My New Year: Putting Things into Perspective

It always amazes me how much we can learn from nature. I've mentioned Rudyard Kipling before when I talked about Bagheera from The Jungle Book, and I truly am quite a fan of the book. It involves so many stories of animals in the wild, to include Mowgli and his friends, but also Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and other famous animals. These stories teach us of bravery, of wisdom, and of kindness, virtues we as humans should not neglect to attend to.

Among the stories in The Jungle Book is The White Seal, a story about a Northern fur seal looking for a new home for his family, a place where they will be safe from hunters. In the beginning of his tale, Kipling starts off with a lullaby, one from a mother seal to her baby.

The Seal Lullaby
by Rudyard Kipling


Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, no shark shall overtake thee
Asleep in the storm of slow-swinging seas.

This poem in itself is very endearing, and one can imagine how beautiful such a lullaby could be. In fact, one of my favorite composers, Eric Whitacre, did just that. In the year of 2007, Whitacre composed a choral piece with his wife, titled "The Seal Lullaby", and when I heard it for the first time, I felt my heart break. I will admit: I was a big ball of mushy, sappy goo, all teary eyed and simpering for how much the song touched my heart. It was the poem, but so much more. No longer was it simple endearment. It was a mother's desperate love for her child, a calling and a hushing. It was pure and unadulterated devotion. If ever I had doubted the existence of altruism, all doubt was gone with the song.

I have explained my love for music - well enough anyways, I hope. And listening to any of Whitacre's pieces will make me think. But the existence of something as fundamental and untainted as a mother's love even in something as simple as a fur seal - it catches you by surprise. It makes you wonder. It gives you hope.

I would give you one of my own pieces, but this lullaby is what is in my heart as of now. It is what I hope to bear throughout the rest of the year, this feeling of reassurance. There is so much wrong with the world, but there is still so much good to be had, and to let ourselves forget that is to forget ourselves. There is so little now that is appreciated.