like Death and the wind
time has its way of reshaping things
Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
I have long suspected that while we each carry our own, personal grief, beneath it lies The Grief—a vast, collective ocean made up of all the sorrow ever felt, by all beings, human and non. I believe it is immeasurable in scale, growing by the day, and that many have drowned within. I found myself down there earlier this week, rendered microscopic by its gargantuan waves. I know that this ocean is ultimately an aspect of love—and still, I am stunned by the violence of it. Just as I am stunned by the violence that rises within me as ecocide, genocide, authoritarianism and the warmongering ways of powerful men rage on, seemingly unchecked.
Thank goodness, then, for the lifebuoys scattered across the water’s surface. I swim toward, and gratefully cling to, the Blackbird’s evening song. His flute-like phrasing keeps me afloat, and I sleep in the hope that rest will see me resurface.
Like Death and the wind, time has its way of reshaping things. Repeated encounters with an adversary can offer a faster route to peace than conquest—but familiarity is a complex beast. Wonderful in how it can gradually unlock the hidden depths of a thing; tricky in how it can see us forget what unfamiliarity once felt like.
My relationship with Death has been honed, sculpted, over decades. I relate to it now with a reverence and an ease I wouldn’t have believed possible, once upon a time. And still, I forget. I forget the grip of breathtaking fear that can accompany even the approach of the subject.