Hello!
Two most important questions to ask.
How are you?
How have you been?
Feel free to send me a message letting me know. I truly do care what your answer is, and I would love to listen to what you wish to share.
Let me now say, happy summer! Officially, that is, now that June 21st arrived, drove away rather quickly, and July has sped on in! (smile) I do hope this finds your summer is providing you some relaxation and play!
I debated which to share this time. Another fictional character. Or for Nature to speak. I decided Mỹ would wait to share her story with you. This week communication would come from Mother Nature.
Perhaps I am about to sound redundant with my next words, and yet, because I know gratitude begets more gratitude. Thank YOU for the time you give reading Blueprints for a Hope-Filled Life. I appreciate YOU!
Wishing you a wonderful start to your July!
-Christine
BABY WINGS
I left home when I was between one and two weeks old.
No, contrary to your initial reaction, I wasn’t taken. Not kidnapped, nor an intervention. I was not living in unsafe conditions. My parents are good and loving. Very protective, actually. Quite diligent in their watch over my siblings and me. We were well fed. They acted as the roofs over our heads at all times. Our parents built a very safe, secure, warm, and nurturing home for all of us.
Even as I was strong in my determination that it was time for me to leave the comforts of my dwelling, I relished how my mom hovered in the shadows, ensuring my initial start on my own didn’t find me and Harm looking each other in the eyes.
It was simply time for me to go.
I don’t remember exactly when I left home, but hey, a one- to two-week-old shouldn’t need to remember specifics, right?
It is a family trait of ours. Most of my cousins and older siblings chose to leave home at the two-week mark after taking their first breaths.
I guess you could say I am an early bloomer. I think some use the phrase “early bird” and have even gone so far as to say the early bird catches the worm. Just so you know, I prefer gathering seeds and berries. I’m not much into catching worms.
But anyway, something in me felt the urge to take a leap earlier than our natural tendency as a brood. I came to that edge. You know, that place where it is decision time. Some call it a crossroads. Others, a threshold. At the rim. On the verge. That place where one’s life force is whispering go for it, jump, fly. At the same time the body and mind are collaborating to keep the wings close to one’s side.
Is that your head shaking slightly in a bit of disbelief that we consider it normal to leave home at such a young age? Do you perceive I am a fine weaver of tales, a gifted fabricator of storytelling if I also tell you that all of us in my family are born two weeks after we are conceived?
I thought so.
Since I have now brought you to a threshold in which you are wrestling with discerning if I am speaking fiction or truth, let me give you one more important detail about all of us who quickly fill our parents’ home with newborn cries and just as quickly leave our parents empty nesters.
All of us, my siblings, my cousins, my parents when they were our age. My ancestors. Every single one of us is born blind. We push our way out of darkness, feeling a touch of cooler air hit our warm naked bodies while we feel safely embraced in another form of warm darkness. A place where we can stretch out our bodies. Our very quickly growing bodies! For before we are fully aware, our souls are already prepared for leaving home in the very near future. Our bodies begin following our soul’s lead as soon as we say yes to life.
It is quite something, I must say, to begin life from a space not larger than ¾ wide by one inch and ultimately take a leap into limitless space. The wise elders in my family tell me that is the essence of Nature. Of all that is. They are not wrong.
One only has to follow my travels to know the wisdom the elders speak. When I pause, perched at a chosen summit looking out into the horizon or when I scan the vast view below feeling the sun on my outstretched body. Or when I am preparing to call it a day and I look up into the Milky Way, grateful at the ability to see. (For yes, our blindness is only temporary. By the time we decide to leave home, our eyes are a leader of the way.)
Without limits, a vast spaciousness. Filled with immeasurable color. Perhaps I notice the color because of the darkness I initially knew, but never forget. My ancestors tell me some have long believed we embody darkness. They speak to me of others who believe our essential representation is of magic and mystery. Of the ability to guide new beginnings empowered with wisdom.
Like taking a leap into uncertainty shortly after one has gained one’s ability to see.
As I stand in the vast vibrancy of greens, gazing up at trees that appear infinite in their height amidst the equally boundary-less radiant blues above me, I know all who came before me are right.
Limitless. Magical. Mysterious.
Grateful that I am who I am, one who intimately knows that darkness is part of a whole but is not the whole thing. When following one’s soul that whispers go for it, jump, fly, it becomes an unlimited magically colorful life.