As I was driving home, a flock of blackbirds fell out of the sky. It was a diving swarm, a single ball of coordinated black spots bouncing against the gray clouds. They didn’t need to speak to know in which direction to go; they didn’t bump into each other even at their frenzied speed. Rather, they flowed like a torrential stream, pooling at choice points in the sky. They moved as one, a larger consciousness, a group of wandering nomads who already knew that they would arrive together at their ultimate destination, the journey together being more important than the endpoint.

I was open but not searching. They stole my breath away, and in an instant, I was plummeting through the skies with them, swooping, my heart in my throat, a smile in my eyes. They welcomed my spirit into their flock. I was soaring. We settled on the field. I was home.

You don’t see things as they are. You see things as you are.

Talmud

One must rise by that by which one falls.

Tantra

This warm body is
too small a container for
my restless spirit

*****
memories sparked by
fragments of wood, shells—treasures
kept in shoeboxes

In order to live with integrity, we must stop fragmenting and compartmentalizing our lives. Telling lies at work and then expecting great truths in meditation is nonsensical.

-Sharon Salzberg

no more room for me
the pebble lodged between us
became a boulder

*****

pebble in a pond
rings ricochet and disperse
then stillness returns

Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.

- Bertrand Russell

uprooted
transplanted to a place
I don’t belong

*****

how hard it is to
want to belong to someone
who doesn’t want you

More “belonging” haiku at One Deep Breath.

Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.

- Zen proverb