Bird Droppings January 8, 2025
Looking in a different direction to start the morning

“Beginnings start in the east – from where the sun rises, we begin a new dawn. Each day is a good new day with a fresh beginning, a new start. East is the direction of the physical body and newness, including children and newborns. It is the time of change for all: a new beginning, new ideas, and seeing the light. The color yellow is the path of Life, to begin the walk as a warrior, to shine in all that you do. The sun rising in the east empowers each of us. The energy to do and to begin the action of the mind and heart is there. Animals with wings and the ability to fly from the east include the hummingbird, the owl, and the hawk. Our words are given to the east that the smoke in the air or the voices in the air may be carried to Spirit.” Tree Song

I was outside much earlier this morning than usual, and while driving to the store, I thought I had a low gas tank. It turned out just as I recalled, filling my wife’s car, and I was looking at the wrong digital readout. There are still 423 miles left to go at 35 mpg. I saw 35 and thought I may need to run to the gas station as well.

Before I left for the store, I listened to the sounds of the morning. The spot where I have been sitting for nearly twelve years in our backyard, facing an open field, is now in the backyard of a neighbor’s house, and all the trees are gone. Fortunately, the sounds are the same. Many sounds are just beginning to awaken as the sun rises each morning. The stillness and solitude of early morning are sometimes broken by a rooster calling in the distance, or, more generally, by crows and mockingbirds. Today, it was a mockingbird that came to visit as I sat listening. It has been some time since I last heard a rooster crow from my doorstep, maybe a couple months.

“Sioux Morning prayer – Let your voice whisper righteousness in our ears through the East Wind at the break of day. Let us be blessed with love for all our brothers & sisters on Earth so we may truly live in peace. Let us maintain good mental and physical health to solve our problems and accomplish something for future generations. Let us be sincere with ourselves and make the world a better place to live. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin” Unknown Author Traditional Sioux prayer

The Sioux end prayers and meditations with the phrase, “Aho Mitakuye Oyasin,” which means “All My Relations.” Many will question or wonder why it ends with such a vague phrase. But to the Indian, all about is part of who they are, and it is to all that they offer this Morning Prayer or thought.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Henry David Thoreau

The other day, my mother gave me a copy of her notes on my growing-up years. One is a story of how, when I was very small, around three years of age, I ran away. I actually only went across the street into the woods. I will offer the entire story one day, but since I was young, I have enjoyed the solitude of the woods and nature. Most recently, in another dream, I was again on that same path leading to a small cave where a medicine man was sitting. There have been many times in the various pathways of my life where I would find places to go and be alone with nature. Seldom have I been confined long in a place where I cannot escape to the calls of the wild and sunrise. Recently, a friend posted photos of Cumberland Island, which lies along the Georgia Coast and is protected. It is considered a wilderness area and is off-limits to most exploitation. Sunrise on Cumberland with no one for miles can be pretty spectacular. You have to camp on the island, however, to see the Cumberland sunrise. While I started with the east today, it is about the direction that I am writing.

“I am always doing things I can’t do; that’s how I get to do them.” Pablo Picasso

I recently raised the question of purpose with a former student, and an idea from an email last night had me thinking. A dear friend said four people had recently raised the issue of purpose in life, and she is now seeking her purpose. Before I went out, I wrote back to her. For me, it is not about my purpose so much as I have purpose and knowing you are significant in each aspect of what you do, borrowing from the Sioux again: Aho Mitakuye Oyasin. Over the years, I always thought I would one day open my eyes and see “My purpose,” and I have come to understand that it is not a destination; it is very much a journey.

It was many years ago that I had a vision or dream of a giant jigsaw puzzle falling into place, which sorted it out for me. I could not see the puzzle front every time I tried; it would turn away, revealing the gray backing. I had to be content to know it was falling into place, piece by piece, and each piece was more intricate than the last. As we seek direction on our journey, as I thought, we have a powerful friend in our faith. Doors will open as needed. I spent nearly two years sorting out where I was to go, working with indigent families, and receiving barely enough to cover cell phone and mileage costs. A door opened in teaching, and even then, I was given tests. It was five times that my name was presented by a principal who wanted me to teach, and four times I was turned down. On September 11, 2001, I was allowed to return to teaching as a long-term substitute. Funny thing, I started back to teaching again on December 3, 2018. So here I am, a special education teacher, going back to work on International Day of Persons with Disabilities. December 3 is an international observance promoted by the United Nations since 1992. I never heard of it before, coincidence and or synchronicity.

I have used the puzzle illustration often over the years and throw the word “purpose” about now and again. There is an aspect of our journey we are directly involved in: direction. Which way are we facing as we take that next step?

“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy; a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road, the one less traveled by, offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.” Rachel Carson

I was looking this morning for words dealing with direction, each time I tried mapping, and directions came up. My oldest son completed his GPS certification many years ago. He was working with an Environmental Science class at the high school, mapping trees and positioning using GPS devices for a project, and it hit me how focused and reliant we have become on technology. We are at a point in our technology where we can ascertain that Sumatra moved 20 centimeters in the huge earthquakes of years past. But so often we have a hard time determining where we are going today, let alone in life.

“The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires hard work to change old beliefs. Self-conceit often regards it as a sign of weakness to admit that a belief to which we have once committed ourselves is wrong. We get so identified with an idea that it is literally a “pet” notion, and we rise to its defense and shut our eyes and ears to anything different.” John Dewey

I can always find a spot for a Dewey quote. Dewey is not the easiest read in the world; his thoughts are in detail we are not used to. Far too often, teachers look for an easy fix to a complicated issue. In life, far too many times we take the easy road.

“Instead of looking at life as a narrowing funnel, we can see it ever widening to choose the things we want to do, to take the wisdom we’ve learned and create something.” Liz Carpenter

“You don’t have to buy from anyone. You don’t have to work at any particular job. You don’t have to participate in any given relationship. You can choose” Harry Browne.

For many, life is seen as a funnel, a narrowing rather than a spreading out. It has been many years since I walked the Appalachian Trail in North Georgia. Often, when walking up a mountain, switchbacks are used rather than a direct ascent. A switchback is a path that cuts back and forth up the mountain rather than straight up, and with a heavy pack, a direct route is often impossible. In physics, displacement is the straight-line distance between two points. Few could do that in the mountains.

“The way to activate the seeds of your creation is by making choices about the results you want to create. When you make a choice, you activate vast human energies and resources, which otherwise go untapped. All too often, people fail to focus their choices on results, and therefore, their choices are ineffective. If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.” Robert Fritz

So often in life, it is the first step, or that opening the door, that is so difficult. When I did go back to teaching, I could have stopped at the first rejection. I applied to five or six schools. I was not certified, and in order to get provisional certification, you have to be employed, an interesting paradox. For some reason, a principal thought I might work out and kept pushing, and at the board meeting, I was hired, then called back. My sister, whom I recommended, had been hired so that I couldn’t work there. Then my name did not make the meeting, and the second effort was defeated, and the third and fourth. Finally, a teacher had a nervous breakdown and was out indefinitely, and a long-term sub was needed, and eventually, a teacher was needed. The board made allowances for my sister, and I started on September 11, 2001.

It was many months later, when the principal was putting a list together, that I was asked what day I started. I couldn’t remember; it was the week after Labor Day and a Tuesday because approval was needed on Monday. The first step is often the roughest.

“You are the person who has to decide. Whether you’ll do it or toss it aside, you are the person who makes up your mind whether you’ll lead or linger behind. Whether you’ll try for the goal that’s afar. Or just be content to stay where you are.” Edgar A. Guest

“When we acknowledge that all of life is sacred and that each act is an act of choice and therefore sacred, then life is a sacred dance lived each moment consciously. When we live at this level, we participate in the creation of a better world.” Dr. Scout Cloud Lee

Dr. Lee is a motivational speaker, author of 12 books, a singer-songwriter, a university professor, and a former cast member of the Survivor series on CBS. She was voted Outstanding Teacher of the Year at Oklahoma State University in 1980 and Oklahoma’s Outstanding Young Woman in America in 1980. In 2002, Lee was honored to carry the Olympic torch, exemplifying the theme of “Light the Fire Within. Perhaps this is a good place to stop today. Guest states, “you have to decide,” and Dr. Lee offers, “we participate in the creation of a new world. I’ll end up with a line from an Aerosmith song.

“Life is about the journey, not the destination,” Steven Tyler.

Perhaps ending with a Steven Tyler quote is a good one since he is now one of the judges on American Idol. Maybe he will exemplify his song and provide direction for some young people on their journeys in life. So please, my friends, keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your heart, and always give thanks, namaste.

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

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

docbird