Cavan Brown reflects on Australian spirituality by tracing the
‘songlines’ of the magpie.

The magpie is Australian but its name is not. This bird was named by
the early settlers after the magpie of Europe, a black and white bird
belonging to the Corvidae family and therefore related to the crows and
ravens.

Australian magpies belong to the family of Cracticidae along with
the butcherbirds and currawongs. Magpies prefer to live in extended
families. In Western Australia, where things are generally more
gregarious, the family may extend up to 24 birds.

In the East, magpies think that 10 is enough. Depending on the size
of the family, the magpies claim a territory ranging from 2 to 18
hectares, which means that the wooded areas of Australia and the leafy
suburbs are neatly divided up into magpie blocks.

The magpie’s outstanding feature is its song. It is one of the
premier Australian songbirds. While the kookaburra cheers the morning
and evening with raucous laughter, the magpie sings a tuneful song.
Roland Robinson describes the sound poetically, but accurately, as a
‘liquid throated song… as though his throat was filled with rain’.

Frank S. Williamson, wrote in praise of the magpie: "O, I love
to be by Bindi… Just to hear the magpies warble in the blue gums on
the hill" (Frank Williamson, "The Magpies Song",
Landscape and Life, C.McKaskill and F.J. Kavanagh, McGraw Hill, 1966).

And not only in Bindi. Williamson notes in his poem of praise to the
magpie that, like the crow, it seems to appear in a wide variety of
Australian landscapes. He remembers magpies in the snow country, along
the coastal heaths and in the city – ‘calling, chiming, trolling,
crooning’ their own distinctive song.

The Song of the Magpie is worthy of Williamson’s praise. Their song
is even better if it leads us to recognise the place of songs in the
human experience. We listen to songs continually – radios, C.D., T.V.
Computers and even telephones carry songs. We sing songs – in church, in
restaurants around karaoke microphones, in AFL football grandstands,
cricket and Rugby league change rooms. Not all sing well. Footballers
cannot match Pavarotti but it does not stop them.

Nature sings in a myriad of sounds. Birds, insects, frogs, dingoes
and whales all sing. Even trees sing – listen to the wind in the
she-oaks. Hebrew poetry in the Old Testament recognises the ability of
nature to join in songs of praise.

Let the sea resound and everything in it, the world, and all who
live in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing
together for joy; Let them sing before the Lord. (Psalm 98:7-9a)

the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the
trees of the field will clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12)

In this exuberant vision, the whole of creation is seen to be
singing songs that ultimately reflect the Creator God. One of the best
songs is sung by the Australian Magpie. It sings to let us know that
“songs are in the air, everywhere” – Songs of Creation sung by all
nature.

Traditional Aborigines have heard these Songs of Creation in nature
and have written their songs that reflect their own culture with its
highs and lows, its light and darkness – the same as any other culture.
These songs relate back to the Dreaming when everything was made by the
Ancestor Spirits under the power of an All-Father God. Each prominent
natural feature, each tribe, each animal has a story which was often
formed into a song and when this song is sung the people are
intrinsically connected to the spirituality of their land. The songs are
then formed into songlines and they become, for the traditional people,
the path of life – literally.

When they travel from one place to another they sing the right songs
in the right order and the physical world, as it comes before them,
becomes a known land. The songlines become not only their maps, but also
their passports when passing through another tribe’s land. The songs are
also their worship. To know the songlines of the land is to know the
world in its dimension of matter and spirit. The songs also link the
land with their personal ‘rites of passage’ (birth, initiation,
marriage, death) which means that each personal story is seen as part of
the higher ‘sacred story’ that was written in the land.

As Bruce Chatwin noted in his book Songlines, what to a white man is
nothing more than a stretch of featureless scrub, is to a traditional
Aboriginal the equivalent of Beethoven’s Opus 111, a passage of the
Iliad (p.16) or the book of Psalms.

To follow the right songline was to have a song for every occasion.
Bruce Chatwin’s closing anecdote in Songlines tells of an old Aboriginal
man called Limpy who asked Chatwin and his Australian friend Arkady for
a lift to a place called Cycad Valley. He had never been there before
but he said he now needed to go to that place.

For most of the trip he lay on the back seat of the Land Cruiser but
ten miles before arriving at the Valley, Limpy suddenly sat up muttering
things, sticking his head out of the window, and then silence. Again, he
started – half talking, half singing to himself and Chatwin could see he
was becoming very agitated. Arkady, then realised what was happening.
Limpy had learnt his songlines at walking pace and they were in a Land
Cruiser travelling at running speed.

They stopped and let old Limpy out of the vehicle and he began to
walk and sing with a big smile on his face. He walked and sang until he
arrived at a place where three old men, not much more than skeletons,
lay on old beds under the shade of a tree. For Limpy and the three men,
this place was their ‘conception site’ and now, in the neat Aboriginal
cycle of life, it was to become their death site – the place where their
songline ended. When Limpy introduced himself ‘all three smiled,
spontaneously, the same toothless grin… smiling at death in the shade
of a ghost-gum’.

The Bible has its own songline. From Genesis to Revelation, the
major themes of the Bible are connected together by songs. There are
songs of the beginning – the creation of the world, the creation of the
human community and the community of faith. There are songs about the
journey. The ‘Song of Moses and Miriam’ (Exodus 15) and the ‘Song of
Moses’ (Deuteronomy 32) celebrate the deliverance from Egypt and the
desert years. Sacred sites are set in song. There are songs about human
frailty and the faithfulness of God to forgive. There are songs about
God’s intervention in human history like the Servant Songs of Isaiah.

When that Servant was born, new songs were sung – Mary’s song (Luke
1:46-54), Zechariah’s song (Luke 1:68-79) and Simeon’s song (Luke
2:29-32). More songs came from the life, death and resurrection of the
Servant, Jesus Christ, like Philippians 2:6-11. (‘Who, being in the very
nature of God… made himself nothing… being made in human likeness…
became obedient to death – therefore God has exalted him… gave him a
name above every name… Jesus is Lord’)

The final movement of the songline is in the book of Revelation. At
one point a heavenly choir re-sings all the songs from Moses to the new
songs of the final movement – the song of the Lamb (Revelation 15:3).
The songline finishes with the words. Now the dwelling of God is with
people, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God
himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or
pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (21:3-4)

This final song is the completion of all songlines. ‘It is done. I
am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End’ (21:6) Meaningful
life is lived by learning the right songs and to sing them with reality.
Songs without reality are empty. Amos, the prophet of the desert town of
Tekoa, said to the people ‘Away with the noise of your songs!’ (Amos
5:23) Ezekiel spoke similar words from God: ‘I will put an end to your
noisy songs’ (Ezekiel 26:13). At other times, some of the songs became
stale and lost their original power.

Learning the right songs, in the right order interprets our
individual spiritual journeys through the Divine songline themes of
creation, development, failure, recovery, death and resurrection. Having
gaps in the songline is to risk losing the way and not being able to
sing that last Song, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men.’

Having no songline is living in a world without any understanding of
spirituality. ‘An unsung land is a dead land.’ The Song of the Magpie is
to be enjoyed for its own melody but when its becomes part of a wider
symphony then the appreciation deepens. Its ‘calling, chiming, trolling,
crooning’, leads us to find the Songline of God that makes each stage of
life is meaningful. Frank Williamson, who wrote his poem in praise of
the magpies in the blue gums at Bindi, expresses his hope that the
magpie song will continue to be heard through all the changing scenes of
life and particularly in his closing days. He wants the comfort of
hearing the magpie sing their Song of Creation when he faces that last
scene of his life.

And my life seems one long lovely vale where grow the rosy years;
Lilting, lilting, lilting; when I slumber at the last, Let your music in
the joyous wind be ever wandering past. On that day the Song of the
Magpie will be overtaken by the final Song of Creation: ‘Now the
dwelling of God is with his people and he will live with them.’

by Cavan Brown
Cavan Brown is a Western Australian writer.

Article last updated 18th May 1998 © Copyright to Shoot The
Messenger

Related Articles:

• Henri Nouwen – more wisdom
• LIVING A WHOLE LIFE (Richard Rohr)
• Faith and feelings
• Beautiful video with a comforting message…
• Wisdom from Henri Nouwen

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.