"Fire. Divine Feminine and Masculine merging. You're taking a lead, aren't you? Sacral strength. Crane energy...you may want to look that up. Your heart energy is just beautiful. You feel at peace. Peace.”
Days later, I splashed through puddles with my newborn child wrapped snug to my chest as my older children ran joyfully at my side. Raindrops fell down our faces like sweat or tears. I wiped my small baby's eyes and mine, keeping our vision clear to the beauty. He took it all in. So did his brothers and I. We stepped across fallen petals, brilliant crimson and soft against the dark, hard concrete, while boughs of flowers heavy with water hung across over our path.
No moment of abandon is divided from all that suffers. It is more than the horrific fact that children are in cages. That their families are called criminals for trying to keep their babies alive. That oppressed humans are fleeing to a country that made their homeland unlivable. It is the ancient pattern of putting other people in chains because we have neglected to free ourselves that keeps me burning for illumination, for redemption, for light.
As I played alongside my children, I kept gazing at the wet green and gray as if through a periscope - curious and thirsty for the new world, touching this one, into which I regularly surface, through which I run unwittingly in moments fleeting and majestic.
Crane: balance, grace, longevity - prehistoric medicine for modern moments. Keeping one's own counsel, protecting family, leading a harmonious life. Using the past as a source of strength for the present. Living as a timeless creature, dancing in the water, quietly taking flight.
When I can speak what's alive in me, others reach for the warmth, sharing their own struggles, asking what we will do to face and fight the horror. Much vital work happens under the surface, in quiet, in the dark, person to person to person. It takes small, slow steps. I wonder if it will ever be complete.
Nevertheless, my children speak the truth about what they feel without fear. The young ones are declaring a new day, refusing to have their birthright squandered. New generations are breaking lineage-chains shackling us to histories repeating through unexamined pain. The clouds are thick and foreboding, but what has been hidden is being revealed. Some wounds are festering but some are airing, healing. Evil is at work - but so is goodness. It is growing. It is rising.
These days, I have spent many quiet moments gazing into my baby's sparkling eyes and listening to his soft vocalizations like a gentle bird surmising, imagining worlds only he can see when he stares into the distance and bubbles in quiet laughter.
Last night, my oldest son ascended the steps to our court and took off under the thick trees toward our house. His easeful gait felt sure and effortless, light like his spirit at that moment. I watched him run, skipping into longer leaps as he galloped, giving the illusion that, at any moment, he may take flight into the evening. In a flash, I felt all that would outlive me, palpable as the humidity and heat on my skin.
As he turned to run up the steps to our home, I saw, floating just above him, seemingly emerging from the clouds, the graceful, soaring body of a crane. It floated high, traversing my path - silent, feathered angel. I stood in stunned reverence. Down below, the porch door closed behind my son. Up above, the regal bird crossed through the trees, disappearing from my sight.