Bird Droppings December 1, 2025

To think, or at least trying to this morning, my brain is foggy.

In the past year, I tore my rotator cuff, and my heart went into A-fib. I have had five biopsies and four surgeries for skin cancer, and I am waiting to hear about the fifth biopsy. I am feeling my age for real. The A fib is being handled by medication and my pacemaker, which stabilizes my heart rate, but I was really wondering what on that day the A fib kicked in, as my heart rate jumped from 54 to 177 in just seconds. I am a bit foggy still from taking my morning medications a bit late, but my heart rate is doing great.

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” Joseph Campbell

 I wonder if it is for attention that so many teenagers seek the route of drama in their lives. Overreacting to seemingly inconsequential stimuli seems a matter of fact in the teenage world. Are it hormones and various emotional lapses that drive the multiple levels of humankind? I often wonder why we do what we do. I observe and listen, and find myself often swept into turbulence, making it challenging to raise my head above. A few years back, I was called to talk to a student before the holiday break. Her head was in her hands, sobbing, and she had asked me. The story from a few days before had grown and reached the school. I had heard bits and pieces floating around the school in the days before.

Thinking back to another topic and many moons ago, a young man in my classes asked me if he had been good and whether I would write a letter for his probation officer. A week prior, I separated him from another fellow just before a fight.  

 “Absolutely speaking, do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case.” Henry David Thoreau

 At times, do our worlds of reality intertwine, or is this some grand Venn diagram, and only occasionally do the edges overlap? Is part of reality A and part of B touching here, and reality C and D barely touch over there?

I wonder if it is for attention. I watched a girl walk down the hall a year ago, staring straight ahead, obviously depressed. How do you get depressed at 10? What if our water drives a child to depression? Earlier, I went out briefly. My head feels like a sponge today. It was hard getting up. I forgot to take my allergy medicine last night, and the gas heat makes my sinuses tear up. But as I walked and stood looking as my dog ran around the yard searching for prey and trying to find a dry spot in the wet grass to do her duty, I could not help but think. I wonder about dogs. They look for a dry place to make it wet. It might be logical, perhaps in dog thinking. But as I looked about, the air seemed to resonate with my mood foggily, and the weather channel had issued fog warnings for our county.

I could see stars, yet the trees only a few feet away were clouded over. One was literally in a mist as I looked. Much is a mist at 2:30 in the morning, but this tree was unclear as the others were fine. My perception was a bit foggy today, and I actually went back to bed after getting up with a severe sinus headache. But as I lay back down, I thought of seeing pieces clear and others shrouded in mist. Some were unclear and indistinct, while others were plain as day.

I will come back to the students and kids at school. Perhaps there is a difference. On the one hand, some students learn that others are just kids, taking up air and space, and baby goats sarcastically. But as I thought, perhaps it knows that clears oneself; one’s self-image is more apparent when you know yourself. In so many Eastern religions and philosophies, there is a focus on “know thyself.” Here is a thought from one cloudy mind today to numerous clouded minds at 4:00 in the morning. Maybe it is like my tree; many people are unclear about who they are. In their search and journeying in life, they never have a clear pathway. It always seems to be rubble blocking the way, be it relationships, family, or “friends,” and for some, perhaps a disability or imperfection that, in their eyes, holds them back or causes them to stumble. Very quickly, it could create a blurred sense of who they are.

I went back out, and as my head cleared, the tree that had been blurry cleared, and I could see it fine. When we meet people, even ones with drama and unclear views at the time, if we focus and give ourselves a moment to recompose, we can often see through the fog and see the natural person, even if that person is unsure. Then we can offer a hand to help them come back. It could be sort of a tug into the Venn diagram, perhaps. It might be M&M’s, a paper towel, or just a word or thought, and it amazes me sometimes to see how simple things can change a life. Sometimes, it just comes when called or needed. I wish we had “clear life,” something bottled you could spray out, and all would be okay, sort of like the commercials with the red eyes and one drop, and they are clear. Peace, my friends, and please, when the opportunity arises, offer a hand to many people stuck in the fog of their own lives. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your heart. namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

docbird