I drove Highway 17 for most of the day (10 hours) from Manitoulin to Kingston to visit my father for the weekend. I witnessed a cloud of red winged blackbirds just after Pembroke. The felt blackbirds (no red) in this image are a study I did last year, but the image is close to what I saw today. Red winged blackbirds are part of my childhood. We would see them when we walked to school. While driving I listened to Clarissa Pinkola Estes read her book "Women Who Walk with the Wolves" a book that's been on my to do list forever. Inspiring.
"Don't conform to ideas without examining them first. Ask yourself "What do I want? What am I hungry for? Your answer must come from your instinctual self.
Don't allow anyone to compress your vivid energy. Your ideals, your opinions, your values etc. Don't forget that a garden has to be turned in the fall. There must be destruction and darkness - it can't bloom all the time. Darkness is also part of your vivid energy" (paraphrased by moi)
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Here's a present for you if you have speakers:
http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=25
I grew up with them always close at hand around the pond behind my childhood home.
Estes' book is one I've re-read many times since the books publication but haven't done so in about 5 years...its among the most liberating books for me personally.
The book has been on my shelf for over a dozen years - so many friends have reccomended it and I have always had good intentions. However, stuck in the car with my mother's audio tape of the author reading her own words was profoundly moving. Maybe I was meant to read it now , because every word rang so true. I would tell all women to read this book and am mailing the audio tape to my sister today. That audio tape was an underground best seller two years before the book itself was first published in 1992. It's amazing.
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