Golden Geese

The morning sun was only one finger above the horizon when I came out of the kitchen and into the living room, having breached the horizon while I was making breakfast.  It's golden light spilled over me, 18K molten lava.  It pulled me towards the window to see whether the overnight frost had given the trees below a new, more colourful suit.  My eyes moved up towards the wispy clouds, a V of Canada Geese were flying toward me and off to the right - south.

Is it really autumn already?  Didn't the three-month heat wave that some called summer just finish?  The kids are only now back in school, or just starting.  Wait, that was already a month ago!

As time passes - a gentler way of thinking about getting older - it feels much like it is passing more quickly each day.  It doesn't, time moves at the same pace, we move more slowly.  It gets harder each day to keep up with pressing demands that we feel are placed on us by others.  It feels more like we have less control over what is happening in our lives.  In the world.  In our minds.

The geese get closer, their wings and bellies dipped in the liquid gold sun and I revel in the magic of the moment.  Snowbirds.  A single goose is flying toward them from the east to join them - he must feel the sun on his back and tail.  There isn't much wind, so the V-formation is moving quickly.  Like time.

Birds, and manned flight, use the wind to gain lift.  Facing into the wind provides more lift.  It may take longer to get there than with a tailwind, but it builds muscle by requiring strength.  Much like facing challenges.  We cannot control the wind, but we can control which direction we fly, either into it or away from it.  One direction gives us more lift to carry us over the obstacles, more strength to face future headwinds.  The other direction makes for easier flying, but we may just wind up going back over obstacles we met earlier, and we may move backward rather than closer to our intended destination. 

Golden geese.  They move by instinct, they know which direction to go, and sometimes they are facing the wind and sometimes it is behind them.  They learn from their community which direction they need to go and when, and if they find themselves alone, they seek out others that are going in the right direction, and join them.  Moving together, organized flight, caring for each other by taking turns in the front, knowing that this makes the journey easier for everyone.

We move in whatever direction we choose, and the wind changes around us.  Sometimes, the wind is in our face, and we struggle to move forward, at the same time gaining strength and lift.  Other times, the wind is at our back and we sense it carrying us, giving us rest and relief before the wind changes again.  We get complacent, sometimes it is such a relief to be carried along that we allow ourselves to move with the wind, not thinking about where it is taking us.  When we reach a place that we don't like, we blame the wind for putting us there, when really, all we had to do was keep steering south, reaching for others that were moving there, even if the wind changed.

The geese fly out of sight - silently.  I imagine the soft whoosh their wings must be making if I were close enough to hear it.  The sun rises higher, the light is brighter, whiter, a little warmer, more alive and awake.  My spirit and energy mirror the sunlight, and it is time to follow my direction for another day.  Today, it is calm, and hopefully it will be easy flying, but if the wind changes, I'll be ready.  I know where the other geese in my life are, and I am grateful for them.