The Bluetits...the Goldfinch....The Sheep... and To Speak of Sorrow.

They did come. The birds. The very next day....swooping 

out of the Saturday morning blue sky and bright sun. Led by the intrepid Edward..

  a sleek robin..

and a great tit...

but mostly the whole family of blue tits.

My Almanac - by Lia Leendertz -  for the month of February says to lookout for bluetit display flights..

"Male bluetits start singing heartily in February, impressing potential mates that they have made it through winter with energy to spare....but despite this bravado ( of display flights ...beating his wings shallowly and rapidly... trilling...setting off in a parachuting glide to a female's nest site) it is still a tough time for these birds....as natural food sources are very low as winter drags on."

Which is why it is so good to put out high energy foods like the peanuts and fat balls and suet pellets which they love ...I  notice they mostly ignore the other seeds.

And which is why it's good to baffle the squirrels...( hooray, it's working!)

although  they have cleaned out the other easily accessible feeder which I will remove.

On Saturday my get-up-and-go returns with the surprise gift of the sun, 

enough spare energy for me to walk up the hill, where the air is much colder and the snow 

lies thicker on the fields and

 in secluded corners where the sun hasn't  reached

but the path is muddy and slippery where 

walkers and their dogs before me  have left their footprints.

On Sunday the darkness of my mood descends,

 in spite of the absolute thrill of spotting this Gold Finch on the new feeders - the first time I have seen it in the garden the whole time I have been here. 

As exciting as the first time I glimpsed the red flash of the Great Spotted Woodpecker creeping up the post of the old bird table.

Early afternoon I finally give in to my futile attempts to get through any small task on my list...

I lie on the bed... leaking tears....and whisper to myself over and over

"You don't have to do anything. You don't have to do anything".

Till  weariness sweeps me like a wave into a long sleep that I never have in the night.

So when I wake I feel softer...kinder ...I sit at the kitchen table with a cup of tea.... I find an extract to read on 'The Daily Good' website  from Francis Weller's 'Rite of Passage Journeys' called

Drinking The Tears of the World: Grief as Deep Activism.

His words reach right into my heart.

 I'll write about it tomorrow, but this poem by Denise Levertov which he quotes, says it all.

To speak of sorrow

works upon it

moves it from its

crouched place barring 

the way to and from the soul's hall.

This morning at first light I'm so happy to see that the 

sheep have returned to the field beyond the stream...I wonder where they have been all winter...

 but they complete  my view of the grandfather plane tree from the  bathroom window.

More blue skies today.... my therapist reminds me to start breathing again....I have locked myself down since the shock of my surgeries ....numbing myself against feeling all wounds... the savage cuts in my flesh and the ones in my heart.

She teaches me how to breathe into the ground and bring the earth's core wisdom into the egg shape of my aura...to clean it with  a rainbow light.

And so I imagine 

I could use this breath,

 and this sequestered sorrow,

 to unlock

 the gateway

 into 

my soul's hall.