Cornelius the Cardinal, the heartthrob of the bird feeder, infatuated with his bright red plumage, black ocean eyes, musclely wingspan and pouty beak has been preening and strutting around the feeder making the swallows swoon. Today when he fluffed and puffed his feathers he caught his irresistible reflection in the window and unable to resist the seductive call of his own handsome face, he flew head first into our window. (FYI: this is not the first time we have watched Cornelius hurt himself. Despite our attempts to bang on the glass and warn him, he is blinded by self-love and cannot hear the cries as he gathers speed and hurls himself into the window time and again. But today he used so much force we thought he was dead).
Luckily, our Florence Nightingale of the avian world and her trusty blond side kick were on the scene in no time. Cruise, our golden bird dog bounded down into the snow to fetch him and delivered him to mom with his gentle jaws. Mom always the vet, jumped into instant rescue mode soothing and warming the very rattled, semi-unconscious Cornelius. After thirty minutes or so of calming and singing and settling our feathered friend, Mom tried to move Cornelius inside…. (Song list at the bottom).
Now I am all for rehab, but the thought of a cardinal flying around our living room felt just a little too close to the natural world for everyday me. So mom and I decided on a compromise: we took Cornelius to the porch for a ‘muti-generational’ intervention. And here's the thing: we all love Cornelius and delight in his brilliant feathers and want to see him thrive! We are well aware that it is not just Cornelius and the “just do me” mentality of the narcissists who are in trouble. It's our entire society. We've become a nation of selfie-stick wielding, Instagram-filter-loving, "look at me!" shouters. We're like a flock of birds all flying at a “break neck” speed into a wall, unable to see the dangers ahead because we're too busy preening, focused on fluffing our own feathers as though our highest value is auditioning for America's Next Top Model.
And who can blame us, really? Everywhere we look, there are billboards and advertisements telling us to love ourselves more, to indulge our every whim and desire, to “just do you”, and put ourselves first and everyone else second. We're bombarded with messages that say "you're special" and "you deserve the best" and "you're the most important person in the world."
But the problem with all of this self-love is that it's turning us into selfish, entitled, empty jerks!! And now we are programming our machines to be even bigger jerks to serve us little jerks, gathering speed with no clue how to find the breaks. We are so concerned with making sure we get more than our neighbor that we've forgotten how to empathize with others, how to listen and hear the people banging on the window and caring for us telling us to slow down, rethink, remember the other birds and not self-destruct. We have forgotten how to see the world from someone else's perspective, how to care about anyone or anything other than our own reflection and feathering our own beds.
Cornelius, I am pleased to announce is still with us and seemed to appreciate the love and care we took to share with him that there is so much more to life than simply focusing on one’s own feathers. Flying together and creating new formations where we all can rise and thrive offer new vantage points and far greater joys. He is now paying attention to his inside family and listens to us when we tap on the window. He knows how much we appreciate him and will continue to provide unlimited seed to him and his feathered friends.
So, my fellow birds, I hope we learn from Cornelius’s near-death experience and wake-up, rethink and start flying in a new direction. Let's put down the selfie-sticks and start looking out for each other. Let's remember that we're all in this together, and when tap on the window with love and care and we listen to and work with each other we find it is possible to fly in new formations — seeing the world from another perspective.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers….
~ Celina
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
~Emily Dickinson
Mom’s (hummed version) Song List for Cornelius’s healing: “Hush Little Baby”, “Wiegenlied”, “Ah Vous Dirai-Je, Maman”, “Von freedmen Landern und Menschen” “Les Berceaux”, “Da Unten im Tale”, “Das Madchen und de Tod”,
And my weak attempts to join her by adding: “Redbird” sung to the Beatles Blackbird melody, and “Three Little Birds”.
Hi Celina, Glad to hear that Cornelius is on the mend, like us I wonder if he knows what actually hit him. I am thinking of all those Greek myths of Icarus flying to close to the sun, psyche falling in love with his or her reflection, and of course the mother of them all for me pandora's box contain the gifts and curse of hope and fire. Look forward to reading your next muse on the world we live in.
JUST DO WE!!!! This is such a truth bomb in these dark ages of navel gazing and me first. PS Dear Cornelius, I hope the love and care for your stunned brain and broken wing has helped you lean into a new vision of the ALL 🦢 🦅 🐦💜