the beginning of old birds

from the sea  (5) - Baubo’s bird ludes by freda karpf

When you move toward a full heart, remembering those you lost, you do not lose your memories; you move into the tide of coming and going and become a part of the stream of things.   The telltale here is how you feel, empty or full, or somewhere between. Old birds have woven their maps into the soul world. As they fly over their lands and bodies of waters they move into the soar and glide, the thermals and those times when the real is really real, the time some call eternal.

old birds

     As she moved around Mrs. Scattergood’s world Baubo thought about all the old birds she knew. That is not just a tableau in her mind. It is a tribute to the old birds that have brought us the colors, the knowledge, the beauty and the ability to know how to appreciate and preserve our home. Our home has skies and lands, seas, beaches, big oceans and mountains both above and below the water. Today, right here and now, Baubo would say that this beautiful world, in this difficult time, should recognize so many.  If it only knew to do that. Mrs. Scattergood would know Rachel Carson, Jacques Cousteau, her friend from her youth, her friend because her mother’s Mah Jong players called Mr. Cousteau her friend since she told them about him long before he came into the collective consciousness.  If Baubo had known what a net this collective was she would have whispered the names of many other women, and men who would never be known in libraries but would always have a place in hearts and tributaries however they streamed into our being.

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      We pay tribute to those streams of beings. People who have shown us the connections so that we can hold onto the beauty. Aldo Leopold is grandfather to our ecology because he made a leap of imagination riding on his knowledge of nature.  He did what one’s tribal family might, as the Crow Women have for Mrs. Scattergood, made the sacred round and brought her round with their dance.

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      Kim McDodge was a woman Mrs. Scattergood knew through an online homeopathic group.  She was that rare kind of person who brought passion to the everyday.  She recognized that “Our geniuses will not tolerate this shrinking of our fates into systems – normal, harmonious or transcendent…”

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     We must not shrink our fates.  That is, if there is sky to cover and clouds to pass through; if there are ways through the treetops and through the hearts of those we love and must leave so that we can return on our own unseen roads. We must not shrink our fates.

Except from riding the waves:  a tale about being home in the world by freda karpf