Lakshmi drawing, scanned, photoshopped

What is abundance?

This is a question worth asking.  I ask for more, more, more this morning, ritualized with a Lakshmi mantra, and lo and behold, walking Jack around the block (because it is 40 degrees this morning and not one degree), I follow a cawing crow with my eyes, lauding it in my heart, turning to quilt ideas (how to render ‘crow’), when I see the white, dun-flecked breast of a huge raptor in a curb-side tree.  Brilliant blue backdrop, eastern sun hitting its front.  Here! One block from Rte. 9.  Here! One block from my house.  Even though I know that birds of prey have made remarkable adaptations to settings more urban than mine, I take its presence as a near miracle.

It sees me.  Looks right at Jack and me.  I stare at it, trying to memorize the shades of pale rust and ecru that are its markings (falcon? juvenile red-tail?).  I watch how it moves its head.  I see the total lack of fear.  I am greedy.  I want to see it fly.  I am waiting, willing it to fly.

And then, realize, How ridiculous!!  Must everything be about capture and consumption?  I am glad my phone with its camera is home.  I am glad this bird of prey’s look told me I am of little consequence.  Because then I can let go into just being in its presence.  This is palpable, like an exhale where the lips waggle.

And then (of course?), it lifts itself from the branch with one powerful, upward tug, flaps to the east, and swings itself up into another bare branch.  In one glorious second of its flight, the tips of its wings become luminous in the morning sun.

THAT is abundance.

And, given the pictures now emerging out of Haiti, just about EVERYTHING I touch, see, feel and encounter this morning is abundance.  May peace and order be restored there, soon.