Political Wings

During an election year, one’s mind runs on a political track, looking and paying attention to the course of political process, rhetoric, personalities and prognosis even as we are absorbed with the duties of daily living. As we all wrestle with determinations of who will most fully represent our wishes and points of view and work toward accomplishing those elements we feel are crucial to our nation’s well-being, it occurred to me, while driving home one evening, that nature once again has a powerful hidden lesson to impart. While rhetoric heats up and political sides take positions, it is important to look up occasionally, and observe the flight of birds. After watching an evening of “Frozen Planet” I am in awe of the albatross, who, once airborne on magnificent wings comprising an eleven-foot wing-span, does not return to earth for five years once it masters the art of its flight, living and flying at sea: an epic journey for an epic bird, empowered by awesome wing-work.

And then I realized – it’s so simple really – a bird never leaves the ground unless it has both a right wing and a left wing, each in good working order. And though they will never point in the same direction, or be on the same side, both must work in coordinated effort to bring about any progress at all. The balance brought to the bird by the intentional working of both wings, guided by the body sight, brings progress, allowing accomplishment of purpose, goals and destination.

And so I thought, what if we each spent some time honoring the other wing this year, understanding and accepting the balanced view and powerful motion they bring when joined to the body of thought and heart as instruments intended for the purpose of feeding and empowering it’s life; respecting each wing’s unique contribution to the flight path of our common good, and requiring the respect of each wing for the other in expressing the direction of the whole. This is not for the birds. They already know how to fly. Time for us to use our wings….

Let us not, like the ancient mariner, take our one shot (vote) to the disparagement the whole….

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross

Through the fog it came;….

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

`God save thee, ancient Mariner,
From the fiends that plague thee thus! –

Why look'st thou so?' –

"With my crossbow, I shot the Albatross."
                 Samuel Taylor Coleridge