Lessons from the buzzard

His favourite bird was the buzzard he said... He would end up teaching her very valuable lessons about life, about love, about how to fight for what she believed in, and embracing her tears and vulnerability... He knew every bird in every tree and every tree in the forest. He would pick her flowers and take her places she had long wanted to explore. But of all the places, the one he knew best how to find was the now, the precious present moment. Coming from very different walks of life, seemingly headed towards opposite directions, when their flights crossed paths, the stillness in their encounters seemed to create never ending spaces and presence. Not knowing what tomorrow would bring made every moment a treasure. His feathers, the language he spoke unfamiliar to her eyes and ears and still, in those brief moments in the sky together, there was a feeling of arriving home together. He made her realise what a gift there was in the now and in honesty, and that all we could ever really promise each other was the fullest sense of being together right here right now, and there he was... And in those moments there were no other places in the world, just their sacred space, just their loving flight... She started learning how to let go of examining the past and building any expectation of the future, she let go of judging everything, of needing anything. All she kept was the gratitude towards every sunrise and the intention to appreciate what each one would bring into her life. Instead of wanting to fly thousands of miles in search of faraway peaks and the possibility of another eagle, he made her long for the simple things in life, like going strawberry picking with someone, like baking cookies in your pyjamas together, like admiring a sky filled with fireworks on bonfire night from her favourite place on the beach, like visiting the swans in the nearby lake and listening to the breeze in the trees or the gentle sound of the rain, like waking up with someone who was just as ready for life's everyday adventures as you are. Most of these things they never actually got to experience together, but he played a very strong part in creating the dream nevertheless...