Traveling between the material and spiritual worlds, birds are messengers that speak to us, sometimes literally and other times symbolically. So myths and folklore tells us. A friend told me that the day her father died a bird repeatedly smashed into her picture window, then disappeared. Another friend told me that after her mother died a cardinal showed up at her house. She had never seen a cardinal in her yard before and it was her mother's favorite bird. Random? Think of all the phrases we use that have birds as their reference: "A bird in the hand... A little birdie told me... Crazy as a loon... Birds of a feather... Bird brain... Eats like a bird...That's for the birds..." Language reflects culture. What is the relationship between humans and birds? Seems like a silly thing to think about and I almost laugh as I write. Yet, on another level, birds do seem to hold a significant place in our lives. (Why do states have state birds? We don't have state dogs and dogs are a lot more entwined in our lives).
When my mom was in Hospice, I would sit outside near the water (the facility was on the coast) and there was often a large black bird sitting outside...
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy that second image of yours and wonder how you made it...
When my first husband died I came to believe that the raven overhead that kept circling our land was Bob telling me all is well.
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