Life on the Edge

Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End? There are things you can't reach. But you can reach out to them, and all day long. The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God. And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier. The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily, out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing from the unreachable top of the tree. I look; morning to night I am never done with looking. Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around as though with your arms open. And thinking: maybe something will come, some shining coil of wind, or a few leaves from any old tree -- they are all in this too. And now I will tell you the truth. Everything in the world comes. At least, closer. And, cordially. Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake. Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold fluttering around the corner of the sky of God, the blue air. Mary Oliver (from Why I Wake Early)

And yesterday, while walking my morning walk; while looking at the dawn of a new day, the world did come closer in the form of a wedge tail eagle (wing span 2 meters/6'6"). Several times it swooped passed. If not the eagle's feathers, than surely the draft from its wings is what I felt upon the nap of my neck when I bent my head to the side as it flew by. An extended arm could easily have grabbed a talon had they been distended. Twice it landed upon the hillside above me around 15 meters/ 50 feet away. Twice I walked to eagle as Mary Oliver would ask of us: "Reach out with your arms open." I am not professing that a great spiritual encounter came with this engagement. In eagle's eyes, I might have only been a possible breakfast. But the knowing that fills me, is that my being "present" every waking hour here at Windgrove is transformative. By walking and looking, by swimming and looking, by constantly "reaching out", I am slowly dissolving into earth; into earth's cycles of life and death. This eagle was no longer afraid of this, my human form. It was, now, checking on my condition. Was my body on offer to feed him/her yet? Happily for me, no. Will my body be on offer in the future? Happily for me, yes. I have taken from the earth all these years to sustain myself. It will be an honour to give back what flesh is left on my old bones. ******************* This solstice eve, I give thanks that, although the dark is at its longest, the light that comes into our lives on even the shortest of days can be staggering.