He Picked Me

I've always known I could talk to them. That I could hear them, understand them. That they understood what I was saying, and sometimes thinking. There was this link.

Most of them came and went, as mysterious the day they left as the day they flew into the barn. This one though, this one was different. This one looked into my eyes, and I just knew. I knew that I was special to him. That he would be the one to teach me.

His black eyes pierced into my forehead. he ruffled his brown and reddish wings and I knew he was asking me to come closer. He moved into me and rubbed his head on my hand. I opened my fingers and ran them lightly over his soft feathers. The connection was made. We sat for what seemed like hours. He showed me the views from above, the power that I had inside me to see things differently, manipulate things differently. I felt understood, empowered. I knew things had changed from this moment forth.

I came back to the barn every night when the moon gave her light. I listened, I learned, I practiced. First, I could move the hay, then hear the weather before it happened. Before long my spirit could soar with the wind, seeing for miles and embracing the perspective that comes from seeing things from above. I knew where I fit, as me, in the big picture.

His name was Alexander. He had been around since the time of Greece. He was a teacher, a watcher. There are those of us who are meant to fly. Not everyone is open to it, but those who are change themselves and those around them, and thus change the world.

Perspective, you see, is a powerful thing. With it you know that a pile of hay is just many pieces. Pieces can be rearranged, made into something else. It only takes a little breeze to create a whole change when you understand the pieces.

I now soar. Alex found a new barn many years ago. Perhaps he is teaching another child the ways of the wind. I hope there are many of us. That we all understand the largest piles of hay can be moved, one piece at a time, by the smallest of breezes. I hope we still fly; we still listen to the wind. The world needs us to hear what it says.