Fly and be free

The other day we were busy getting ready to go to the cabin for our family get together when Connor called out that a bird had hit the window. He was standing in our living room taking pictures when a little bird swooped through the open door and crashed into one of the picture windows looking out onto our back garden. I rushed in to find a little black cap chickadee crumpled in a heap on the white carpet, one wing outstretched beneath the tiny-feathered body.

It’s eyes were closed but not with X’s over them, so I took a page from our friends at Unity House in Maidenhead, England. I wrote about that in a previous message. Connor got a shoe box while I held the little bird in my hands, concentrating on giving it Reike energy. Connor then formed the paper in the box into a nest shape. As I placed the little bird on the paper nest in the box I noticed it’s eyes and beak were open. Then I put the bird in the box out on the back deck and said a prayer over it and a blessing and stepped inside. A few minutes later I walked out onto the deck and spoke again to the bird, which sat on the nest in the box with wings out stretched, mouth and eyes open, “I honor the Divine in you.” Startled, it jumped right out of the box, bumping into the side of the house, this time beneath the window. So I encouraged it, “No. Fly into the sky, go the other way!” And it flew away.

The window which we humans enjoy because it allows us a lovely view of the garden and towering trees as well as containing the house in climate control through all seasons. But for the bird, which naturally flies free and soars, the window was an invisible barrier. Reminds me of the plate glass used to depict an invisible shield to ‘protect you from cavities’ in an advertisement of a popular toothpaste in years past.

We too, who like the bird long to be free and soar in life, have to watch out for invisible shields and barriers. What are the invisible shields in our lives? Look deep in yourself? What are they? Fear? Anger? Pain? Which lead to confusion and uncertainty? These are common things that we learn and use to protect ourselves in certain situations as we adapt, learn and grow. But there comes a time, a shift in our consciousness, when what served to protect and help us, becomes an invisible shield which we can break ourselves on.

And it is at those times when we need each other. When we run into our own barriers and limitations it is so helpful to have a friend, or to have someone who can hold us in compassionate support. It may be a loved one, a Mother or an impersonal yet passionate group like Silent Unity. It may be your closest friend. It may be your dog. (Remember, dog is really God spelled for the dyslexia minded).

We all aspire and long to be free. Let’s help one another to avoid invisible barriers and pick ourselves up when we hit them. Meister Eckhart wrote: Tell me, where is the soul’ abode? Upon the pinions of the wind. We are all capable of flying like the little chickadee or soaring like the great eagle in the limitless sky of love. But most of the time we content ourselves with staying on the ground. Plato said: We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can: and to fly away is to be come like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him, is to become holy, just and wise.

Just be yourself and be free.

Peace, John