Witnessing & Remembering - Nature Leads Us Home

Enjoy three small stories and a video inspired by Nature reminding us that contrary to the saying, "You can never go home", we can return to the home within over and over again.

A butterfly floats past.
A brave butterfly at October's end.
The sun sinks out of site
Today will never be again.
*****
As I hurry through the kitchen I spot a tiny praying mantis like bug, the size of child's fingernail perched on the heart shaped woven basket, a beautiful basket made in Linden, not far down the road, my hometown.

I take this tiny being and place it outside or at least I try. It refuses to crawl off my hand.
We come back in.

I ask it where it wants to go and hear: "With you. I want to be with your heart."
This could be a problem. I'm headed for the car.

Then I realize it needs to go to the area of our yard where we buried Templeton.

I place my hand on the Earth in front of a grave marker and this once hesitant creature quickly crawls away.

*****
This Summer we witnessed the launching of six or seven baby wrens. We lost count somewhere between the three on Saturday evening just prior to dusk and three or four more on Sunday morning. (We questioned our count after seeing one bird leave the nest and then return.)

Throughout Saturday afternoon, the wren parents perched in trees and props throughout the yard while loudly calling coaxing the children to come out.

Each fledgling in a test flight of sorts fluttered from the nest to the deck which then served as a runway to freedom. One landed by the flat metal squirrel then looked up as if to say, "The world's no longer flat, you know." Like today's kids who arrive exquisitely alive and ready to fly, they know what adults forget. We are multi-dimensional.

Each wren until the last one used the deck as a runway. The last one was the one that left and then returned. The second time out, it flew between the rails and was suddenly air born toward a nearby Japanese Maple.

I caught its flight with my camera. While doing so, I wondered if wren was yet another of the words deleted from the latest version of the Oxford Jr. Dictionary. I checked and found my suspicion correct.

Why would anyone omit wren?

For now rather than allowing this to spin in my head, I choose to remember wren, wren sharing its pre-flight chirps followed by flight for I want to fly. I want to always be inspired by birds in flight, bugs on the ground, sun in the sky. I want to remember we can fly and yes, we can always return home, to home deep within.

*****
For this we long.
To feel at home.
The butterfly, the sun, the bug, the wren.
Flying, setting, crawling, flying away again.
Showing us the way.

Here's fourteen seconds of flight for you, for me and for the world that is here to be. Enjoy... and click HERE for the original story about the children's dictionary that's deleted 10,000 words many related to what they call Old Nature.- Dawn! The Good News Muse, 8 November 2010