When I first got my Quaker parrot, she was a hatchling. A tiny little snugly baby, all chirps and downy feathers. I never imagined clipping her. I remember the lady telling me she would need to be clipped every six months or so, and I internally snorted. As if I would ever do such a cruel thing to my baby!
Many months later, Cora made her first great escape. Sitting at the tippy top of the tallest tree in our back yard, she squawked "pretty girl, pretty girl" at me in a taunting fashion. "Come DOWN pretty girl!" I hollered up at her, trying to entice her with seeds and snacks I know she loves. It ended with my son climbing up the tree to snatch her and carefully bringing her down snug in his jacket.
The second time Cora flew off, she whizzed out the front door past a terrified plumber dude. It was a rainy, windy, cold day, and I had to work.
To make a long story short, what followed included people climbing trees and being told to "suck it" by a taunting bird, flying from tree to tree, until finally she took off after a failed attempt to use a pool skimmer as a net.
Late for work and dejected, I begged my neighbour to continue the hunt.
A couple hours later, I got the call that she was home safe. Tammy had found her, or rather she had found Tammy. Wet and cold, she had nuzzled Tammy's neck all the way home, insisting "Cora pretty girl", and Tammy soothing her, "yes, Cora is a pretty girl"
After a couple days, she was herself again, and I took the dreaded trek to have her clipped.
She is a bird. It is her nature to fly.
Yet she was born a hatchling, in captivity, in a country she was never intended to be in! She was not designed to survive Canadian winters. She was not born to be free in her rainforest....
So what, exactly IS her nature?
I write to a murderer, he writes me back. Yesterday I received these words:
"I do try to focus on joy and happiness, but from my earliest days my joy and happiness was taken from me. I move forward, trying not to dwell on it at all, but inwardly I know it is something I have never had. So, in the emptiness, I do not feel joy or peace; therefor in solitude, I feel sadness and despair. Meditation is hard for me, it demands stillness. This is emptiness. How can I find peace when in the state of stillness all I find is what I am lacking? Maybe a different life would have brought me different places. Instead I am here, and in my attempts to find silence and acceptance, all I find is what I have never had and never known."
This brought to mind the story of Grandfather and the snake.
Finding a dying snake, grandfather picks him up. He takes him home, nursing him back to life. The snake lives in grandfathers corner, growing strong and enjoying life. Together they hunt mice, share stories, bask in the sun and pass time.
One day, snake bites grandfather.
As grandfather lies dying, he says to snake:
"Why? I gave you life. I loved you. I cared for you. Why did you bite me?"
Snake hisses at him as he slides away,
"Silly man, I am still a snake."
What is in our nature to deny what is? Humans do not share the ability of animals to just be. Sometimes I think this is what causes so much pain and disharmony. The constant need to change what is, to deny who we are and why. We tell ourselves stories to change what truth may be.
There is no happy conclusion to this blog, not yet any way.
For people will be people, and part of accepting what is, is knowing that you can't do anything to change it. Maybe only nudge and hope, forgive and have faith. I will continue to say "dogs will be dogs", and what I mean by that is everything, everyone, has the right to be and do exactly what they need to. I might not always like it, I might not even understand it, but it is what it is. Live and let live.
Namaste
No comments:
Post a Comment