Cliff-Swallows
Nature shows us her gifts in the most unexpected moments, in the most beautiful shapes and forms!!
It was a calm and peaceful day in May - walking along a fairly secret expanse of northern CA beach - one I had visited many times - and only just recently began to dance with all of its medicine!!
There's the tall bluff waterfalls, where I first dared myself to shower naked under pelting flows of water, screaming out loud from the ice cold feeling - but then feeling so alive and full afterwards! When the seasons change and the waterfall goes dry, I flow with nature’s shift, and I shimmy out of my warm clothes and run like a child into the raw ocean - even more ice cold than the waterfall - running from the waves, splashing water all over myself and letting nature do her thing - feeling into the waves and the power and the sandy grit everywhere. It is at once - shockingly cold and awakening of every energy that moves through you!
With surprise and delight I now strangely crave these ice cold bathing adventures every time I return.
It was this same day that I noticed all of the "gems” this special beach has to offer - my heart sang when I looked up and noticed ... a magical display of flight and nest, a large family of chirping birds - right there on the hardened clay & rock bluffs. The cliff swallows greeted me - emerging and dancing in and out of their adobe nests - some peeking their heads out to watch me. Their homes are modern dwellings so ingeniously made from collecting mud and wet sand from the river mouth, and little by little they gather this clay mixture to craft round adobe- like nests and miniature caves - built right on the side of the bluffs - as if naturally meant to be there.
I pause quietly to watch - all of their reddish brown heads staring out at me from inside their their clay abodes - chirping with joy - as if they happily had everything they needed.
Salt air flowing, ocean waves crashing, abalone shells glistening in the black sand beach - this is where they call home, for now - and oh yes, what a perfect place to call home!
These birds showed me that flying free within nature is really just being home within yourself - within community - taking flight, innate creativity, resourcing the wild gifts that nature offers - right there in front of us - if we only slow down and get still - long enough to let it all in, basking ourselves in all "she" has to offer!
Bringing me home to my wild, wise & alive self!!
Love,
Lori Ann