My early morning walks take me past the retaining pond outside an assisted living facility.
Where there was once a thriving community of geese in years past, there are now only two sets of them.
Due to complaints of the many droppings they leave behind on the neighboring sidewalks and the high school field where they practice sports, great effort has been underway to control them.
First it was one coyote decoy added on the hill overlooking the pond last fall. Two more were added this spring. Yet that didn’t seem to deter them and I chuckle to myself when I see the geese within a few feet of one of the decoys.
Recently a yellow light was added that sits atop the pond. Because I guess Geese don’t like yellow. Yet, the two sets of geese are still swimming on the pond.
I have mixed feelings about all this. On one hand, the geese were in this area long before the new subdivision began to pop up houses, where once there was a large open field. Also, the residents at the assisted nursing facility take great joy in observing the geese coming and going, while also observing them raise goslings, and had created a morning goose watching party while sipping coffee.
And perhaps this may be my perception and my sensitivity to the animal world and nature, but it feels as if they are trying to control it to the point of no geese at all on the pond. This in turn is disheartening to me.
I’d much rather see efforts being made to live in balance and harmony with nature. But I’m happy to say the two sets of geese that have ignored the control efforts have each had a flock of goslings. Each time I walk by I silently commune with them how happy I am to see them.
So one recent morning circling back past the pond on my way back home, imagine my delight when I saw a bunch of soft downy feathers the goslings left behind as their new and more mature feathers are coming in.
It felt like a gift from them to me. So I gathered them up and brought them home.
After a few days, I thought to myself that perhaps I wasn’t meant to keep them. So I walked out onto my deck and scattered them over the railing when a gentle wind blew them back onto the deck. So I just let them be.
Back in my bedroom getting ready for the day at my vanity, I can see the bird life outside my windows. Imagine how tickled I was when I saw a sparrow swoop down onto the deck and pick up one of the feathers! Then off it flew into one of the many birdhouses we have in our back yard to soften up its nest inside.
And back and forth it went. Collecting the feathers one by one. Until they were all gone. I couldn’t have felt more joy in those few moments!
As the last few weeks have unfolded and I’ve healed and integrated another layer of grief around the fact I’ll never have children of my own I’m happy to share I’ve landed in a soft place about it all and deepened into a new space of peace.
The sparrows collecting the feathers was a sweet and beautiful reminder that even though not all of us are called to be mother’s, we each are called to assist or mother in our own unique ways. This is exactly what it felt like to me as I gave nature back to itself with allowing those gosling feathers to go back out into the world where they now provide a soft place for new life to be born.
XO
Barb
