and then there were bird sounds

"If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can. & there is nothing more to it than that." ~ Story of The day, StoryPeople


Grateful for this moment
...as I sit right here, right now,
on an old broken down chair in the patio, minnie mouse mug beside me, properly blissed-out to my toes as I watch this scene: the loonie lake, placid as it takes in the sunlight from an almost-summer sky, birds of all sorts, one, two, five...perhaps even a dozen or so chirping, tweeting, buzzing, calling.

There's one! Right there, just a few feet away hopping on the freshly mowed grass of our lawn. A red-breasted robin. I feel a sudden urge to get up and grab some crusty bread from the kitchen. Should I? Not yet. Sit and be still, the Voice says gently. And another one! This time brown patches and breast all puffy like a soft, tiny pillow. I smile at its clumsiness as it tries to move from one jutting fence wire to the next. I watch and listen. A passing car, then a rustling behind me - perhaps another ad being stuffed under the front door. I tense a bit as I am alone. The sound moves away. A white-haired man walking his dog nods a brief hello towards me. A young black man jogging, iPods in his ears wearing a long sleeved white polo shirt - odd, I thought, in this heat?

I continue to record the sounds of my silenced soul.

I used to create to please, to entertain, to amuse and perform. What for? To hear the words "How good you are, Chiqui!/How talented!/How beautiful!" Please tell me more, my insides demand as I try to smile as demurely as possible, feigning embarrassment but glowing at the attention nonetheless.

I created to get validation. To receive love. To feel worthy. As I grow older, wiser, creakier in the knees, I realize my need, my intense passion for creating, this ache and longing to express, this artistic pull is in no need of such vanity, ego frivolity.

I hear these quiet words and I listen with everything I've got: The creative process is complete unto itself. I, the humble vessel for this impulse, am to make things out of the very fabric of my life for the sole purpose of one and only one thing: to create. Period.

I create - be it in song, paint, photograph, the written word and desire to share all these not for the earlier reasons, rather simply and plainly for the purpose of more creation because as in birth, the hour of labor, is inevitable for both mother and child.

Aha after aha pours forth from this spot by the side of our home across the lake. A sacred moment of knowing, if only for this brief moment before I succumb once more to the vanity of vanities, the allure of adulation, the need to be admired and fawned over. I hold on a few minutes longer to this gift of grace and ignore the mosquitoes just beginning to nibble at my exposed legs.

In this very place of stillness amidst this constant divine chaos called nature in motion - of the birds joyful noises, the wind's warm hush, the rippling lake and the buzzing bugs - all part of creation, no more, no less, no need to be anything else but.

They are all just that. As they are. As it is.

As I Am.