nesting

in the spin of the waking world

“Good morning Mr. Magpie, how is your wife?” Photo by Richard Steel

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Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.

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In our little corner of the world, the whispers of Spring are rapidly turning into distinct, blossomy vocalisations. Buds punctuate branches, the wild stretches awake and the brace against Winter slowly begins to soften. I see a baby rabbit on the village lanes—“Hello, sweet love”. I see another, killed by a car—“Goodbye, sweet love”. We are promised nothing. We are owed nothing.

Last weekend, David and I were sitting quietly together on the couch, me reading and he tending to emails when, all of a sudden, he sits bolt upright and shouts, “I THINK THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE”. Under the assumption that we were being robbed, my body flooded with adrenaline and I froze, wide-eyed and hoping to God that David would have a more proactive response to our intruders. He threw his laptop down and rushed towards a window, from where he excitedly whispered, “I think it’s a Blue Tit!”.

The house he was referring to was, in fact, one of a few new Bird houses which have gone up around the garden as nesting season kicks off; and which David has been watching with an intensity bordering on the maniacal. To be clear, I say that with nothing but the deepest admiration—imagine if we were all able to attune to the fervent excitement which the suggestion of new life truly deserves; it would be almost too painful to look away. Wars would cease.

From our bedroom I can see three Magpie’s nests which are in the process of being built. The couples building them will come into the garden and carefully choose just the right twigs. David breaks up smaller branches which have been pruned and leaves an assortment of them on the lawn for the expectant parents to browse through. It always feels as though an honour has been bestowed upon us when a twig we’ve offered is deemed worthy of the nest.

Magpies have such a bad rap. In pre-Christian times they were venerated, considered to be wise Birds whose presence suggested good fortune, but for some reason the Christian church insisted on spreading a rumour that the Magpie was the one Bird who didn’t mourn the Death of Christ—some went so far as to say that while the Dove perched on the cross grieving, the Magpie perched indifferent.

Personally, if I were being tortured to Death, I imagine that I’d appreciate at least one stoic presence to the event, but that’s neither here nor there—the rumour saw to it that Magpies were hunted almost to extinction in Victorian England. I read that they used to be quite tame Birds, before that, but not now. Now we, the descendants of the misguided, are forced to pay the karmic debt of our forebears, and must watch these Birds from afar.

As I watch the Magpie’s cribs of twig, moss and feather grow in size, I consider how I might follow their lead. How I might choose to gather and arrange things in order to welcome life.

I once awoke within a dream, spinning. Flanked by whirling dervishes I spun, arms wide, around and around. I used each turn to honour my physicality, to spiral through space and time purely because I recognised myself as incarnate, and as indebted by the privilege. As tears of gratitude cupped my face I caught the eye of a smiling man who, watching these ecstatic revolutions, beckoned me over. As I approached him I saw that he stood by a seemingly never ending clothes rail, on which hung countless suits; each a different colour and every one translucent. “What are these?” I asked. “Beliefs.” he said.

Of the belief-suits that I tried on ‘I am not enough’ was the heaviest, and most constrictive, and it was a relief to return it to the rail. The ‘Everything is sacred’ suit fit so well that I asked to keep it. My smiling belief-merchant friend obliged, and I returned, besuited, to the ecstatic spin; before returning, besuited, to the spin of the waking world.

I sometimes wonder whether life wishes to be seen and to be loved, just as we do; and if, perhaps, once suitably acknowledged life reveals ever more of herself to us. (I say that I wonder, but, in my experience, that is exactly the case.)

When I die, I hope to do so having stretched my heart to it’s very limit. I want my heart to drag itself over the finish line bloodied and battle-worn from having refused nothing—and with it’s final beat to say, “Yes, Death. I will love you, too”.

We are promised nothing.

We are owed nothing.

Every spin, a gift.

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Yours in aimless flight…