Dear Blog Readers,
I hope you had a wonderful July as we move into August. August has always been bitter sweet for me. There is still Summer ahead, yet it feels like an ending. My Mother has always referred to August as one long Sunday afternoon. As a teacher, my “new year” is in September and goes until August. I have one month until my new year – one month to examine the year behind me, reflect on what I want to continue, change, or stop. It is my December 31st. This year I would like my August to be different. I want to focus on the days and weeks ahead of me by being present in the moment. I want to enjoy all the possibilities. Every minute it a possibility. I want, if you will, to revise my experience of August.
In this post, KAL writes about the invitation to break free. To “open ourselves up to the resplendence of our world”. She expresses so well the desire to escape the cage and to embrace what life has to offer.
I invite you to explore or reflect on your cages and what doors you could use to escape.
Be kind to yourself and remember to nourish your body, mind, and spirit.
Your blog moderator,
Kira
The Birdcage Revised
By KAL
Tell me dear one, is today the day you decide to break free?
No breaking necessary of course, you have possession of the keys.
Perhaps you’ve forgotten that you hid them
in a secret compartment underneath
all the bird droppings and old newspapers.
I get it, you feel safe in there.
You share your cage with a turquoise cockatoo you’ve named Celine Dion.
Celine saves her favourite crackers for you, in return you taught her to sing.
You find it strangely comforting when she sings “Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you, that is how I know you go on.”
I understand my friend, I too long for the familiar and the safe.
I’m riddled by fear – of sudden loud noises, of large loping dogs and of overcrowded elevators.
I wake up most nights shaking, after another apocalyptic end of the world nightmare.
Why then would I ask you to
leave your comfy cozy cage?
I shall tell you why…
Because I’ve discovered that despite everything, beauty infuses every centimetre of our world.
Beauty is out there for you to claim
like a prize, like a benediction sent as a directive from the universe directly towards you.
Gently open your cage door, and come
fly with me.
Together we will open ourselves up to the resplendence
of our world, bird by bird.