It is hard to believe that over the course of a decade, I've never yet used this title, "Winging It". Good heavens, my entire life has been about "winging it".
I am on a short retreat, always the wrong word for me. I think when I do it from now on, I will call it a "return", because it is more a case of returning to me than retreating from the world. Increasingly, I want what I am doing to be about me, not about the world...as I have also said before, this is ever-challenging for a "girl" brought up in a narcissistic environment... On that note, without thinking, I forgot about retreat mode and turned on the public radio morning news. It was a good reminder that at my worst, my narcissism may be in the 5 range on a scale of 1-10, and some of what we are seeing worldwide is about a 15. It is all relative. And we women need to reclaim our inherent powers, even if it means sometimes swinging the pendulum a little too far in the other direction.
A lot of people on my wavelength are using the term "new timeline" to refer to the new paradigm we have entered...I'm not totally thrilled by the wording, either the "time" or the "line" part, but having said that, I don't have the energy to find something different today. Suffice it to say that the last occasion I was on a "return", I envisioned that I was heading into a future timeline that was even more hermit-like than my present. And in my first few hours here, I slipped into that mode. However, breaking through that energy has been a tiny but consistent energy of future companionship, of partnership, of supportive love with another person. Maybe, just maybe, this will be my last solo retreat.
To return to the topic of wings, I am still troubled by how few birds I continue to encounter these days. Sure, there are some. I finally saw a few crows, a few robins, a few seagulls, a distant glimpse of an eagle, and one hummingbird. And I often hear what I think is a Carolina wren. But overall, still no dawn chorus, still not the variety of birds one would expect over the course of the summer. Even taking into account the fact that this is only my second summer back in this area, I trust my observations, and the situation is perplexing and concerning. Birds are winging it...somewhere.
