Bird Droppings March 1, 2026

Why should life be a difficult journey? Perhaps if it were not, we would not learn.

“Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.” Henry Van Dyke

It has been a few years since I visited with my mother, and I walked by my father’s and brother’s grave site, or I should say stood by them. I was recalling the day I was called from work almost twenty years ago, when my brother had passed away during the night. I looked about the hillside where he was buried, and now my father is buried there as well. The farm had been home to many families over the years. Most recently, a family of sharecroppers who, for nearly 60 years, tilled the land, planting cotton and also running a dairy farm for a local land baron and financier. He, too, has passed away and left his name on a local church gym and road signs around the county.

As I looked out at now soccer fields and houses where not too many years ago boll weevils were poisoned and mules driven along furrows plowing terraces in an effort to keep what remaining topsoil was left in place, I saw a crow land in an old cedar tree. I walked over and watched the crow for a few minutes, and recalled that, traditionally in Georgia, when you see cedar trees six or so in a row, there was once an old fence line. This particular row I knew well, for I had taken down the old rusty fence many years ago that ran along through them.

I wanted to sit a moment at my brother’s grave site as I thought back several years to a similar time when I was waiting for my father to come home from the hospital, sitting in this exact spot. I was sitting, wondering at all that had happened in the twenty-plus years since. What journeys have I been on? As I thought, I glanced over at several burial markers from before the Civil War from a family that had lived on this land so many years ago. Little granite houses were literally fashioned from slabs of rock into body-sized houses. There are four that can still be seen through the thicket of old honeysuckle vines and sumac stalks.

I was thinking back to days when my children, nieces, and nephews made the mosaic tiles to lay on my brother’s grave. There is one for each of my mother’s grandchildren. Each is a piece fashioning their ideas into a mosaic of individual tiles and pieces of glass. There were several music notes on one, an ibis on another, flowers on several, and an art design with a heart and arrows coming from it on another. I thought it would be great to have a guidebook explaining each piece, each color, and each tile, so you know why, where, and who placed each one.

On a different note, I received an email from a dear friend in Pennsylvania many days back, responding to a drop-off from a few days ago. She added, “The past cannot be changed, but the future is whatever you want it to be.” She was not sure where it came from. I searched this morning and came up with an unknown author. But as I looked and wondered about our own mosaics in life, my own in particular, what road was I on, where was I going? One day, I look back and see the tiles in place in my own life and try to recall why, where, and how the most difficult journey has been.

I recall days when I would have wished on no one, and I am sorry I myself lived. I wonder. I went out earlier and watched the moon fade behind a bank of clouds slowly moving across the morning darkness. It was so quiet, nearly silent, as I walked around this morning with only a car in the distance to mark civilization’s intrusion on my peace.

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world.” Buddha

I wonder about this as I look back on a day or two. It was the last few moments joking with nurses and the doctor before the sedative took effect while I was having a colonoscopy. What if we wander from our thoughts, drift astray for a moment or two? Does our world change, manipulated by where we are at the time?

“Things do not change; we change.” Henry David Thoreau

It has been a week of questions, seeking answers within questions within obsolete absolutes, wondering if and trying to find which pathway is easier to tread. I am changing my life in order to live. I will be watching what I eat rather than simply eating anything in sight. Additionally, I need to lose weight and start a regular exercise program. Most significant to me is a return to my morning meditation and interaction with all that is.

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain

Throughout my life, I have made choices in despair many times rather than from exhilaration, and on some occasions, I have made mistakes. As I sat, thinking, reading Twain’s words, it caught me so often: complacency ties us in. Cast off the bowlines, and explore, dream, and discover, as Twain so eloquently stated. I have always been a searcher, traveling through this life exploring the myriad trails and pathways. I am always looking, always exploring, wondering, talking, asking questions, and seeking answers to questions without any answers, wearing out shoes as I travel. Many are the times I would walk barefoot rather than stop.

I recall a brief journey where, literally, I had to take off my shoes and, in doing so, learned several lessons. Number one, you cannot break in new boots on a weeklong hike. Number two is that mole skin is a wonderful invention, and third, it will protect your feet. Your feet can be the difference between another journey and sitting down waiting. I have wandered today, trying to resolve for myself issues that may never be resolved, ideas that will perpetuate my soul for some time. I have yet to realize that, as Mark Twain stated, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do”. So everyone, as you go, take another step, search down another pathway, find a new trail in life, but do not try to break in new boots as you go. Please 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)

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