I heard a bird squawking from one side of the sky, and then, in response, I heard a whole group from the other side. The group then met up with the single bird, rather than the other way around. Is that about leadership? If I sing song pretty enough, will you follow me?

The atmosphere on my back porch is bewitching. Of course, the porch that Joe built us is charming, but even outside of it is beautiful in its simplicity. One quarter of the view from our back yard is conservation. It’s a mix of tall scrub oaks covered in Spanish moss, Grandfather Oaks, Maples, Elms, and Cyprus trees with their exposed roots that grow above the swamp.

I see all sorts of birds out here: woodpeckers with their red heads and polka-dotted wings, owls, hawks, robins, blue jays, titmice, cranes… it’s only their songs and the bubbling of the pond’s waterfall that I hear.

I’m looking up toward the conservation and the sun is at a great place between branches so that it gives this great filtered light. It’s hitting some of the leaves from the passion vine that weaves through our porch and it’s making them glow an almost fluorescent green. There’s a hawk hunting overhead, its magnificent wings spread wide as it glides around in that blue, blue sky dotted with just a scattering of fluffy, glowing clouds.

I just want to have it all flow through me.

There are things for me to do, but none are currently behind, so I can get to them later or tomorrow. I have family stresses that I need to problem-solve, bills I need to pay, laundry I need to wash, and accounting work that I need to do, but I don’t want to think about any of that now, because if I do, it will all come at me at once. So, I’m pushing it all back and just soaking this in and letting it take the place of all that stress.

It’s like finding all of your chains tangled in the jewelry box. You can’t put one of them on until you untangle the mass of them.

I’m not going to work on accomplishing anything besides finding my balance right now. I’m thankful for all this nature around me. There’s so much more to the universe than what we create. It’s hard to tell what we’re doing right or wrong and how it affects more things than we can understand.

When I’m outside, I feel a communion with what’s real and intended, what’s got more balance and electricity and magnetism and perfection than we as humans could ever possibly attain.

Being raised Catholic and coming to the conclusion that I don’t believe in the Judeo-Christian accounting of God is a confusing feeling. I’ve felt “The Holy Spirit” and other transcendental auras. I have faith. I am not an atheist and I do not believe that people are “it.” I believe… in something far more elemental, yet far more complicated than any named deity.

Our universe is amazing in its perfection. Even its imperfections, in my opinion, are a part of self-correction, and therefore still perfect. The universe is divine, and it is out here in nature where I can feel it and allow it to mellow me or excite me or any of a number of things, but it all comes down to a more honest truth than I can find words for, and certainly a divinity that is beyond our comprehension.

It feels like something I can see in my mind’s peripheral vision, but as Pink Floyd said,

“I turned to look, but it was gone.”

That’s okay, though, because it doesn’t need a name and it doesn’t need to be fully understood in order for me to celebrate it. It speaks to my soul and literally to my body as well. Sometimes it’s not about words at all, in fact, some things can be robbed from us if we try too hard to put words to them because they’re beyond language, and I guess that’s how they should stay.

“Make the best of this task and don’t ask why…”

Sometimes we get so caught up in analyzing why we’re living through something that we miss the lesson altogether. Every trial is not a penance. Have you ever considered that some of them may even be gifts? When is there any growth without tension?

And maybe it’s not even about us at all, maybe we’re tied up in someone else’s destiny for a minute.

So, instead of asking, “why” ask “how.” How will I live this minute, this day with as much joy and love as I can muster?

~

Editor: Andrea B.

 

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