Fly - Be Free

This morning as I lay in bed, Abhaya was gazing out my window and noticed some little birds outside, exclaiming that  there were like 50 of them. When she said that I suddenly longed to be one of those birds – to be free, carefree, to simply pick at food and flitter and fly from one place to another.


It made me think of the D.H. Lawrence poem. Self Pity:

I never saw a wild thing

sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.

 

Our lives have been convoluted from the simplicity of life itself. Too many choices and alternative views. We work too hard to have so little of meaning but too much which is meaningless.  We worry for what is not worthy even of thought, and because of that millions upon millions are depressed, drugged and suicidal. And yet we fight for the right to live in this way.

 

The Tao Te Ching says:

 

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.

 

We do anything but!  We live disconnected from the earth and ground and we contemplate political systems, religious systems, and all kinds of high-falutin thoughts. We surround ourselves with machines to "make life simple" and which do exactly the opposite.

 

We don't know who we are anymore. And yet we fight over ideologies, religions, nationalities, colors, preferences of all sorts. We fight for the right to be both arrogant and ignorant.

 

I am not one of those little birds, but, oh, how I long to be simple and free.