A blackbird sits on a branch and sings. You hear him through the open window. For a moment, you stop what you are doing.
A simple event. Yet a different world can open up within it each time. The song may belong to the morning, prompt an investigation, be experienced as a message or appear without any felt separation between the bird and the one listening.
Below are four possible descriptions. They are sketches, not fixed types of people. The same person may recognise several of these worlds, sometimes even at the same moment. And of course there are many more than four.
1. The everyday lifeworld
The window is open. You are making coffee and hear the blackbird. He is in his usual spot again. You do not really know whether he is the same one as yesterday. He sounds like it.
You stand still for a moment and listen. The song belongs to this hour, to the light in the kitchen and the air that is still cool. There will be all sorts of things to do later, but not just yet. Perhaps the bird reminds you of another garden, a house you used to live in, someone you sat there with.
Then the water boils. You pick up a cup and carry on. The blackbird keeps singing.
In this lifeworld, the bird has his place within familiar life. You do not need to explain his song to recognise or enjoy it. Memories, habits, activities and mood together shape the morning in which he appears.
2. The natural-scientific lifeworld
The blackbird sings. Your attention turns to the sequence of sounds, the pauses and the repetitions. Another bird can be heard further away. Is there a connection between their songs? Does the pattern change when the other bird comes closer?
You make a recording and note the time and the conditions. What was first heard as a single flowing melody becomes a set of recognisable patterns that can be compared. Questions arise about behaviour, learning, reproduction and the environment in which the singing takes place.
Turdus merula (IUCN status: Least Concern), of the order Passeriformes, takes its place within a much broader history of life and evolution. His body, senses and behaviour become accessible to various forms of research. An explanation must do more than sound plausible: observations, testing and criticism can support or contradict it.
This way of looking can also evoke wonder. The familiar song turns out to prompt ever more questions. The scientific lifeworld has its own concepts and methods, through which aspects of the blackbird become visible that received little attention while making coffee.
3. A spiritual lifeworld
You have slept badly. A question has been on your mind for days, and you cannot resolve it. Then you hear the blackbird. You look up and see him sitting there, free on that slender branch, singing as though nothing were missing.
It touches you. As though life were showing you something for a moment: you do not have to hold on to everything. Perhaps a trust is possible that thinking cannot bring you to. At this moment, the encounter feels too meaningful to be experienced as mere coincidence.
Perhaps you experience the bird as a messenger, or his song as an expression of the interconnectedness of which you, too, are a part. The boundary between an event outside you and what occupies you inwardly becomes permeable. The morning seems to offer an answer.
In this lifeworld, the blackbird appears within a meaningful relationship between human beings, nature and existence. That the encounter truly affects you is distinct from the question of whether a message is literally being conveyed to you. The meaning of the experience and its explanation do not necessarily coincide.
4. A nondual lifeworld
Sounds, images, thoughts...
The blackbird sings. Cool air through the window, the warmth of the cup. A car passes and briefly drowns out the bird. Then the song is there again.
A sense of beauty in those last notes. Immediately, a thought: how could that be described? A few words arise and disappear. The blackbird carries on.
Oh yes! There is still a bill to pay! A slight tension in the stomach. The coffee is almost gone. Outside, the branch moves, but the bird has already left.
The cup goes onto the kitchen counter.
In this sketch, no separate ‘I’ is experienced as the one to whom all this is happening.
What changes?
In these four descriptions, more changes than the explanation of the song. What is noticed, what matters and how the listener is present also differ. The familiar bird becomes a subject of research, a meaningful encounter or song without any felt distance.
The descriptions can overlap. Scientific interest does not rule out enjoyment. A memory can arise during an investigation. A moment of connectedness need not become a spiritual belief. Lifeworlds have no watertight boundaries.
Nor can all the statements made within these worlds be assessed in the same way. A claim about bird behaviour calls for a different kind of inquiry from a description of how the song touches someone. Attending to different lifeworlds does not mean that every answer is equally well supported.
And the blackbird? While we look, listen, investigate and give meaning, he may fly away.