Hand carved Bowl Inspired by Nightbirde

Like many people around the world, I recently watched the 2021 America's Got Talent audition of a young singer who goes by the stage name of Nightbird. On so many different levels it was an amazing audition. It was amazing because, well, the audition itself was amazing. Nightbird has a song itself is beautifully written and it was wonderfully performed. It was an amazing audition because Jane Marcheski, the young woman behind Nightbird, she's been battling cancer since 2016. She's on her third diagnosis and currently has some cancer in her liver and her spine and in her lungs. It was amazing because from the moment she walked on the stage to the moment that she walked off, she was leaking joy into the room. I've thought about how to say this and I don't know how else to put it. She was leaking joy into the room. She was overflowing with so much joy that it wasn't just her life that was changing, it was the lives of the people who saw her as well. Seldom in my life has I ever seen someone so full of life, so full of joy, so full. And in the minutes after the audition, facing four stunned judges, she spoke these words, you can't wait until life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy. Let those words sink in for a moment. You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy. It was in that moment that I knew that I was in trouble. At the same time, as the title of the song she just sang declares, that it's okay. One of the gifts that Nightbird has for anyone who will listen is not just that she so wonderfully demonstrates what true joy looks like, but that she also knows how to guide other people towards experiencing that joy for themselves. For me, as I listened to her response to the judges after the audition, I immediately understood one of the obstacles in my life to experiencing unadulterated joy in the way that Nightbird does. This observation on my part has occupied much of my thinking for the last couple weeks. What was it? Simply this, that the path to joy is not one of seeking joy and trying to find it, but instead of choosing joy wherever you are at. Like many of us, I've spent much of my life trying to find joy. But unfortunately, joy is not something you find. It is not at the beach. It's not in a job. It's not in a spouse or a child or any experience. Instead, it is something that you must choose. It is a way of living, a way of seeing, a way of being that you must choose. And here's the kicker as I'm understanding it. It is something that you have to choose now if you want it later. If you don't choose it now, it is unlikely you will choose it on the beach or in that relationship or during that experience. You can choose joy now and take it with you to any of those things and you will find then joy in the experience, in the relationship or on that beach. But if you don't choose it now, the likelihood that you will find it in an experience or a relationship and bring it home is pretty slim. When Nightbird finished her song for the audition, there was this brief moment where there was this hint of uncertainty in her. It was a questioning glance at the judges that seemed to say, did you like it? This is understandable when you learn that she has not been able to perform much over the last five years and had not been able to prepare in the way that she would like to have for the audition because of her battle with cancer. But what is very clear to me is that the joy that Nightbird had before, during and after the audition was not something present because she was on America's Got Talent and it was not simply because of the judges or the crowd's reaction to her performance. I believe that Nightbird would have been just as joyful today if she had never auditioned for America's Got Talent. I say this because in the hours after watching her audition on America's Got Talent, I ended up watching a 30-minute interview with Jane that took place in July of 2020 during the height of the pandemic uncertainty and before she became a household name. The interview was with an organization called Teen Mental Love. Kudos to Teen Mental Love for spending their time helping teens transverse the the difficult situation of teenage mental health. So kudos to them. What is clear in the interview is that Nightbird was the same person on July of 2020 as she was in July of 2021. A young woman who is full of joy because she has chosen to be full of joy. During the interview she shares that she was not only battling cancer but also transversing the terrain of a divorce. Either one of these, she points out, has the potential to ruin someone's life for the rest of their life. Jane, however, chose and is choosing the path of forgiveness and of healing. She is choosing the path of hope. The biggest bit of advice she says that she has for anyone is to learn how to choose to see hope. To see and believe that there is something better that awaits you even if you can't see it in the moment. It is at this point that the story of Jane's stage name Nightbird and this bowl that I'm making come into the story. At the end of the interview Jane is asked what was the story behind her stage name? Why did she choose it? Here is her response. I love the story. I woke up three times in the middle of the night a few years ago with the same dream and it was a dream where I could see like a tree and the tree was full of birds and the birds were chirping, chirping, chirping. But it was the middle of the night and so the sunrise wasn't anywhere near but the birds were singing as if it was morning already. I woke up the third time of that dream and I actually heard real birds outside and I went to my window and looked and there they were singing. It was three in the morning and they were singing as if the sun was coming up and I thought that was so profound. I wanted to be that way. I wanted to sing in celebration of the morning light even though there was no proof of it coming yet. The bowl shape is obviously a bird. The interior of the bowl is black with a subtle hint of blue. It is so subtle that you almost can't see it unless you're looking for it and even then you can't quite convince yourself if it's there or not. The ridges of the chip carving allow the blue light of the first coats of paint to show through in the same way that the morning breaks through to the night with subtle gestures hearkening at soon arrival but again it can be missed if you're not aware and you're not looking. That is the thing with nightbirds. Nightbirds don't wait around until the morning is certain. They perform a nightly ritual where they sing in anticipation of something they hope is coming, something they believe is coming, something they know is coming but something they cannot yet see and in that moment of hope they choose to sing anyway. In doing so they facilitate their own miracle and in some indescribable way they bring forth the very day that they hoped for. It would be easy to say batat the morning was going to come anyway whether they sing or not. Maybe that's true but from the moment they begin their warbling until the point of the breaking dawn where the coming day is no longer a question but has become a certainty they are the coming day. In a real sense they have become the change that they want to see and this is the same transformational power that is available to you and it's available to me. When we choose to love in the face of anger and hatred we change the situation until the world catches up. When we choose to be a person of peace in a world of conflict we become the change in a world that so desperately needs it. When we live out forgiveness in a world bent on revenge we become the change our world desperately needs. In each of these situations we have the same choice that Nightbird had and has when she lives out joy in a world that so easily is consumed with misery and in doing so her song not only beckons hope into her own heart but it also floods the world around her with the joy of a new day. The Nightbird has sung and the morning has broken forth.