Skywatch Friday: Taking Shape

From April 28, 2012

Beavers, turtles, pelicans.  These are my love affairs with nature in chronological order.  Over the years, I have not given up one for the other but added one to the other.  Such is the advantage of loving over being in love.  Mammals, reptiles, birds...earth, water, air....I love the world.

Come into my harem, my menagerie, and meet my latest partner in this love affair with life. 

Pelicans are here all day every day up and down the beach.  I love them because they show up and smile.  They rise into the air, stick our their chests, and smile.  Oh, yes, indeed.  Stand right here with me, look up, watch those birds, and tell me they are not smiling as they enjoy a very good joke.

I love them because they show up.

I love them because they smile.

Enjoy the joke.

Stand here with me and watch. Embrace the joy.

When the pelicans get to the Villa Capriani, we will watch these birds who have traveled in one of those beautifully symmetrical Vees for the past half mile break into no shape at all and fly off in many directions.

We will discover that these birds came together to come together and broke apart to move on.  These two went to fish in the waves.  That one is an opportunist waiting for scraps from the fishermen on the pier.  Those guys are riding the thermals.  And that one....He just wants to go that way.

These are not Canada geese who bunk down nightly after a round of God Save the Queen but a bunch of pellies sharing the labor of moving through air, of doing time, in the most magical of ways:  freely.  

In so doing, they honor the air we breathe.  They make it sacred.

 If love gets better than that, show me the way. 

Skywatch Friday