Let’s face it.  Spring has held its heart ache and challenge.  For the second time in two weeks, I’ll be spending time saying good-bye with a Mrs. who lost her Mr. and I’ve been left with a heavy heart.  Loss is tricky, but sometimes we just lose.  My daughter and I have had a couple of really good conversations about the overwhelming feelings that come with those around us suffering or experiencing loss.  She has helped me to search for my limits as a way of focusing my energy and helping me to gain back some control over those things that I can control. She has reminded me that every person has their super close circle and we need to each allow those super close circles to function for the support and love that is so required when the dark chasm of emptiness needs to be filled up with that precise support and love.

Some items for you to read and think about, if you like…  I think we can all agree that females are the most apt to ‘be’ empaths and if the label fits, be this for their families, their friends and even the world.  Do you want to heal up absolutely everything? Do you want to sew up the gaping bleeding wounds of the planet and the environment; to save animal species, to end all human atrocities and even manipulate the horrific results of decisions made in history?  Do you want to give babies to the childless, take babies from the monsters, find partners, and good ones, for the widowed, the divorced and the aged? Do you want to end the addictions you see in others. Are you feeling unfocused? overwhelmed?  Do you feel like you are shrinking? Do you feel like you are an empty shell? Do your words come out all wrong?  Are you an empath?

Empaths are highly sensitive, finely tuned instruments when it comes to emotions. They feel everything, sometimes to an extreme, and are less apt to intellectualize feelings. Intuition is the filter through which they experience the world.

After these deliberations and after I saw my guests off yesterday morning…after my school buddies set me up with the tools to write my 23 report cards this weekend…and as I had one night’s solid sleep AND as things were beginning to come into perspective, this happened to Max.

It’s interesting how one blown knee in my beloved dog slowed me down to an abrupt stop. Red Light!  And I won’t be going far, physically speaking, for the next twelve weeks.  I guess I feel like that kid in hockey who is facing playoffs and gets an injury, making participation in the game, impossible.  I’m very sad for Max.

This morning I’m wondering what this is going to teach me. For one, I know that my world has shrunk, again.  I know that I’m not going to be able to stop the poaching of elephants.  I know I’m not going to be able to be away from the house very much.  Instead of spending time enjoying the pond at Frank’s Flats and all of its summer magic, I will be making observations of nature in my small back yard.

And speaking of this…

Mr. has found a new Mrs.!  At the very last snow fall of winter/spring, Mr. lost his mate.  Whether widowed or divorced, the determined male sparrow at the nest across from my kitchen window, no longer had his female companion. He has cried incessantly on my eaves ever since, flitting about, tidying up his little piece of real estate…a vent opening that I have patched with copious amounts of duct tape during previous nesting seasons.

For a while, there were a few young lady-friends who visited…checked out the spot and then left, not to return. I hope that the bones of last spring’s baby sparrow, (fallen to the hard ground below, but alive and struggling for life, curled into the palm of my hand and returned up a very tall ladder, to the nest), do not remain in the little vented home.  Something about the nest made the ladies very uncomfortable for the longest time.

This morning, however, Mr. & a new little Mrs. are both busily readying the space for new life, showing up at intervals, with fresh nesting material.  I’m happy for him.  Perhaps now he will stop crying.

Another thing…a back yard thing….have you ever seen sparrows dust bathing?  Amazing.  I look out the window that edges on my back gardens and each afternoon, I see the sparrows, like whirling dervishes, spinning in the raised beds where the carrots and tomatoes are usually growing.  They leave behind little pots when they leave.  Something I had never observed before.

So…looking up close is an amazing thing.  Sometimes pulling back into a smaller and cozy world is alright.  Home is the best place to be when a person needs to take some time to gain perspective.  Words from a friend or two… “Take care of you.” And…a song I haven’t heard for a while.  And it’s true.  You’re beautiful.