You can also read this essay at A Beautiful Resistance.
A word that has been one of my favourites for a while is lullaby. A lullaby
is, as is known, used as a support for falling asleep, meant for small children and
babies. A word that is a direct synonym for lullaby is berceuse. This is the French
word for lullaby, and it is used when referring to classical compositions. Chopin
has, for instance, composed one in 1843/44. And quite a few people argue that
Brahms suffered from sleep apnea, and as a direct result from that,
composed a berceuse to himself.
If you have, or get, anxiety, which autism often entails, then you can shake it off
yourself, like a dog coming up from the ocean. It is a way of getting in touch with
oneself, that is very physical, very direct. One can almost imagine that you
shake these emotions of anxiety off, as if they are drops flying in all directions.
It is only after I have realized that I am on the autism spectrum that I have seriously
noticed which strategies for survival I have mistaken for simply being alive,
and being overwhelmed often when it comes to all kinds of experiences.
I have had to change tracks and listen to myself, instead
of other people, even more than ever before and it has resulted in me being more solitary,
at least for a while.
To move around among lots of people has often felt like drowning to me.
And to not drown in over-stimulation, receiving too much input,
I have often resorted to writing, drawing or painting, and in this way
found a focus.
While this process goes on, I have returned to the word lullaby like a safe harbour,
a point of departure.
One day, as I looked out my kitchen window,
there were pigeons that so often sit on the roof ridge of
the house just across mine. And then the thought occurred to me that I
could make a lullaby to one of the pigeons, or at least try. I did not think about
why I should do this, or what the motif, for doing it, was. Only that this was an
idea to be pursued.
When I think about that pigeon, I associate the word lullaby with the word nest. A nest
is a self-built bed where something can hatch.
When I look at those pigeons sitting there on the roof ridge, it looks so peaceful.
Some of them sit so still, they look like small statues. Until something,
an unexpected sound, disturbs the peace, and they quickly fly away again. If I
could, I too would fly away from several situations where lots of
people are involved. Instead, I must focus in order to not disappear.
It becomes a matter of life and death to rebel against being made invisible.
To die, perhaps in the sense of withering away,
to give up on yourself, while being alive is a tragedy.
One day, when I went for a walk on a path I often wander on, which leads the way
out of town and to the countryside, I saw a large ox lying in a huge pile of mud at
the outskirts of the field. It was so powerful to look at and at the same time full of
calm. I felt an urge to, in some way, get the same connection to the soil as this ox
so obviously had. The muddy soil was his home. To use a very human term it
looked incredibly meditative. The calmness of the ox radiated at the same time an
immense presence; his body was right there, but also a huge absence, perhaps
you could say introvert, about the way the ox was there. A breath that seemed
timeless.
A lullaby for this ox must be very slow and sung in a very deep voice.
Deeper than I am capable of. A voice that sounds as if it comes from the insides of
Earth. To be able to enclose this animal in its own fantastic energy. An energy I,
as the first impression, associate with primal power.
There is something inexhaustible about the image of that ox
which has imprinted itself on my mind.
It is also a reminder of ancient cave paintings. It is not unthinkable that the
people who painted oxen, for instance, also tried to make songs to them in order
to understand them, their minds, better. Because this, to make a song to
another being, with or without words, is to try to approach its living conditions.
Inner living conditions.
To sing is to do something healthy for yourself,
and to understand, and maintain one’s own living conditions.
I sing every day. If I am alone all day, I
sometimes have to remind myself to be quiet, because I sing as a way of existing.
I sometimes understand how I feel through singing. I especially understand if I do
not feel so well, because then it often sits in the throat.
When I leave my apartment and have to go somewhere else, where there are a lot of
people, it can manifest itself in my throat, as if I must clear it to get there.
It can be very annoying, but the knowledge that this is anxiety,
which is, most likely, caused by autism, helps, so I do not go into panic.
If one day is particularly bad, I try to calm myself by
saying out loud: Please, take it easy! Like a mild order. And the essence of a
lullaby.
I feel comfortable with freedom. Spiritual freedom.
This means that I study everything I find interesting with only the limitations of time.
The pigeons on the roof ridge enjoy some kind of spiritual freedom,
a freedom of speech, which is impossible for me to fully comprehend.
The Bulgarian author Elias Canetti once wrote that he would give
ten years of his life to get one year as an elephant, or perhaps it was one
year for one day. Here he possibly also thought about spiritual
freedom as part of a transformational power. He wrote a lot about throwing words
against death. There is a book about him with different contributions in Danish,
simply called “Dødsfjenden” (The enemy of Death). His position is a celebration of
the individual human’s (inner) freedom of expression and the potential for that.
If you must fight to find your voice and (re)gain your freedom of expression, as
so many sadly have to do, then it is important to burn from within. Then there
shall not be a lack of words in your songs. Then you must wriggle yourself free
and go into the unknown. It might create the sensation of finally removing
yourself from a web of sticky dogmas. One where you were a spider busy with
consuming the prey, only to suddenly realize that the prey is a part of yourself.
I wish that the world gets an anthology full of lullabies for individuals.
Other beings. Gently and mysteriously. Dwelling.
It does not need to be published in any official way, but it can be.
It can bloom continuously everywhere. Then any
human can meet another and tell them that they recently made a lullaby for
another animal, or they can keep it to themselves covered with the fine shadows of a
private life.
RUNE KJÆR RASMUSSEN
Rune Kjær Rasmussen is an animist, writer, singer, and occasional painter from Denmark.