"Late summer, and once again the egrets have come back.
They stand in the marsh like white flowers.
Like flowers slowly flying, they cross over the dark water."
~Mary Oliver

While walking through the Loring Park earlier this week, I saw an egret land in the water. I am not sure I had ever seen these graceful looking white birds in flight. At least I had not seen one so near I could hear its wings, which is what caught my attention in the first place. Over head I heard, and felt, the presence of wind being cut by wings, of soaring. As my eyes captured the bird in its last graceful flap before landing, I saw its seemingly delicate legs dancing loosely before stiffening to find a solid resting place among the reeds and fallen branches under an oak tree. This is the common way I have seen egrets, standing as still as death, yet full of such contemplative beauty, it takes your breath away.

The egret's flight was freedom in its purest form. To be able to lift yourself above the earth, to soar,to know the gift of flight, of being carried on the invisibility of air. What human can fathom such freedom? There is such faith in the flying and in the landing. Seeing it I took a deeper breath, my shoulders relaxed, what had seemed harsh and impossible earlier in the day, now seemed less so. I had been blessed by this non-human one who was simply being itself.

I am thinking of this egret today, its grace, its freedom, the surety with which it flew and with which it found ground once again. There have been many passages over the past weeks, loss of dear friends, of saints who have held my life in special ways. Passages of children leaving for far-off places, leaving a silence that is palpable as they head into the adventure that is their life. The inevitable passage of the season of summer into autumn that is hovering in the morning air now.

Today I am reaching out to the egret for another blessing. I am praying for the grace of freedom for all those who are in passages of any kind. May they know the ecstatic sense of being held by the Invisible. I am praying for the gift of the solid earth to hold each of us through all life's passages, giving us something to plant our bare feet upon., to remind us that we are nestled in the Ground of All Being.  And I am praying to be filled with the sheer joy that must come from being able to fly, to see above,to be lifted in faith and to be held on the Breath that surrounds and fills us all.

So be it. Blessed be.