Thank you Chloe. Your sheer strength to stay and witness the passing 'through' of the tiny blackbird to another world speaks volumes and as you said, not bolt for the door as it wasn't about you.
I am always amazed how all of our living 'World' here, has been 'designed'(?)such that it clearly includes the necessity for very distinct and difficult processes in order to achieve, have, or become a life, yet also to lose a life. Whether the being is human, animal, plant or other.
So here i lie in my bed weeping as I read about a baby blackbird's death and about the babies you encounter. I hope you are right about the end of life. As i approach 84, I am increasingly aware that I will soon find out for myself. This world is achingly beautiful and sometimes frightened ugly. I dread to leave it, partly because there is so much more to see and learn. I guess I will find out what comes next.
Thank you for your wonderful writing. It is lovely to read about the world from your perspective.
Thank you, again, for sharing these agonisingly beautiful noticings with us, Chloe. You get to witness these things that most of us never would and have the most lyrical and profound way of inviting us in. Death & Birds is still one of my favourite corners on Substack.
I love these Sunday mornings where I get to travel all the places and spaces you share with us. From feeling the closeness of the deer fawn to watching the momentous breaking of a shell and then moving to witnessing the throes of death when the body is fighting to hold on. With each of these, I feel your loving presence. I admire how you weave what you do so that I may feel what I do - an intense love, a gracious wonder and a beautiful acceptance in how life moves. Thank you for your company, Chloe. I love looking at life with you 💛
So beautifully written Chloe. Your witnessing of both life giving acts and those who were never destined to stay for long, made me hold my breath. I was grateful for the intimate description of that sweet blackbird as last summer I came across a fledgling gull on the shores of my favourite beach. Distressed and arching, head not quite able to stay up. I sat with it, willing it to be well. I gave Reiki love, soothingly whispered that I was here, that they weren't alone. Curious children came to see, running off again. Even at their tender age they knew it wasn't quite right. I realise now from your post that it was in the throes of dying. Wings out spread all speckled brown. I couldn't bear it, I couldn't fully hold the suffering that I felt was cruel, was somehow avoidable. The tide would soon be in, and in that moment I found comfort that we are all part of this greater cycle, that the saline waves would carry its lifeless body away. This was their home, brief, but their home. I always think of it whenever we return, flying high like a misty ghost.
Chloe, each Sunday morning I wait for that rush of excitement I feel when I see your post arrive on my phone. And each week, it delivers something that makes my heart feel like those baby birds: raw, breaking open, struggling to find my way through but needing the angst that comes with it.
I have never been afraid of death when it comes to others, but for myself, it is something I fear deeply. Perhaps because it is an unknown. Perhaps because I believe there must be something beyond for our soul, but I can't imagine living without this body.
Each week, I feel like you are there, holding my hand, my own personal death doula in life, reminding me that death is just like life. Hard, ragged, challenging, but a part of the circle, and therein, also beautiful and tender and just as it is.
This is one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever read from you. I will read it often, come back to it often. Thank you for sharing your poetic soul and words with each week. What a gift you offer, to us, to the birds, to the souls on the brink.
I think you're absolutely right. Dying is the opposite of birth and I wonder whether when we take the dying process away, as is becoming the preferred norm nowadays, whether we render the deceased soul helpless and confused wandering on the other side. It must make for a bumpy ride leaving this life essentially unfinished, without going through its completion chapter.
Exquisite. "And not all Birds survive hatching, but a Bird relieved of its struggle arrives in the world loved into helplessness. The resistance of the shell is the making of those who break through it." A thousand yesses.
Thank you Chloe. Your sheer strength to stay and witness the passing 'through' of the tiny blackbird to another world speaks volumes and as you said, not bolt for the door as it wasn't about you.
I am always amazed how all of our living 'World' here, has been 'designed'(?)such that it clearly includes the necessity for very distinct and difficult processes in order to achieve, have, or become a life, yet also to lose a life. Whether the being is human, animal, plant or other.
Absolutely beautiful.
So here i lie in my bed weeping as I read about a baby blackbird's death and about the babies you encounter. I hope you are right about the end of life. As i approach 84, I am increasingly aware that I will soon find out for myself. This world is achingly beautiful and sometimes frightened ugly. I dread to leave it, partly because there is so much more to see and learn. I guess I will find out what comes next.
Thank you for your wonderful writing. It is lovely to read about the world from your perspective.
Thank you, again, for sharing these agonisingly beautiful noticings with us, Chloe. You get to witness these things that most of us never would and have the most lyrical and profound way of inviting us in. Death & Birds is still one of my favourite corners on Substack.
I love these Sunday mornings where I get to travel all the places and spaces you share with us. From feeling the closeness of the deer fawn to watching the momentous breaking of a shell and then moving to witnessing the throes of death when the body is fighting to hold on. With each of these, I feel your loving presence. I admire how you weave what you do so that I may feel what I do - an intense love, a gracious wonder and a beautiful acceptance in how life moves. Thank you for your company, Chloe. I love looking at life with you 💛
So beautifully written Chloe. Your witnessing of both life giving acts and those who were never destined to stay for long, made me hold my breath. I was grateful for the intimate description of that sweet blackbird as last summer I came across a fledgling gull on the shores of my favourite beach. Distressed and arching, head not quite able to stay up. I sat with it, willing it to be well. I gave Reiki love, soothingly whispered that I was here, that they weren't alone. Curious children came to see, running off again. Even at their tender age they knew it wasn't quite right. I realise now from your post that it was in the throes of dying. Wings out spread all speckled brown. I couldn't bear it, I couldn't fully hold the suffering that I felt was cruel, was somehow avoidable. The tide would soon be in, and in that moment I found comfort that we are all part of this greater cycle, that the saline waves would carry its lifeless body away. This was their home, brief, but their home. I always think of it whenever we return, flying high like a misty ghost.
Chloe, each Sunday morning I wait for that rush of excitement I feel when I see your post arrive on my phone. And each week, it delivers something that makes my heart feel like those baby birds: raw, breaking open, struggling to find my way through but needing the angst that comes with it.
I have never been afraid of death when it comes to others, but for myself, it is something I fear deeply. Perhaps because it is an unknown. Perhaps because I believe there must be something beyond for our soul, but I can't imagine living without this body.
Each week, I feel like you are there, holding my hand, my own personal death doula in life, reminding me that death is just like life. Hard, ragged, challenging, but a part of the circle, and therein, also beautiful and tender and just as it is.
This is one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever read from you. I will read it often, come back to it often. Thank you for sharing your poetic soul and words with each week. What a gift you offer, to us, to the birds, to the souls on the brink.
Whether dying may be akin to hatching, to breaking through some impossible thing in order that we might spread our wings.
This.
Often as I am aging I wonder-and sometimes become anxious-as to our next journey.
Such a beautiful passage for me to fall back on when this happens, thank you ❤️
Brilliant and deeply moving as always. Thank you so much ❤️
Beautiful! Thank you!
Exquisite truth, thank you!
I think you're absolutely right. Dying is the opposite of birth and I wonder whether when we take the dying process away, as is becoming the preferred norm nowadays, whether we render the deceased soul helpless and confused wandering on the other side. It must make for a bumpy ride leaving this life essentially unfinished, without going through its completion chapter.
Exquisite. "And not all Birds survive hatching, but a Bird relieved of its struggle arrives in the world loved into helplessness. The resistance of the shell is the making of those who break through it." A thousand yesses.
This was absolutely breathtaking, Chloe. The struggle being so necessary to the birds, and our, becoming. Amazing.
Thank you :)
Please write a book Chloe ❤️