The Secret Language of the Birds

Birds symbolize a particular state of being, a particular state of mind. The state is one of levity and freedom. It is a state not governed by gravity. It is a joyous state, an open state, a boundless state.

We conscientiously watch a lonely bird, a bird couple, or a V-shaped welter of birds because we pine for the joyous state. We want to experience mental flight. We want to copulate with garuda, socialize with the phoenix, and flirt with the simurg. This is self-evident in flying dreams, moments of intense reverie, and/or other states of consciousness that altogether supercede the stubborn gravitational pull of the ego.

The unconscious motivation of the historical process seems to involve flight, or at least the possibility of flying away from the lures of space and time, flesh and selfishness. This is evident in our need to build structures larger than we are; structures that clamber to the sky so we can attain a new or heightened vantage point. We want to climb higher and experience breathtaking horizons of an unfathomable breadth because it is the closest thing to having wings, or the "bird's eye view". We build spacecrafts and airplanes for the very same reason. We're transfixed by news reports of UFOs for this very reason as well.

We want to fly. This is quite apparent. But the need to fly engenders a quandary in the soul. This quandary is epitomized by escapism. If we need to fly away, the need must be an effort to escape a mountainous problem or a problem simply simmering below the surface. This ultimately means that the need to fly or the path of the flight will never experience or reach freedom. The problem returns after the high. Gravity wins. The stubborn pull of the egoic center vanquishes the empyrean-bound imagination. We want to fly, and yet we aren't willing to let go of the problem. The quandary in the soul persists.

I can't offer anyone a surefire cure to this mortal predicament, but I can say rather openly that ecstasy is the goal of life on this planet. This ecstasy paradoxically entails a communion with the birds and a communion with the deepest roots of the trees. This would also entail the sacred marriage between the lofty imagination and the unconscious instinct.