“The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life… The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds – how many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives – and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!”
– John Burroughs, Birds and Poets, 1887
The Positive Word of the Day, yesterday, was Alaudine which means “Skylark-like”. Wanting to do a mindful meditation about whatever word appeared I asked Chat GPT if birds sometimes sing for joy. There have been no definitive studies about this but they do sometimes sing right after they’ve discovered a new food resource.
Becoming alaudine requires imagining oneself to be a skylark. I’ve successfully flown with swallows before so , but in this case, I was a skylark standing on a tree branch facing outward to the world at large at the edge of an orchard. The orchard was filled with an abundance of cherry and peach trees because of a personal preference for them over the taste of caterpillars and bugs. I was a skylark that had just discovered this lavish and ample, fruitful, new food resource. Happy, abundant and appreciative beyond measure I was singing my praises into the sunlit moment for all of existence to hear.
This struck me as an emotionally healthy thought abundance-wise to cultivate, by sustaining it for a while, but confess that I was optimistic that it might yield more than food.
Today Vicki brought home, for lunch, a little 5-pack take-out package of delicious shrimp dumplings from the NEW Asian eatery at the mall a block away.
Life is good.
I’m well fed.
Thank-you!
