting site where my ground level construction was built, as well as a very subtle synth pedal that offers a meditative undertone.

I have long been fascinated by the premise of safety and its choreography. I am inspired to revisit a choreographic practice myself at some point during this research and to see if I am able to find a dance that take place in a sanctuary, filled with love and familiarity. I was recently in conversation with long time collaborator and performance artist Caroline Bowditch, who gifted me a dance following our conversations towards my enquiry. This was her response to my questions to her about her embodiment of safety, flight, warmth and love. She also chose to use my composition “Eg Skil Ekki” as a backing track which was an equally beautiful surprise.

This work encapsulates so much of what I am interested in at the moment - the balance between a delicate act of survival and an artistic gesture, something a bird has to negotiate on a daily basis and arguably, something we humans do too. The orchestration of the elements - how Caroline’s reaching and stretching offered connotations of connection from across the waves was particularly moving. Love and familiarity offered from somewhere unfamiliar reminds me of something most of us go through as we enter this world, nurtured into the colours and vibrations of the natural world from the stillness and sanctuary of the womb. Much like the bird hatching from the egg - from a pitch black familiar sanctuary, to blinding light, poking a cumbersome beak to feel its way for food, desperately and delicately poised.

When I was last in Iceland with my partner in the Autumn of 2019, we encountered Kria at the north coast of the country who were watching over their nestlings. This was my recollection then:

I gave myself the deadline way back then to complete a song idea, though it is very much still coming soon - too afraid to leave the safe space, perhaps and surrender to the colour. This song idea of mine has never quite settled I think, perhaps because it too is protecting something not yet known. I have since returned to the track and have come up with a demo version to try and nurture it in the same way a firm parent might with their timid child at the school gates, gently through the door:

Here are the lyrics:

Call off the search
Pocket the tip
This white sergeant’s
Willow’s been royally stripped
Leaning towards
Those sucked out draws
A cussed thraw
Spun with spiced liquor laws, just because…

Quiet down,
Settle down,
Hands down
Let us hunt now,
We’re at liberty
To shut up the speak
And turn it all towards
Blind discourse which
Fools us all until
Peter blamed Paul
And to all, adieux…
For the favoured few
For the favoured few.
(Maybe, maybe…. Maybe, maybe…)

Fit for a king
How the kría sings
Out on a whim
Stuttering beneath the springs
Hide those fig leaves
So much to see, it’s
Just a sharp sting, breathe
Through delicious streets
Dance into smithereens  

Quiet down,
Settle down,
Hands down
Let us hunt now,
We’re at liberty
To shut up the speak
And turn it all towards
Blind discourse which
Fools us all until
Peter blamed Paul
And to all, adieux…
For the favoured few
For the favoured few.

Tiny ghost in the wind
To glide through the spin,
Those mediocre things.
Tiny glimmer in the wind,
Prickly needles sticky pins
Those darn right nasty things

Maybe Maybe
Maybe Maybe
Mayday Mayday,
Mayday mayday
Maybe Maybe…

This song is inspired by anxiety and the constant front of aggression the bird has to dawn to justify its existence. Many birds exhibit aggressive behaviours intended to drive a potential predator from the location of the nest or chicks. In speaking to my partner’s Dad, Siggi, he tells me that aggressive nest defence is most common when the defending individuals pose a threat or nuisance to predators, typically because of a large body size, shared defence between two parents, or cooperation among nearby individuals. Kría is known for her nest defence, an important behavioural adaptation to reduce the probability of nest predation. Kría exhibits aggressive behaviours intended to drive potential predators from the location of the nest or chicks like swooping, diving, screeching and pecking. What I do find extremely interesting is that since this defence strategy is so powerful and well rehearsed, Kría does not only protect her own nest but also chicks of other species who nest near her.

We often hide something precious to keep it safe. I like to think my song demo embodies the concept of safety well. Though, when I return to it, I will consider embodying a more “Safe but Charged” atmosphere timbrally and structurally. It needs some more breathing space and some more danger to make a memorable mark on the listener. The end is a mystery and I like where it may go. I think of the wonderful piece “The Outer Banks” by The Album Leaf. The track consistently finds it feet following the one-layer-at-a-time instructions, this time beginning with a Rhodes looped motif in A Major. This track quickly becomes the most chaotic and dangerous embodiment which is an exciting moment in the album. It starts to convey a sense of intensity, particularly as the track reaches its critical mass in the mix. We have nowhere to hide.

I want to invoke that sense in this piece when I return to develop it. William Wordsworth’s seminal poem “The Sparrow’s Nest” continues this idea of the “safe but charged” energy, this time in relation to the sensibilities of the essential elements of humanity through encountering a sacred space, a nesting site, with his sister Dorothy. At first, the charged sense:

She looked at it and seemed to fear it;
Dreading, tho' wishing, to be near it.
(Wordsworth, W. 1807)

I can literally feel the nervousness about disrupting the delicate site in these lines. Later in the text, Wordsworth is crediting his sister’s ability to connect him to the qualities of vision, humility and sensibility (‘delicate fears’). These are all key components that can be instilled from the confines of a nest, where we yearn and glean from our older, wiser mentors about the world we are taking part in. For Wordsworth, it seems like those three traits are important for a stimulating and fulfilling existence. He took the nest from his memory of discovering a nest in the garden and by writing about it, placed it into the present - much like I did in the very first blog post about my juvenile encounter with the nest behind the porta-cabin. It is an optimistic act: the nest, an abiding place which can recover and restore some of the wonders and curiosities of the past. But I cannot rejoice in this romantic place for long - all fairytales come to an end. I had to look upwards, from this close internal focus, away from my feet.

One last look down.

One last look down.

As I walk away from the nest for the second time, I pay attention to a John O’Donohue blessing I found called “For Longing” to mark the beginnings of my next steps:

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.
May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.
(O’Donohue, J. 2008)

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