The birds are nesting all over my garden and in the nearby hedgerows. Inevitably I am finding dead nestlings and the other day there was one in the middle of the patio. I have no idea how it came to be there as no nests are close enough from which it could have fallen.
I usually find this kind of thing upsetting and feel sad for the little creature that has had it's life cut short. But as I pondered on this I wondered what was the "right" length for a life? This tiny bird had never opened its eyes, never grown a feather, never left it's nest except to die. As I held it in the palm of my hand I observed a tiny miracle. Through its transparent skin I could see its spine and internal organs, all perfectly and beautifully formed. I noticed the yellow gape around the beak, designed to encourage parental feeding. The skin was so delicate and not damaged in any place. Its tiny pink legs and feet were perfectly intact.
Could this have been a perfect life? Who are we to know whether a desire had been born to touch the earth for a few hours? To experience life in the egg, growth into a perfect tiny body, the process of hatching and feeling the warmth of a mothers breast in a nest built just for the purpose. As a few tears of joy for the miracle of life rolled down my cheek, I knew for sure, in absolute certainty, that this was a manifestation of life perfect and complete.
As life is not an individual thing, it moves into the spaces created by desires and leaves only when there is total fulfillment. In our attachment to the physical form and our identification with the individual we lose sight of the whole. Life goes on eternally in a myriad of apparent forms, but always as one.
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