the open sky

soft and unguarded birds of prayer

an honour worth being affected by

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Hello. This post its about Death & Birds.

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I cannot recall my hovering at the dark periphery of the world, nor hearing the first call to join it. I’ve no memory of my cells dividing, or of the time spent floating beneath the rhythmic beat of my mother’s heart. I wonder how often I studied my hands before I knew them as “mine”, how many faces I saw before I knew them as “other”, and what wisdom lay in the innocence of that view. These moments, waves in the sea of spacetime through which we unstoppably sail, suggest a fundamental nature to vulnerability—perhaps we greet the world soft and unguarded, because we are supposed to greet the world soft and unguarded.

Whenever someone new to the world falls asleep in the palm of my hand, I feel compelled to meet their defencelessness with my own. That brief time when we’ve little choice but to trust, is as sacred as it is fleeting. Having a newborn Blackbird surrender the imperceptible weight of its beak to one’s forefinger seems an honour worth being affected by. Even at the risk of heartbreak. The fragility of new life is the fragility of all life. None of us are assured the day’s sundown.

Our sweet, and once singular, Chaffinch (my little ember) has given us the honour of bringing his eight-strong Chaffinch family to the garden. Their little herd will bob around in the low Winter sun, feasting on nyjer seeds (which are essentially crack for finches) that we sprinkle across the grass. The majority of their plumage is identical in colour to the fallen late-Autumn foliage, so in my peripheral vision it appears that an enchanted group of leaves has sprung to life, and are dancing around like characters from Fantasia.

I have quickly come to love these little beings. I will not subscribe to the idea that we must know another being in order to love it. Love is not reliant upon familiarity, it forms many a varied and shifting shape. My love for David is monumental, like a cosmic skyscraper with countless floors and rooms. My love for the Chaffinches is part of an all-encompassing gossamer web, superimposed over everything.

There is a man in solitary confinement in a United States prison, who I know only by his first name—which I have written on a piece of paper that I keep on my desk.¹ I made a promise over a year ago to, whenever I see his name, send him love. And I do. I don’t know why he is there, whether he is guilty or innocent, or somewhere in-between. My love for him is a Bird of prayer, who is repeatedly sent out to deliver itself in the form of a murmuration of peace, or as a dream of unbound flight. Whether this Bird has ever found him, I’ll never know; and still it’s sent. Each time a reminder to thank and cherish the open sky.

We are relational beings. As wind currents shape landscapes over time we, too, softly shape our part of the world by the ways in which we consistently move through it. Even the quietest of gestures, repeated enough, can carve a legacy into stone. As a hatchling Long Tailed Tit once told me, “There is no such thing as too small”.

I’ve found these last couple of weeks particularly difficult. Soft and unguarded has not been an option, and it’s felt as though there’s been no time to stop and attend to the natural heartache of the season; and now I feel it, searching for cracks in windows and moments when I’m off guard. I hold in one hand a genuine delight in yuletide celebration, and in the other a simmering rage at what feels like the tyranny of mandated merriment; both will be kept in my pockets as I wade through the coming week.

I remember a time when Christmas brought an other worldly excitement with it—and it wasn’t about the gifts, it was about the lights. My young mind couldn’t understand why twinkly lights weren’t left up year-round—they made darkness so inviting. There’s something about half-light that nudges a primal need to slow and settle. It feels like the antithesis of the fluorescent assaults of modern day.

I cannot recall my first experience of love; offered or received, but as the year comes to a close and we continue on our voyage through spacetime, my faith in loves ability to reconcile opposites only grows. I endeavour to meet the coming year as soft as I once met the world—and I accept that doing so might be naive. Or brave. Likely both.

In the meantime, a gossamer web of love stretches out to wherever you may be. Thank you for reading Death & Birds, friends.

See you in the new year.

Yours in aimless flight…

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Friends, I’m hoping to take a few days off in early January, and so the next Death & Birds may be a few days late—but at least it will be well rested! Thank you for your understanding. All love.

1. I encourage you to read this post by

Adam Nathan

and to become familiar with the fiercely important work of Solitary Watch.