The Horse, the Myna and the Parrot

Animals react differently to music just as humans do.

When I lived in Baguio City, I used to go out often before sunrise for a jog to a pine-forested area where I paused for stretching exercises. One particularly cold and foggy morning, I also did some vocal exercises for an album recording I was doing.

At the edge of the forest stood two horses tied to the trees, silently munching the grass. Upon hearing my weird recital of notes and a hymn I was rehearsing, the two beasts got startled, backing from me with raised heads and grunting their protests. Looking at their big, bulging eyes, I could sense they had never heard anything of that sort before. One of them settled back to the tasty grass while the other couldn’t get enough of my voice. It moved closer and closer and joined me with its horrible moaning, eyes filled with wonder and longing. I’m sure it wasn’t my voice but the idea of music and its discovery by one of God’s magnificent creatures. Of course, it must have heard music before but not praise music during a breakfast of fresh, dewy green salad. The beast must have felt a hungry spirit’s exultation to God and tried to join in the jubilation. That was the only time I ever did a duet with a dumb being; but I felt triumphant.

Tonight, feeling the pangs of loneliness I went out to the gazebo with my flute and sat there in the dark on a wicker chair set between two bird cages. In one cage was a myna; in the other was a parrot. The moment I sat down, the myna went berserk and fluttered back and forth in its cage. This myna was the same one that couldn’t stop talking all day long, muttering ugly words taught by equally ugly characters. It had come to be so good at “mynaing” (parroting would not be proper) that it could imitate a smoker’s cough and even a cell-phone’s high-tech ring tone. But this myna had no appreciation for the mellifluous tones of the flute. Or the petitions of a soul seeking solace from heaven. Or perhaps, it just didn’t like the interruption of its roost by my presence. As I drew grace from the music that came to me, the myna grew more restless.

The parrot, on the other hand, simply perched there in silence, listening unobstrusively. It didn’t join in the growing celebration. It didn’t feel violated by human idiosyncrasy. It paid respect to the silence of God at that moment of yearning and prayer. It simply lifted up its head in awareness of something beyond its comprehension. Perhaps it had joined other birds before in giving tribute to the Creator. But tonight, like a music lover enthralled by the melody playing, it gave way to the performance and lost its own sense of being in the presence of a greater being. In that regard, I was one with the parrot.