That Bird has My Wings
I feel a softness today,
the air is quiet, the clouds give space for each other,
the sun glows between the spaces.
I felt a softness in our ceremony, the voices of the circle made space for each other,
a harmony fading in and out,
weaving all our feelings together
into a fine silk that warms us.
I heard a phrase I want to share.
It haunts me now in its softness.
That bird has my wings.
I imagine a feather floating softly to earth
touching down precariously.
The slightest breeze could whisk it away.
This phrase I will keep in my back pocket.
It takes me deep and at times
it makes me weep.
A loss swept away in a moment.
How intimate I feel at times
with everything.
I feel that precarious landing in my heart.
Where, what, who
is this goodbye for?
I have heard many stories from good women
that tear at the fabric of my sensibility.
That word abortion is hard, it is cold, so final
especially when reading the news
over coffee
day after day
as if we…. who know that word intimately
were criminals, victims or sinners.
It feels essential to keep asking what lies under the silence.
so I repeat the phrase
That bird has my wings
Perhaps it’s time to rename, reframe
soften the way we talk about abortion
How about this…
“A traumatic process that was a result of a mistake made by both man and woman.”
or
“A sad, lonely solution for a woman who Knows what a child needs to thrive.”
or
“A shocking challenge in a young woman’s life that gives rise to a deeper relationship to her
body and her own yes, no or maybe.”
I’ve asked an elder,
“How does woman say goodbye to a life unknown?”
Help me,
I cannot find the words.
Is it goodbye to a being, to life, to a dream or a nightmare?”
I hear how you care, she says,
Get close to the earth and bow down.
get close to yourself
attune to yourself so you can hold more of the other
Grieve together, Witness together,
We are longing for right relation,
make space for that.
Ahhh, there is that intimacy again calling me to connect.
I feel my heart’s softness once more.
That bird has my wings.
One time I found a Blue Heron who was lying in the middle of a mountain road.
She was still warm,
She may have been hit by a truck as she flew towards the ocean.
I was on my way to the ocean also.
I will never forget how startled I was by her weightlessness.
Her whole body was as light as a feather.
I preserved her body in a sacred way,
her feathers were claimed by many others as sacred.
We only receive a few feathers in our lives.
When I get one
I feel like it’s a treasure;
one feather from a heron is a soft, blue grey gift from life.
a life that is always giving.
I didn’t know this beautiful bird and yet I lifted her body off the road
like it could be my own child;
soft, tender, intimate.
How could I ever forget her!