listen to Rachel read this piece here: EVEN BIRDS on soundcloud
I want to be as light as a mighty little bird in flight: a starling, wood thrush, or bluebird. Something with hollow, hearty bones, and feathers that flicker in the cool fresh air. Something that soars and sings with a lightness that dips and dances. I want to swoop into the well within.
Every day, I surround my kin with the wingspan of my soft featherless forearms. We fly with our feet. We nest in our beds. We sing.
I must accept my unquenchable urge to learn and learn and learn. Surrender to the truth that I may never be a wise old woman until I am a wise old woman. [I can act with such impatience and impulsivity sometimes.] I must accept my naivety.
This isn't an intellectual quest, this seeking. Instead, it is a silent simple one. Rumi called it emptiness. To stop and stare into the depths of quietude. Many late nights, I stretch on my mat and then sit and write. Then I wonder what possesses me to express myself in this way, through all this spiritual scribbling.
I usually then release the wondering. Such seeking and writing compel me. The transcribing of my learning and living is a meditation - a recording of my evolution. Sometimes the price is a few pangs of humiliation. Such honesty as this can feel like public nudity like my soul is shaking and flapping her voluptuous vulnerability all over an enormous and clamorous city.
I can wish and want all I want but I cannot be only being. And I do not yet want to be only being. There is worldly work for me here. I am a human being until I am no longer, and so I must celebrate the experiences and senses of this body.
Even birds land for rest, bathing, and berries. Even birds protect, bicker, and cry. Even birds must be both air and animal. Even birds.
I must feast, taste, and savor. I must dance, drink, and sing. I must gulp, sip, and swim. Slumber and laze. Weep, giggle, and read! Celebrate art - be drenched by it. And move! - move muscle, move bone, move emotion.
Yes, be. Honor this being.
I am a stitch in the brocade of everything.
And yes, body. Yes, breath. Yes to this whimsical poetic parade of life.
