Faith in Nature

Perhaps signaling a shift in a cycle, yang rising, starting to inhale, a day after the first quarter moon, after an intense period of stress and distraction called "day-job," I was lifted tonight to see, as I turned into my parking area, the first returned kolea of the season. By now you should know I am obsessed with this bird, as much as I am obsessed with Vincent Zhao.

I had turned off my new car radio...nothing interesting to hear (same old same old)...and was enjoying a quiet sense of having put some difficult stuff (the day-job) behind me. I was thinking, soon the kolea will return, I should start looking for them. And lo and behold, simultaneously with the thought, there one was in the grassy area as I turned into my driveway. I caught my breath, stopped the car and said, "Hello, hello, hello, you're home early." She bobbed her head, really, I swear it, the same response I used to get from a certain African Grey parrot. A little head bobbing of my own, a little telepathy.

Birds are smart (bird-brain is sort of a slur), and migratory ones seem completely mystical to me. (It must be they navigate in concert with the moon, that yin clock of the night.) I have raised chickens and ducks, had a series of parakeets and a blue-crowned conure that was more intelligent than some people I know. But they all escaped (or in the case of the chickens and ducks, were victimized by dogs and opossums) mostly because I had a hard time keeping them caged. Perhaps that's why I am astonished by the comings and goings of the kolea...I'm not at all responsible for the presence of this bird, but there she is. By letting go of the need to cage, I learn she always comes back where she belongs. And that sustains me.