I worship every bird that I see.
~Drew Lanham
For weeks, months, almost a year now, days have bled one into another. For weeks right now it seems every day has held the same blue skies the same mid sixties. More like early April than the middle of winter. Though finally the wind howls through a long night, rain arrives like a beloved friend who has been absent far too long, its pitter patter on the roof, the shiny asphalt, droplets hung on the freshly cut rose canes soothes me beyond imagination.
Birds, I find, set the days apart. One day the call of the hawk. Another the rambunctious lesser goldfinches, still another towhees and juncos. Then the wingbeat of the mourning doves as I walk out the front door and startle them. Yesterday I was looking at the sky and way, way up there, I mean way up, in a deep blue space, the nothingness held between the puffy white clouds, was a small V, made up of seagulls on their invisible bird highway, the Pacific Flyway, their white and gray wings in a sacred dance with the air and currents and some invisible and mysterious force that propels them to take flight. Then this morning, the repeated hoot of an owl.
The biggest surprise of all is when I glance out the window and there are dozens of cedar waxwings lining the branches on the bare winter tree; so still, as though someone has decorated it with beautiful Christmas ornaments. Where have you been all the years that I've lived here, that I've stared day in and day out, season after season, into that tree? And what took you so long to arrive? I stare rapt for the longest time, until they take off in a group, fly into my small patio, and then turn on a dime, a split second before they hit the wall or the big glass door, amazing choreography, perfect symmetry, and then they are gone in a hush, as though they had never been.
I had not intended to actually write about birds. But then I had a remarkable day full of synchronicity involving yes, of course, birds. It began when I unexpectedly sign up for a National Geographic video Birdwatching course. The same day a new On Being podcast drops, in which Krista speaks with Drew Lanham, ornithologist, poet and professor of wildlife ecology. And that evening, I go looking for a newly recommended movie about fishermen but before I find it, there is this other one, about a family struck by tragedy being healed by an injured magpie.
The next morning I lay in the darkness and I think about my love affair with birds. The day as yet unborn, I listen to Krista and Drew speak and I am struck with wonder that I have never considered myself a bird watcher. I mean technically, of course, I am not. I cannot name the body parts of a bird, aside from wing, beak (bill?), tail. I cannot tell you what kind of feather does what, nor can I name most birds by their common names, much less their proper Latin binomials. I mean I don't actually go places to see birds, I don't own binoculars, a folding chair, or a pocket sized field guide.
And yet I watch birds incessantly. Literally I watch birds. Day in and day out I watch them, I look for them, I draw them to my postage-sized patio with a fountain and four, yes four birdbaths. In my heart I feed them, though when I've tried this, I get birds, yes, but I also get rats and squirrels, the former doing damage to my nervous system, the latter doing damage to the exterior of my condo. Whether at home, out walking, or driving my car, I am constantly scanning for birds. I'm pretty sure all of this makes me a bird watcher. As though knowing their names, as though knowing a primary wing feather from a secondary one, as though knowing that a group of waxwings is called an "ear-full" or a "museum," or that the beloved mourning doves are from the family Columbidae, their proper name Zenaida macroura, that they are also sometimes called rain doves or turtle doves could ever change my experience of them, could possibly enhance my pure love for them.
(For the record, I do so dream of a time when I can have more outdoor space where I can create a true and proper bird sanctuary, with multiple types of feeders scattered everywhere, shelter, hunting areas for the ground feeders, berry bushes for the waxwings and others, even more water features, and on and on, though that is a post for another day; though also, perhaps, one never knows, perhaps sooner than I might know...?)
It is humorous or ironic that what led me to the bird watching course in the first place is that I have given up Twitter (speaking of birds~) and I now have huge holes in my day that I have no idea how to fill. I am literally beside myself with nothing to do and no ability to do it--because things like Twitter take their toll on a brain in no time at all. The Great Courses catalog arrived unsolicited in the mail and lay unopened on the table for days until I wandered aimlessly by it again, seeing it perhaps for the first time.
What I had planned to write about was reading, and how I have turned back toward one of my very first loves, books, now that I am in recovery from obsessive news intake and interneting. That it's slow going to get those brain grooves back on track again and part of the way I'm dealing with that is reading many books at one time. I'm reading about wisdom and wonder; about wintering and walking and doing nothing. I find again my true longing for wisdom; that wonder has become one of my favorite words. I am reminded that I have long been intrigued by very, very long, sustained walks and pilgrimages; that I have been unknowingly "wintering" off and on now for a good deal of my life. I have also perfected the art of doing nothing. Not because I have wanted to. Not intentionally. Not ever with intention. I have just ceased to be able to function for periods of my life, beginning with my first clinical depression in my early twenties. And also now. When I feel as though I've been swallowed whole by grief, and life feels heavy and hard and some days near impossible.
So thank god for birds. Beautiful, utterly remarkable birds. Our little feathered, flying, singing friends. Ambassadors between earth and the heavens, capturers of imagination and wonder and enchantment. What amazing beings you are. I do so want to learn more, and beyond that, I am so interested and grateful for your "medicine," the gifts you bring to us. From Animal Speak by the late Ted Andrews, I have learned, for example, that flickers, whom I've seen in my tree recently, bring growth, healing, and trust. Goldfinches awaken us to nature spirits, gulls encourage us to take responsibility for our behavior and communications, while hawks awaken our vison and inspire us to a creative life purpose. Doves bring peace, and awaken us to the possibility of new birth. And waxwings, whom I pay special attention to because they showed up in such a new and profound way, are about gentleness, and just that, right there, moves me to want to weep. Thank you for seasons of joy, but more importantly right now, thank you for those stolen moments, the flickers of light, the wholly unexpected moments where everything else disappears, thoughts, worries, sadness, and I am seared by the simple magnificence of life.
