Oh my little friend, your wings are so tattered. I know not how long your life cycle but the seasons have left their mark upon your wings. Yet, there you are as graceful and elegant as can be. Nourishing yourself and carrying the same nourishment and life to all the plants.

And then the pondering how frustrated mirrors must be. Whether a mirror or reflection in a window we stop to see the image we think we are. To wonder if the glass, knowing how shallow and critical we look, wishes it could pull a shade and refuse a reflection. To think of nature’s extraordinary beauty and yet she has no eyes to see, nothing to reflect her vastness of color, shapes, textures, aromas, strength, and grace. It is, perhaps, only we humans, with a sense of critical judgment that sees imperfection or impatience that would alter the natural processes of nature. Only we humans that would create a standard of perfection either unachievable or perfected by technology that would define beauty as a single standard leaving all else as ugly, unsightly, obese, aged, or useless. I pondered Dostoyevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor” where Christ returns to earth and the church locks him in a cell. The inquisitor asks Christ why he came back. Religion had worked so hard to undo Christ’s “misjudgment” that humans could be free to live their authentic selves in compassion and love.

And then the soft whisper, “Little one, did you not see first only the tattered wings?” I bowed my head. Yes, I often focus first upon the battered and tattered. Teach me sweet life, to see only wings of flight and beauty, the Truth and Essence. All else,..well… there is no “all else.”