The plumage and its infantile distribution and colour suggest that this Magpie robin is a juvenile bird. I looked around for its parents. It was alone .
Its bird calls were just audible from a distance of five meters and did not carry the usual musical tone and modulations. It was the movement of the beaks and the chest that suggested of its attempt to engage in bird calls as they were almost inaudible.
This Magpie robin was alone. Was it also lonely! It will take a while before it finds its social acquaintances and flight mates!
I am reminded of the lonely feeling that adults carry with them from the messages and phone calls I receive from some. Some would even refer to it as a wilderness or desert experience.
The wilderness or desert experience of being with oneself is a becoming journey. It is through the lonely experiences, we often discover more of ourselves. There is a formative impact a wilderness or desert experience can bring to our lives. This alone can bring a dimension of intimacy with oneself to discover the depth of treasures within !
To learn to be at home with ourselves, our thoughts, experiences, memories, aspirations, disappointments, guilt or failure is one outcome of being alone ! Often many avoid facing this inner reality and find an escape route by listening to music, watching entertainment or in indulging in socialising!
It is in the enclosed environment of a cocoon, a butterfly is being formed to bear its colours and acquire wings to fly!
I have a suspicion that we do not engage our aspirations or disappointments to find the resources hidden within.
It is when we dwell on our aspirations, we truly discover the inner most desire resident in us to receive the call of life!
It is when we engage our disappointments we shall experience the resilience that has grown within us!
The alone times are therefore not lonely times. They are times essential to learn to befriend ourselves and to embrace the virtue within that shall unfold to lead us on !
The juvenile Magpie robin in the above photographs, was exercising to make its bird calls. It was becoming an adult Magpie robin!
The alone times become a prelude to lead us to the fullness of life awaiting us!
In that sense alone times are transitional and transformational in one's life!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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