I felt the wind whip through me and thought, how often we walk through it and never let it in. How much of our tiny lives is obsessed with shutting out and letting in. How we build and burn by turns. How we make things fit to keep the wind out. How we make things loose to let the light in. How much we like hinges so we can change our mind. And what made us ever think that building a small box with a little round hole would lure something blue to fly down from the sky? Why would something so free in the heavens seek such a confining home? And what strange paradox makes it hold true?

Is it that all existence is part of a balanced Unity which, like water filling a hole, flows from every part now full to every part now empty? Is it that the bluebird in its divine innocence lives a wisdom we struggle to maintain: that the air behind the hole of the bluebird house is the same air in the heavens that the bird flies so freely? Is it our inner task to regain the innocence of the bluebird until we, too, can realize that the air behind the hole in our heart is the same air that fills the Universe, until through our heartfelt experience we live out our freedom to move between the Universe within and the Universe without?

The houses must face south, the way the little hole in a person’s heart must face toward truth, the way each of us must prop ourselves up in the open, our perforated heart open to the wind. And there, we must wait beyond all logic for something to fly out of the heavens and build its nest within us.

Questions to Walk With

QUESTIONS TO WALK WITH

•  In conversation with a friend or loved one, describe a chore you dislike and a chore you love. What’s the difference? What makes one drain you and the other uplift you? What if the difference resides in you and not the chore? How might you turn chores into sacred tasks?

•  In your journal, tell the story of someone you’ve journeyed with through a difficult time. What made you go on this journey? What was the gift of loving in this way? What was the cost?

•  Sometimes the smallest adjustment can change everything. In conversation with a friend or loved one, tell the story of someone who changed a situation or relationship with a small gesture. Discuss how this happened. If that person is available, bring them into the conversation and ask them directly.

•  In conversation with a friend or loved one, describe a time when a darkness you were in opened up. What happened around you or within you that shifted the density of the darkness? If lessening the darkness around us is a skill, how would you teach it?