Our first night gathered at Ordination retreat.
Sat outside in the rolling gardens in the hot evening dusk - I spot a tiny fluffy fluttering in the dirt beneath the huge shrub close by.
I move closer.
A tiny chick has fallen from a nest burrowed deep within the huge inner branches of the towering shrub. Only a few tiny formed features on her head & wings, her eyes not yet open, her round body bald and translucent - curled up she was the size of a golf ball - her tiny, toothpick legs fumbling, stumbling in the dirt - disoriented & distressed.
The direct sunlight of the hottest day of the year was almost frying her bare body as she flopped & staggered amongst the leaves & twigs that dwarfed her. We moved her to the shade - and still, she stumbled & staggered…
The body is hardwired for survival, but what could possibly save you little one?
I noticed my frantic need to DO something - and faced with the reality that there was nothing we could do - it was almost unbearable. And so I sat - with this little fledgling - feeling into our interconnectedness of sharing this same patch of earth, this same air, this same moment of time - and I sat & witnessed her struggle - and it completely broke me open.
It was an intensely new experience: when vulnerability & Mother Nature break your heart open with love. The ultimate surrender to the deeper flow of nature - and life - and impermanence.
The grief was in my mouth like the despair of a child who doesn’t understand & just howls because it hurts - that was my heart - howling with the simple sadness of this little darling creature - alone, weak, distressed & doomed.
Walking away from this helpless chick, my body unleashed an ocean of distraught tears - the volume of which surprised even me. It lead me into the inquiry - why/how do we do this work & be with the worlds un-explainable suffering when keeping our hearts open to it all is so intensely painful?
The answer came: …because we are Love’s response to suffering.
There is no alternative.
Because when Love V Fear - I choose love.
Every time.
And: when faced with a dying chick - or human - or relationship - I can let my heart break open & trust that I can endure the breaking - moment - by moment - by moment - with Divine love, acceptance & gratitude.
I wept myself to sleep for that fledgling.
When I woke the following morning at dawn, the birdsong had new depths of magic.
And since, beautiful feathers keep crossing my path, I pick them up and place them in my hair - with a new heart understanding - that each one, is a miracle.
