A Feather on My Window
A downy feather rests on the 3rd pane up of the window on the left just over the golden couch.
Earlier in the day I had been doing my best to focus, to finish final tasks to step into a sabbatical summer season. I was sitting at my desk with my beloved brindle boxer at my side when suddenly: WHAM! Wilmer's head popped up from his afternoon slumber. I turned to looked at him. We live very close to downtown LA so we hear load noises - all sorts of mechanized aparatus - helicopters, motorcycles or car racing up the hills, sirens, train horns, carpentry power tools, and leaf blowers. But this stopped us, momentarily at least. I am ignored it after pausing for the quick look at Wilmer. I almost gave him a - "it's okay, Bud." He seems pretty calm, but he's an anxious fella, so I regularly reassure him.
But that was pretty load and close and mostly not a typical sound. It wasn't mechanized. It was the sound of sounding falling or hitting something else. So I decided to peer out the window over the privacy glass. Immediately I saw it, something unusual on the ground. It moved. It lurched it's head. Was it a bird? Oh no, a bird had hit a window.
Why do birds keep having near death experiences by me, my mind queried. What should I do? I don't know what to do. I didn't during the earlier experience back in March and I still didn't now. But, I had committed after the first instance to not let my fear overwhelm me into avoidance and inaction, so I went outside. It was no longer moving. Maybe it had broken its neck. I spoke to it and try to comfort it. Its eye was open. Could it see me? I dug down to find the courage to touch it. It was so small. The wind was just blowing its feathers with ease and in the wrong way. I pet it and tried to protect it from the shade. Was it stunned and would bounce back? I put my hand on the concrete. Wow, it was so hot. That mustn't feel good to it. I decided to move it off the concrete to the dirt side yard nearby. When I picked it up, I could see the other eye was closed and there was no movement. I was quite sure it was dead. Since my first bird incident, I discovered that a friend of mine will give little ceremonies for deceased animals she encountered and create a circle around them of nature items. I gathered bougevvilla flowered that were littering the ground and created a ring around this fallen bird. Not long ago it was flying. This creature knew the magic of flight! What a joy that must have been and now it lay here motionless - one eye open, one eye closed. Does it have a spirit like me, I wondered. Life is so fragile, I mused.
Life is so fragile. The fragility of life I often ignore or am unaware of.
I have since moved the bird again out of the side yard, but as the sun sets in the western sky, I see that downy feather shifting in the breeze on my window. What can this bird teach me? I'm not certain. Is it about the fragility of life and to enjoy and celebrate it while we can? Is it to acknowledge death in our everyday lives? Is it to be less afraid of nature and less afraid of wild creatures? Is it to intervene as quickly as possible with the suffering of other creatures.
As I held it, I appreciated how small it was, how beautiful it's small feathers were, how I wished I could bring it back to life. It's not the first thing that I wished I could bring back to life. This same friend who will pause to create a ceremony to acknowledge the sacredness of life and other creatures took me on a full moon hike last night, which also happened to be a full lunar eclipse (incredible, indeed!). On that hike, we talked about life and death and how natural and cyclical that is - physical death, but also relational, seasonal, creative. I tend to think that things will and should last forever. My culture has taught me this, but nature says otherwise. This downy feather reminds me otherwise. Can I let things go, with gratitude, whose season is done. Can I trust the new season unfolding and the new life that will come that I can't, of course, imagine.
