I remember seeing this image on a nature channel some years back when I watched TV. It was the sudden and majestic lifting off of snow geese from a crystal clear mountain lake. I imagined the white, the blue, the coordinated timing to be an exhortation of life.
Each year the snow geese come from the Arctic north, flying upwards of 8000 feet to winter over in the lakes and ponds of North America. They have been making this pilgrimage for over 35,000 years; measuring the days with the simplicity of a sunrise, giving the people of long ago a way to mark the seasons. These early people revered the birds and lived in harmony with them. They came represent the beauty of nature, a vision of wildness, perhaps a glimpse of an earthly paradise. The humble human; the soaring bird; all part of the great living engine of Earth.
People migrate too but now our journeys take place mostly in our hearts and minds. We taste the bitter winds of fate, tackle the valleys of despair, climb the mountains of joy. And somehow we figure it out. Even in our darkest hour when it seems that misery and cynicism fill the world, we figure it out — and lift off as one.
whoisfenton 