MAY 8
I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the mes-
sages of my heart upward. I pray to them because I believe
in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each
day—the invocations and benedictions of Earth. I pray to
the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than
what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me
how to listen.
—TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMSWhich of us has not felt his or her heart soar at the sight of
birds flying across the sky? What a lift it gives us—their
freedom, the formations they make as they turn and dip and
then wheel off to some far place. They are a good way to
symbolize the swirling currents of our life, the mysteries of
beginnings and endings.
I remember visiting a friend’s farm soon after my daugh-
ter’s death. This friend had a swing hung from a tree limb.
I got on the swing and pushed and pumped and, at the top
of the arc, wondered what it would be like if I could just let
go and fly up into the sky. I think it was one of my first oc-
casions of hope—that I could make it through, that brighter
days were coming.
In a world of such beauty as birds in flight, surely I can come to
feel at home again, even after my loss. And if, in thought, I attach
myself to birds in flight, who knows where that may take me?