Filed under: Written Word and Spoken Notions
THE DOVE AND THE CARDINAL
Two things happened to me this morning, yes, two. I was sitting on the patio, minding my own business in the coolish breezes of early morning just before the sun rises and the moon sets.
I sat in a chair with my eyes closed. I drifted somewhere between breathing in and out, and the temperate reverie of sleep. I was nervous for her, and felt self-conscious when my eyes opened and looked at her.
I think it was guilt; the next sound I heard was the gentle flapping of what I knew to be dove wings, and I felt her tender feet just lighting, but not with full weight, on my head, then she flew away back up towards the roof.
We looked at one another like each
Of us were just awakened from a dream\both of us were minimally speechless. All I could imagine is that the dove thought my head was a nest, my hair the lightened grey, close to the color of the lava that floated down from Mt.Saint Helens, only a couple of shades for the lighter.
She looked at me incredulously with
Her big, round, brown eyes that shine
Her caring to me each day of my life,
And said, “You had a dove sitting on your head!” “That’s right,” I replied, “it must have thought I was her nest her homing instincts were off today.”
A dove? A symbol of peace. A dove
Landing on Jesus’ head showing he
Walked the way of peace. Me. Bear?
A sign that I am a peacemaker, a son
Of consolation, a bringer-together-of-people and a boundary crosser.
These are not borders that have sign posts marking their separation, but these are the inner maps explaining the territory as we read them with our hearts and wisdom.
After this happened, we looked over to a tree where a male cardinal was feeding a baby in the nest. Cardinals are our totem of partnership, and we know that males will do chores that aren’t done by other male birds in the winged family of brothers and sisters.
In other words, cardinals are androgynous, males and females changing roles as the need arises so this is also our goal/to do what we need to do, in the moment, is to be free just like the cardinals, because we’re not here to play a role\we’re here to make the best love moves we can with those we love.
Creation is inborn in the earth, the sky, the water, each sentient and non-sentient being so when we see the handwriting of a leave’s waste, it’s time to listen to each case to hear
The stories of their experience, since their experience is ours also and inside the acorn is the message, written more eloquently/ unlike the missive in a fortune cookie.
© Christopher Bear Beam, M.A. June, 2009
