Merkaba and Roses

They sail on the wind

Time slipped us a reminder

Dragon ships fly by

I have been holding onto a special bird story for a while now because I knew I wanted to tell it well. It’s good I waited because now the story has grown a few extra wings so to speak, and that makes it even more joyous to share with you. About four years ago I started to feel a more meaningful relationship with nature growing within my heart. Why it took so long I don’t know. I have always looked with longing on nature, and I certainly knew that she could speak back following a couple of ‘unitary experiences’ in my twenty-first year. But Father Time likes to have his own way with us.

I am not going into all of the bird experiences I have had since then except to say that birds began to communicate with me early in 2020 when I witnessed an extraordinary pigeon jamboree, a gathering of hundreds of them, on trees and telephone wires in a field near where we lived outside of San Joan de Labritja, Ibiza. There are many of us who know that we have witnessed events over the last year seeing hundreds of posts social media of animals and nature behaving in unusual ways, and something would have appeared to have changed irreversibly, and in my view it is not just us humans receiving this unique viral update to our consciousness. About four months ago it dawned on me not so slowly that we could have a two-way conversation with nature, and I mean more than imagined, and that key turned out to be birds. Aha, I thought, this is how Francis of Assisi might have got started.

Around six weeks ago, in our temporary accommodation, not far from Cheltenham, UK, with a limited view of the sky I saw something that nearly caused me to fly up into the sky to join them. We all know that birds are capable of athletic manoeuvres but these have always been associated with either the need to eat or the desire to procreate. I was watching a group of some white and some the usual grey pigeons, considered the least cerebrally endowed of the wild birds, and they were having such fun flying in circles close to home I imagine. I knew it had to be a batch of homing pigeons circling above our small back courtyard, and yes, I was paying the right attention when I saw something that initially I thought, oh no, that can’t be so. One grey pigeon stood out from the others. He dropped some ways through the air and the reason was because he was doing somersaults! And to make sure I noticed he broke away from the flock and did it two more times. I told Peter what I had seen and saw a glimmer of a smile break across his face. 

Two days later, the same grey pigeon, it had to be, came out on his own, and with Peter standing next to me, he repeatedly gave us a display of aerobatics including somersaults, and now at least I had a witness. I have called him Stanley Livingstone Pigeon. It was only a few months earlier that Heather, my sister, had inspired me to read the updated version of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. My dad was called Stanley, and there was a natural flow to my pigeon’s name that I couldn’t resist. On the third occasion, four whites and Stanley were circling right above me, and two of the four white pigeons were also doing somersaults. I know it is stretching things, and you may call me batty, yes, I am still friends with them, but I had wondered whether any of the others were impressed with his antics. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull was sadly exiled from his family for his extravagant behaviour and refusal to be like other seagulls, not concentrating on food to keep himself alive but rather choosing to follow his bliss. Being right above me, it was like white roses tumbling from the sky as their feathers transformed into petals. What nudged me into writing today was that yesterday, and again with Peter, the batch was back in the sky, and they all seemed to be engaged in what I can only describe as an aerial display of aerobatics, including multiple somersaults. This time, and again right above me, there was something of a spinning top about them, and I told Peter that it was like a merkaba – a word I had only heard used by Matias de Stefano in his series on Gaia when describing a multisided geometric structure, and another time by my weather man describing spinning shapes, UFOs, that many people were reporting in the night sky near them wherever they were living in the world.

In my usual fashion, when I come across a word that I am not sure of, I looked it up on Wikipedia—not a respected site these days, but usually okay on subjects that are not likely to be politicised. I am often surprised by these moments. For starters, it was the second time on the same morning for a very tender and personal reason, that I saw the words, Throne of God. That alone would be enough of an affirmation for me. Then there was the explanation around Merkabah, as it is written in its Hebrew form. And a synchronicity occurred when I read the description of the Chariot that supported God’s lapis lazuli throne. When I was a young woman it was my favourite stone. The accompanying image, a nineteenth century fresco named Ezekial’s Wheel in St John the Baptist Church in Macedonia had many wings attached to spinning wheels connected to four other spinning wheels. They are golden in colour, and right there is the connection to Rumpelstiltskin, mentioned in my last blog, the spinning of straw by a princess, something of nature turned into gold until the answer of a riddle came to her, allowing her to be able to keep her family together. I wrote that the connection as to why it was an important fairy tale to me was bound to come up in its own time. Little did I know it would be so soon! Affirmations have abounded in my life and even more so since my daughter died. I think of them as little miracles, not nearly as scary as a big one would be. My faith can never be rocked but is forever evolving. I am happy for it not to become a fixed view or doctrine on what exists when our consciousness leaves our body. And this is constantly affirmed for me—I know this because I live ever more peacefully and lovingly. And I feel safe in my place in the world because Peter is my rock, and he will always make sure that my feet are firmly anchored in the ground.

A postscript: I have been informed that there are Tumbler pigeons. What strangeness. This morning the batch gave me a front row seat to their display. Every now and then Stanley would break away from the others, and the complete performance ended with a solo performance as he tumbled more times than I could count, and almost above my head. Peter and I watched as they swooped and glided, rising high in the sky and diving into tumbles. Their glides, especially when performed by the white pigeons touches on the sublime. Most birds glide with wings in the horizontal position, or folded back when looking for greater speed, but their wings in this case are raised high, forming a V, for as long as they can hold themselves in a forward propulsion. It makes me hold my breath in excitement. I have absolutely no doubt that these birds of paradise are experiencing the bliss that only comes when we reach for those greater heights of life experience.