Who flipped the trip switch?

Morning recharges in skyful doodles

Snippets of pipits in the woods, are cheery sounds for a grey start today. An owl hooted to scare the other birds just as I opened the front door. A rabbit ran up the track, leading, as I started the hill climb, tail bobbing white in and out of sight like a buoy out at sea.

It’s quiet, the cicadas sleep at last, exhausted from their summer fun. The birds are not broody. Not busy nesting. They are so free to enjoy this sky. They fly in the shape and the height of a wish. Released from parenting, their chicks are now flying school graduates, in full plumage they embark on their own adventures. The flock of birds is a small group this morning switching in the tight loops of an invisible doodle in the sky. One second they fly en masse in an oval. Then the oval spins out wider like fresh clay turning on an amateur potter’s wheel. Their community form is semiliquid, a soft whole, every shape they make is void of straight edges like baker’s dough and made up of tiny hearts that pulse to their own Formula One in the sky.

It’s cool this morning. Sunlight was trapped behind a thick smudge of cloud but the moon was there on the other side of this valley propping us up giving us moral support, on extended night duty. It’ll be late to bed this morning. It’s smoked white form a nearly three quarter sized perfect ball in the sky, with a rubbed-out side as if God had been sketching in pencil.

The vines are turning. Mottled colours slowly becoming rust. Suddenly the sun makes it across the landscape. It must have escaped through a gap of clouds behind me. As it stretches across the valley the birds slink right. Then they slink in an arch to the left and as they do this, so the orange glow of the sun lavishes their bodies in gold for two seconds. Then they turn as if the captain has blown a whistle and their feathers turn dark. This goes on for a minute, glittering in one direction, dark in the other. I watch them, their every move. They could be shoals of fish in a blue sea with their synchronised flying in a sea of sky.

The sun fades as fast as it had arrived. The tips of vines are a soft yellow now. The moon remains on overtime as the birds fly off over the woods to the next valley. There’s just me and bird song, familiar songs of other birds that I can’t see. Not a whisper of wind. A stillness for breakfast that feeds my soul that seems deeper and more distant than usual.  

It’s a mindful sit. A rock seat that is chilling my bones. Time to go. Get working. Get focused.

Just before I leave, I see a glimpse of a long-tailed tit in their favourite tree. Except the farmer cut down the tree, all but one narrow central trunk. Have they returned?! To their tree! As I walk back over the rocks and warm up, I wonder what they think of their vandalised home. I can’t help thinking that they’re not scandalised. Though there was only one visit. They won’t all fit in the tree that is left if they all come and they certainly have a poor chance of hiding. I guess they will find a new base.

Extraordinary how they come back to the same spot. It’s only us ungrounded humans who need a GPS to find our way back on long journeys! Our modern lifestyle has shifted us from our bearings. That’s why mindful teachers are in demand. That’s why so many people made lifestyle changes mid pandemic. That’s why I sit here and wait. We need the conversation with the earth.

The birds are the ones charmed with a magic of relaying the earth’s story to us. They do it weightlessly and with grace. Their vibrant song is a fuse switch to the soul. I realised they must have enlightened mine in one of their velvet turns. I smile my way home, home to work, but they know and I know too, that the real work was done out here. The fuse switch had tripped out but now thanks to this walk I have caught up again.

cloud on one side of the valley by Pipp