Hello beloved.

 

Right now, I’m sitting on my screened porch watching the sun lower in the sky. The golden light is breathtaking. There is a quiet peace around me as birds sing to one another from near and far. As you know, I write about the more-than-human world a lot. It has been my teacher for quite some time. Nature is a space that makes sense of things for me when humans confound me. When humanity confounds me. Even so, sometimes nature reminds me of the life and death cycle in ways I would rather not see. Or know. 

 

I have been anxiously awaiting the hatching of cardinal eggs that, up until a few days ago, were under my screened porch. A cardinal made a nest in the jasmine. I thought it was too low. I think the mama cardinal thought so as well. Every time I would pass by, she would look at me, side-eyeing me to let me know she knew I was there. But the last time she did it, the last time she looked at me, she was more pensive. I thought something is wrong. The next morning, I went out to check on the mama and nest. I found a dismantled nest and the two cardinal eggs sitting on the ground. Uncracked. Whole. I teared up. I put on gloves, picked up the eggs, and placed them in a nest that had been nestled high up in a different jasmine plant since last year. I thought maybe the mama bird would return. She did, but not in the manner I thought she would. 

 

All day, I kept looking for her. I looked up and told every cardinal I saw that the nest was there and to tell the mama bird. I prayed. I begged for her to come back. The eggs sat there alone all day. I was sad. But nature has its own way of doing things. 

 

Later in the evening, a pair of cardinals visited the Japanese maple. The one right next to where the mama cardinal had originally built her nest. They played in the tree, dancing from one branch to another. At one point, the male cardinal came down to a lower branch on the tree and sat with the female cardinal. She puffed up, shook her body, and chirped a bit. They sat for another minute and then flew east, the space of new beginnings. I sat in wonder and grief. Heartstruck as I often am when nature does magical things, which, to be clear, is always. 

 

Always. 

 

Nature is magic. 

 

Nature is honest.

 

Nature is beautiful.

 

Nature is heartbreaking.

 

Nature is heart-opening.

 

The cardinals remind me of what it means to have placed one’s future in a soft nest and not be able to control what happens to it. They remind me to envision a future and release an attachment to the fruits of my labor. The pair of cardinals reminds me that even as we face uncertainty and the hardness of the world, we don’t have to do it alone. We are never alone. The cardinals acknowledged loss as they sat on that branch, and I imagine they said, through song and movement, 'We will try again.' I’m saying this to myself now and to us. We will try again. We will continue to try. 

 

We will try to transform what is spinning out of control into a beautifully woven tapestry of love and care. We will try to hold our hearts and one another. We will try to remember we are whole. Uncracked. As Ahlay Blakley reminded me recently, we will try to sing about the dark times and through them. And as my friend Cynthia Brown would say, we will try to love ourselves into who we want to be.

 

I’ve decided to place the eggs that will remain unhatched in my garden, where things are growing abundantly. This feels right to me. I hope the cardinals continue to bless my garden. I hope that in the future, their eggs hatch and they fill the neighborhood with song. 

 

Speaking of sound, I’ve decided to offer a sound healing practice for this week’s practice. I will complete sound healing training in June, and I look forward to adding this kind of vibration and healing to my transformative practice and work in the world. Enjoy.