standing sentinel
of feather, stone, self and shell
Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
When I was little, I kept a shoebox of precious things beneath my bed. Inside was a broken scallop shell, half a small, blue eggshell (which I now know to be a Starling’s), a Pheasant’s feather, a Crow’s feather, a variety of nondescript leaves and stones, and a postcard of Picasso’s The Swimmer. My mother had sent me the postcard from Paris while she was attempting to see all the art she wanted to see before she died. On the flip side of the postcard, she asked what I thought the image might have been when I first saw it, and shared that it reminded her of Matisse’s blue dancer. I was three, at the time. To this day I am grateful for how much respect was woven into her love for me. It is a thread that I try to continue through my own love, such as in trusting that even the most vulnerable of hatchling Birds possesses an innate wisdom and knowledge of the world; the kind of which I could only dream.
Recently, after sharing with someone that I help care for baby Birds at a wildlife rescue centre, they responded by saying, “Oh, how peaceful!” And, I suppose it is, in the same way that being caught in an avalanche or a hurricane might, in its own way, be peaceful. Troublingly, I find myself in the place that I typically reach at the end of the Summer, when I am running solely on fumes and love. It is a strange state to occupy, to feel so physically depleted, while also overflowing with the particular type of repletion that only baby Birds seem to offer. I keep falling into these little dazes. Part reverie, part torpor. I’ll be stood at the kitchen window, staring at a hunting Kestrel hovering over the fields—head perfectly, immovably still, wings fluttering rhythmically against the pink underbelly of clouds—and then, suddenly, it’s evening. Time remains a beast with a will unto herself and I, no match for her, yield to her capriciousness; just as we each, one day, must. One of the Starlings died this morning. It took him the best part of an hour, and I knew what was happening, and I knew there was nothing I could do other than offer him a dim corner of his little enclosure and send him wishes for peace in his return to the Everything. His sibling moved closer to him, toward the end. I’d not seen that before. He stood on a little perch about an inch above him, sentinel to the whole thing, looking far more noble than any juvenile Starling was ever supposed to look.
Although Death marks the end of life, it might, if we’re willing, first bring us fully to it. How ironic, that the force which seems to threaten to annihilate us, holds a key to our liberation. How curious, that what we most need is so often located on the other side of what we most resist. As children, we are soft, permeable, and open to the world. We sense the precious nature of the ordinary—of feather, stone, self and shell—and we instinctively wish to protect it. We are born little custodians, and something within us intuits that the world does not always know how to care for sacred things. Its busyness, its harshness, and its preference for utility, teach the child to armour themselves, to build a persona capable of surviving the climate into which they were born. And so, our treasures are buried, in the hopes they will be preserved. The pattern seems to operate across scales, with our deepest aliveness often buried beneath the things we most fervently wish to avoid—and yet, it is in the reckoning with them that we transform. After my mother died, it took me decades to wade through the grief—wrestling, along the way, with the leaden knowledge that everything I love will die—only for me to find, on the other side, that I loved it all the more fiercely for the knowing.
I noticed, a little while back, just how often I say, aloud, but softly, “You’re ok, you’re ok”. This, of course, is something I say to baby Birds, and sometimes the Rabbits, and Chickens and the Turkey at the farm, whenever they seem to need a little reassurance. It only recently occurred to me that I am also saying this to myself. I do not, for a moment, offer myself up as a picture of togetherness. I cannot parallel park. I am notoriously terrible at replying to messages. After watching March of the Penguins I spent three days crying in bed. I am, in many ways, markedly ill-equipped for life, but I have managed to create a little pocket of the world inside which matter and meaning and a ferocious love are held. Not unlike my little shoebox.
Yours in aimless flight…
“It is a strange state to occupy, to feel so physically depleted, while also overflowing with the particular type of repletion that only baby Birds seem to offer.” - I feel this in my bones my sweet, because I remember the time when Maya and Vinnie were 3 weeks old - the constant routine of feeding, grooming, washing and repeat. The joy and exhausted that goes hand in hand. I would do it a thousand times over if I had to, for all the love they have brought in my life. Each one of your baby bird post makes me want to go back to fostering kittens again. Nothing as demanding and fulfilling at the same time as that.
I love when you colour my thoughts and feelings with your clarity and your company. You remind me that I am not sitting alone. The space you offer better equips me for moments where I experience something different - something other than that deep, respectful love for all of life in its wholeness. I wonder after the understanding of one's "togetherness" and one's being "ill-equipped". They are themes I am visting in my own inner world. I sometimes forget how strong a theme utility is in the world, and so I can forget to look for the shadows it casts in how I am holding myself moment to moment. Thank you for the gentle reminder. Much love to you, dear Chloe.