Consider the Birds of the Air

I've found myself watching birds a lot lately. It seems the more unstable and uncertain the "big picture" becomes, the calmer I am, and the more focused on nature. In the mornings on my way to work, I catch just a glimpse of a series of lakes (actually a fish farm). At the worst of the drought, one of these lakes was completely dry, with knee-high grass in the bottom. As the rain came back, I watched the lake slowly start to fill, and it gave me hope. One morning, after the rains started, I saw a flash of white, and looked over to see a great snowy egret wading in the water. Now I see it daily, often accompanied by a great blue heron. Large water birds remind me of being a child at my grandmother's house on the lake in Florida. I can remember waking up early to go down to the water and sit very still to watch the blue heron fishing for his breakfast, then walking back to the house with a freshly picked grapefruit for my own breakfast.

Bluebirds are another reminder of hope for me. I first saw these happy little guys sitting on a telephone line singing to the sunset. When we moved to our "house in the woods", our backyard was full of them. Then the developer decide to clear almost 2 acres of the woods, and it seemed they were gone, but now that construction is finished, they seem to be returning--another sign of hope....

Hawks! Predators, but oh how beautiful. Yes, Amanda, I like them too, as long as they leave my bunnies alone--but that's another story...We have a pair of hawks that nest in our woods every year. I love to hear their cries in the early morning.....

But now, today, birds give me peace. They don't care what happens on Wall Street, they don't worry about whether the local gas station has fuel, they eat, they fly, they sing, whether the market is up or down, whether the Democrats or Republicans are ahead in the polls. They just keep on doing what they do.

May we all learn this lesson!