Free Bird

Free Bird

High up on a craggy cliff face in the branches of a gnarled, wind bent tree, atop the summit of the most majestic mountain in all of the lands a great golden eagle unfurled his great wings, cocked his head and hopped up onto the edge of his precarious eyrie. Free, as only a great eagle can be, he launched himself into space and soared toward the heavens climbing, feeling his way up and up on the rarefied alpine air currents, and, as was his way, he began dreaming. He was the greatest dreamer in all the lands and in his dream he was a weaver bird and the fabric he used to weave his fantastic tapestries were his thoughts, and what thoughts they were; free and unfettered, rolling like deep groundswell on the great open ocean.

His wing tips, tickled the wind like a concert pianist, making minute adjustments as the buoyant thermals beneath him lifted him higher, higher into the cobalt blue realm of the Lammergeier. He felt the blood coursing through his sleek, streamlined body, the steady pulse of his heart, resonant, reassuring, pumping deep within his mighty chest and he felt the universe, alive, right where it should be, within him.

Below him stretched the endless tapestry of the world forest, his kingdom, a resplendent, ever shifting kaleidoscopic riot of color, texture, tone and shadow.

******

Many years earlier, in a beautiful coastal enclave of the world forest, a very lost and lonely weaver bird had flown away from his family home and all those that loved him to try and find love in the biggest and busiest part of the world forest; an odd place, drab and grey in some respects and yet still bustling, blooming, fluttering with myriad colors, sights and sounds. It had been, and still was the heart of what was once a conquering, mighty empire, nowadays the empire was nothing more than a jaded degenerate relic of its former self, but the necropolis lived on. A place where millions still gathered, lined up like iron filings on a magnet, and waited, in orderly queues for better days.

The weaver bird’s loneliness was an odd kind of loneliness really. Some say that it had sprung like an inky creek from something that had happened way back when he was still a very tiny young little weaver chick with barely a feather yet sticking from his crinkly, opaque pink skin.

He had fallen from his nest you see; some even say that he had been pushed.

Fortunately for the little bird, as he’d tumbled toward the earth a Mummy weaver bird in waiting, a lovely, pretty, looking young thing with bright sparkly eyes, oversized horn rim spectacles, and an aching hunger for some little chicks of her own had seen his plight and plucked him from the air as he’d spun helplessly toward a very uncertain future, and home, to the safety and security of her homely little nest.

Mummy weaver was married to a big and cheerful wood pigeon. He loved the little plump pink Rorschach blot with all his heart and more. Mummy weaver and big Daddy pigeon had been battling to hatch their own eggs for a few seasons and they were extremely grateful to the great source of all that is for their boon. They doted and fussed endlessly over their fledgling chick as if he were the most precious of precious gems in all the lands they knew.

The little weaver bird grew up quickly and got big and strong. He had had many friends in his part of the forest, some might even say that some of the other junior weavers looked up to the lonely little weaver bird, but he had never seemed to see this.

Something gnawed at him from inside; the lonely little weaver spent most of his youth fretting and fussing and flitting about, always busy, chattering incessantly in an attempt to hide his nervousness and unease which always seemed to follow him around like an abyssal black shadow.

Whilst living in the big, big busy jaded, faded Necropolis; populated by every kind, creed and color of bird one could think of, the lonely weaver bird, a young adult now, met a young cuckoo bird. She was a pretty young bird, but very troubled. Her feathers had been much ruffled when she just a young cuckoo. Moving from nest to nest, as is the way with cuckoos, had had a very unfortunate effect on her.

The cuckoo bird and the weaver fell in with one another quite naturally; you know what they say about birds of a feather. They dreamed many, many exotic pie in the sky dreams together, feeding off one another, sucking one another dry and brittle as sun bleached seagull bones. The poor young couple; it was as if they could not see the folly of what they were doing to one another, or the glass pane that lay unavoidably ahead: The pane that awaits all those that have forgotten how to dream.

Despite themselves the young birds set up nest together and continued their fruitless search for happiness, they shifted around a lot, as is the habit of those that are unable to dream, building up vast expectations of reality, nebulous, hazy shadow towers built in stormy skies with smoke and mirrors.

One auspicious day they hatched a beautiful baby golden eagle. They were both enraptured; he was a truly remarkable young specimen. They both hoped that this precious rapturous soul would be the glue they had both been searching for, the glue that would cement them together and bring their muddled dreams into being.

Their dreams could never be and would never manifest. The dreams were baseless; the young birds had still not learned one of the greatest lessons in all the world forest:

In order to love another; in order to dream together, one first needs to learn to love ones self.

The cuckoo, as is the nature of cuckoos, gradually grew tired of the weaver bird and his incessant flitting flightiness, hopping hopes, their bucket of broken dreams and of the image she had developed of herself, and she flew their cracked and draughty nest for greener branches.

The poor lonely weaver; too late had he seen the great advantage that had been bestowed upon him by the great source that permeates all that is:

He had been raised in a very secure and loving nest. He had never wanted for anything. He had even discovered that he had never been pushed out of the nest where he had been hatched, as he had imagined his whole life through, but had been thrown from it by a terrible storm. There were, and always had been many, many people who cared about the lonely little weaver. There was no rational reason for him to be a lonely weaver bird at all when he thought about it.

The young eaglet grew and grew and with all his beauty, latent power, majesty and deep intellect became a source of immense pride to the cuckoo bird. She loved him fiercely, and thus, as was her way, she sought to bind herself to him with that same illusory glue as before, flirting hopelessly with tragedy, as she hopped flightily, frightened of her reflection, from nest to nest to nest.

The poor troubled cuckoo, an icy severity settled over her like a blanket, bringing yet another harsh winter to her already beleaguered snow bound soul. The weaver bird worried, as was his nature, about the beautiful golden eagle that had been sent to them, for them to watch over. He worried how he would now watch over this precious future king of all the skies with the cuckoo bird snow bound, who would guide the young eagle through the treacherous up-draughts, downdraughts and back-draughts of life?

The weaver bird longed for his fledgling son, the cuckoo had moved far, far, far away, almost to the other side of the world forest, and she still did not seem settled. The weaver bird worried, as he was wont to do, about how he would provide for the young eaglet if he too were to start roaming the great world forest, root-less, in pursuit of his beloved son? He had finally found some stability in a remote and very beautiful part of the forest near a vast lake, and besides, in that emerald green forest the weaver bird had met an exotic, extremely rare, beautiful and caring bird of paradise, a gift he had come to dearly treasure. She was a strong and independent soul, self reliant in all ways. The weaver had learned much from her simple uncluttered ways. They loved one another and respected one another and accepted one another for who they were, and together they had successfully hatched a wily young grey parrot whom they both loved very dearly in their own special and unique ways, the bird of paradise had also somehow shown the weaver bird that he was a worthy partner and daddy and he felt good about himself for the first time in many years. Together; they had started to dream.

The weaver bird was all at sea as to what course of action he should take, then, he remembered some words a wise old barn owl, a relative of his, had spoken many years earlier about freedom: The wise old owl had often seemed to the weaver bird, to speak in riddles. The weaver birds over active and constantly vacillating mind sometimes took many years to process information of any sort, erratically searching for kernels of hidden truth with which to feed his soul. Riddles were always particularly troublesome.

Ponderously he had come to know and to love the great source from which he and all that is had sprung; and slowly, through this knowledge coupled with the love the bird of paradise had shown him was possible, he had started to love and accept himself.

The weaver had learnt of the great compassionate ones, the half seen penguin folk of the antipodes that absorbed and bore the karma of others, selflessly suffering the endless blizzards of the damned; he had learnt of the tempting peacocks, creator beings that imagined themselves to be the ultimate lords of matter, and he’d learnt of the illusions they wove and was slowly learning how to pick his way through those illusions, he had begun to understand that as a weaver unravelling, oft times, was as important as weaving, he had also begun to see, and understand that the fabric that one used for weaving was of the utmost import and needed to be very carefully sourced, and, that one had to be very careful about what one wished for, what one imagined, as the chattering starlings of dispersion were never far away, shimmering and shining with false promises, waiting, to lead one astray.

The weaver bird through accepting himself saw that he had to accept the ways of the cuckoo too, even though they irked him so.

He resolved to steer clear of cuckoos in the future, but nonetheless, he resolved to allow them to be. He had sought out knowledge far and wide and had glimpsed the mystical silvery raven that patrolled the shadowy perimeters; the great counters of deeds and misdeeds, forever in service to the great skeletal vulture king, the auditor of the shades, and this made him very sad, for he knew that the great scales of justice always balanced out.

He came to understand that anyone adopting the stance of an authoritarian actually cowered behind an imperious façade, in fear, and finally, he had come to know for himself that the only gift one truly has to give is freedom.

And that ultimately, freedom is love:

“One law for the lion and ox is oppression.” *

“Prisons are built with stones of law and brothels with bricks of religion.” *

The much beleaguered weaver bird finally felt a balance that had long been missing in him, he began to sense a lightness of being, to feel that the lead was draining at last from his hollow bird bones:

At last he knew that if he could dream the dreams of an eagle, he too could soar like one!

****

As the old wizened weaver bird went about his daily chores, weaving his dreams, being a part of the ever shifting tapestries he wove, and mindfully striving to remain true to himself and his nature, he heard a piercing cry from on high, he cocked his rickety old neck and stared skyward through a sharp beady black eye and saw his beloved son, his king, soaring benevolently over the kingdom that he had dreamed and woven for himself from his dreams. He felt the blood coursing reassuringly through his veins and the cosmos waxing, waning rhythmically in his breast.

“The Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs”. ~
“Worship then the Khabs and behold my light shed over you!” ~


* William Blake, The marriage of heaven and hell
~ Aleister Crowley, The book of the law