Sailing

I saw ships in the sky last night.  Massive architecture sailing by overhead. I thought I saw someone peeking over the edge, saying Hi from the other side.  It was a sky of possibilities and hope.


A storm was brewing and the skies gathered and grumbled.  Lightening troubled the hot, difficult air.  We have had so many hot, waterless days, that this seemed foreign, this amassing of clouds.   It sounded like rain.  It growled like rain coming to slam the dry paling landscape.


I went outside to watch.  The sunset was painting the ships pink and coral and purple.  They paraded by like a fleet of Heavenly Travelers, as if we barely existed, here on the floor of their sea.  I was ant-like and awestruck.  I was looking for angels, hoping they would suddenly fly by like seagulls or dolphins.  Instead, there were starlings and grackles and robins soaring, en masse, to the Bradford pears and Maples in our yard. 


Nightly, they gather here.   Why they have chosen this yard is a question I cannot answer.  They are not particularly grand trees, but they are well kept - 3 in the back, one in the front. Why did the word get out that these were the trees to sleep in?  I've wondered about me and my landlord being healers.  I've wondered if the energy is softer here, kinder.  


I have seen them come from far away, like little specks of pepper; they fly with determination and are all wings fully out as they 'come in for their landing' in the trees.  It is 'old hat' to many of them, night after night, coming to this yard in the worn neighborhoods of Baltimore.  They load up the trees like there is enough room for all of them.


They jostle and flutter and fly out and then fly back in.  They squabble for the best branch, the safest roost, the best spot to spend the night.   They must bring all the babies and their cousins and aunts and uncles.  The noise is so loud it sounds like a bird convention.


Last night as I watched the ship clouds passing by and the birds sailing in, I listened to one of the many birds, a starling, twitter through his repertoire, like he was singing himself to sleep.  He was imitating a seagull.  It was lovely.  I thought of a starling I heard for years when I lived in Catonsville.  I called him Livingston, short for Johnathon Livingston Starling.  He would come to the boysenberry tree outside my back window and tumble through his repertoire. His seagull imitation was like a wand igniting the mundane with fairy dust!  I was transported every time he sang!  As this was my meditation window, Livingston had become part of my meditation practice. 


Listening to to this other Starling, brought more magic to my soul.   I was grateful for odd little blessings like Livingston and the mass of birds that swoop to our trees every night.  I was grateful for the 'ships' sailing by and the bent light of sunsets that temporarily transforms them. 


I still looked for the angels, then realized I was surrounded by them!