something gentle and magical was on my side

(journal entry from march 24th, 2010)

i was outside on the front of the house, sitting on the green swinging bench, at lunchtime. today was beautiful and warm, supposed to be 70 degrees, only made it to 66 as far as i could tell, but that was warm enough! the sky was clear and blue and it seemed very summer-like, with only a slight breeze. i was sitting there warm and relaxed, casually looking around at the yard, trees, cats, sky. i saw a bird circling around without moving its wings, looked like it was riding some invisible air wave. it wasn’t like any bird commonly seen around here. the closest thing it looked like was maybe a dove, but smallish and compact. its wings were very rounded. it immediately seemed different or special, but i can’t explain that. this first time, i only saw it for several seconds, then it flew up over the roof-line and i lost sight of it. i telepathically asked it to come back so i could watch it some more. kept looking for a minute or two, but didn’t see it again, so i figured that was that, and looked away.

so a few minutes later, i’m still sitting there rocking and enjoying the warmth, and i look up towards the sun, and there in the fuzzy glow too close to the sun to really look at, i see the bird again, banking sideways with its wings glittering in the sunlight. i could barely make it out as it was so close to the sun’s bright light. i knew it was the same bird, come back. as it moved away from the sun’s intensity, i watched it fly around, swoop and glide. it seemed to be putting on a show, for me. looking at it so intensely, i was noticing that i was seeing two birds, and thought it was just my eyesight, that i was seeing double. it kept being double, looking like two distinct birds, and i’m looking around (at tree branches it flew near, etc., not wanting to look too far away and lose sight of it) to see if i’m seeing anything else double, but no i wasn’t. then almost as if to speak to my puzzlement, one of the two birds i was seeing broke stride and flew away a little bit, out at an angle. there WERE two birds!! but they were flying in such synchrony, so perfectly mirroring each other’s movements that i was convinced i was seeing one bird. i never saw a second bird join the first one. it would have had to fly in from the side somewhere, but i was watching the whole time, and i never saw a second bird join.

then even stranger, the birds merged into one bird, then back again into two birds, right before my eyes!! by this time, i am standing up out in the driveway looking intensely skyward. the bird/birds went in and out of visibility, several times. gliding around on the breeze, with wings outstretched. then i saw a third bird! from nowhere, all of a sudden there are three of them!! playing, swooping, gliding, three distinct birds. as i was watching, they went in and out of physicality several times. three, then two, then finally just the one. as it flew around, in and out, i thought surely the sun must be reflecting light off its wing as it turns, and that is making it seem to disappear, but no, that wasn’t it. i saw it fly straight ahead, disappear, and then reappear in the same place. i looked and looked, not wanting to take my eyes off it. then finally, it disappeared for good and didn’t come back.

being all fired up about the nice spring day, wanting to be outside and work in the yard, i didn’t come in and write this down. i thought about doing that, and would have under most any other circumstances. but i was so hungry for the sun, to be outside, i just couldn’t bring myself to come in till after dark. i thought about it all afternoon though. my mind wanted to figure it out, how could it be?? it must have been some kind of optical illusion. why is it so hard to accept magical things? why must our intellect get so scandalized, and insist upon quantifying it immediately?? my heart wanted to just leave it alone. perhaps not even tell anyone. it would be easy for someone else, who hadn’t been there and seen this, to pass it off as seeing things because i was looking near the sun. but i know what i saw, and what i felt!! in my heart, i know i was being communicated with, connected with, and perhaps that is the most accurate way to say it, cause that’s how it made me feel.... that something gentle and magical was on my side.