A tiny bird tumbled down my chimney and fell into my wood stove this morning. This happens now and again in early summer as fledglings set out for the first time and explore the world. The stove has a heat resistant glass door. I close one full length curtain so that the open French door is the best prospect of escape. I unlatch the stove. The bird flies free.
Watching that little bird flutter from its grey dusty cell back into the garden was pure joy.
I see a young sister and brother outside my window. The oldest is no more than four. Both skip towards a bed of aromatic lavender with butterfly nets in hand. I sense the collision of two responses. The first is my recognition of their innocence, the second, my concern for their fall from innocence.
A butterfly net allows children to capture life so that it can be observed. It is also a tool to hunt and kill. Most often this choice is left to the child. I remember well how I was given this choice over life or death.
Before we talk, before we sing, we dance.
The need to dance is not exclusive to humans. East Asian red crowned cranes begin to dance from a young age and continue their bounds and leaps through every season of their forty years of life.
Be the dancer, become the dance.
William Shakespeare
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Think This Today is the creation of Mike de Sousa, an artist, writer, and composer.