7.5.14 Letting The Wind Take You

As for many of us, a tropical storm has skirted the edges of our neighborhood ; come, and gone.I have been sick and I have been gone ; yesterday I was back home.

Yesterday here a babe was born , right next door. Peacefully, in a living room ; as were my three, long long ago.

Yesterday the outskirts of that storm did pass, and all the land was bathed clean; thirst quenched, as the trees gently swept high and low, in the wild wild winds.

  

Today we have the bright morning after, where everything is resplendent, shining ; glistening. 

    

                                

The volume of baby birds , fresh from their feathered nest birdhouses, are hungrily scouring small moths and insects and worms , with great ability, their small small selves wandering about the same safe harbor of the neighborhood here. 

                                                    We sit out, holding hands

 as a bald eagle dips gracefully by, and then far out of sight

The hills in the distance a deep indigo blue ; the Tibetan Peace Pagoda barely visible, always a white dot nestled into that far off land, filled with those who hold great faith, ever, against great odds , each step and breath an assertion of the freedom and gift of this present moment. 

  

Tiny bees 

The beautiful choreography of asexual mating slugs. 

      

And here,in this land filled with infants,

 we watch fondly; with baby Bluebirds, the tiny new Sparrows, tufted topped Phobes , and of course, the Pines Siskins ; perched sideways upon Mountain Laurel and aged Oak, their incessant interactions sweet and pitch perfect and soothing . 

   

We find ourselves awash with delighted newly-hatched gallivanting butterflies and newly unfolded dragonflies.  

For, we forget all the ones whose gestation is so evident- eggs and chrysalis and due process .

Years ago I sat on a dock on a pond far up in New Hampshire, and I watched the transformation of a dragonfly , as it came out of it's case, found it's sea-legs , slowly unfurled the length of its body, in the hot summer sun and the vast pond breeze,as it's intricate wings began to dry. 
It's body actually inflated as it unrolled before me- as I sat, stock still, breathless. Watching someone. Brand new. Transform.

And then it stood, winged for the very first time- outstretched, entire body unfurled, somehow knowing just how to wait in the sun ,in the gentle wind , until just the right moment, which did come, and they did know, because suddenly, in the blink of an eye, they knew what to do, and they were gone.

Now my beloved has left for the day, and I am still sitting out, watching the baby Bluebirds frolic and interact as they drink from the birdbath and feed here and there. 

An agile, brash Doe makes her youthful way far down across the newly shorn Conservation field, nibbling the soft grasses and enjoying the warm sun on her back, intermittently looking up to check upon me, sitting here, watching.

And I watch back, as , all about her, the elegant neighborhood swallows sweep and soar across the field, at times flying high above for a, yes, bird's eye view- and at other times , hunting down close to the ground, swooping and stopping to feed and feed and feed. 

The yellow finches are enthused with the bright yellow Mullein blossoms ,having ardent mis-en-mis, as two Redwing Hawks fly, so far overhead. 

Almost motionless. As one of them keens. This is late for mating? Are they on a break from parenting? Are all the children gone? Will they join and plummet, here and now?

                                 

But, there they are, on this gloriously gusty day- seeking food, and then suspended, almost too far up to be visible ; absolutely motionless in the wind streams. 

And in that moment , there I am, high above the land , with them. Letting the wind take me as it will. 

Far below, with rain and sun, the gardens explode and grow fast as a dirty, knee-scraped watermelon smeared kid in summertime. Fast as a weed. 

The quiet Box Turtle who scuttles beneath the shaded maples through the mosses. The remarkable rare moths who come to mate among the Pippsessewa. . Life abounding, all around us , if we stop and listen. And smell and feel it upon our skin : our closed eyelids and then our sight.
And I think of all the things we also know, the way a baby bird knows how to peck out of that egg and yearn to leave that crowded nest and test their wings . 

The way a butterfly or dragonfly knows how to wait after they unfurl until they are dry and then somehow miraculously ready to stretch and pause and then spirit themselves into the air; to avoid predators, and find sustenance that fits and will sustain them.

I mean, what does that feel like? 

The urge to flex your small insect legs and take flight? 

How similar is it to the way you and I experienced some ancestral, genetically linked urge to roll ourselves over the very first time. To press our arms out and push up up our weighty head, the better to somehow peer about? To shun hot things and pain and move toward that which was kind and of great interest and that mattered? 

So it goes . The very same. My neighbor knows how to be in labor. Her baby knows how to come into the world. To breathe, to find the breast, to rest and gaze and poop and sleep. Our needs. 

And so also, we humans know, if we put aside all the trappings we have created for fun and distraction, that do not always benefit us. 

We truly know so much of what we need, if only we can slow and remember and listen.