There is a profound and humbling wisdom in the way of birds. Their wings unfurl, stretching to embrace the open sky. With tentative beginnings and growing assurance, they rise, they soar, they glide, they land.

I observe and listen to them from my window every day while writing. They come and go to the bird feeder gracefully. Cardinals, doves, grackles, mockingbirds, sparrows, blue jays. Each doing their thing.

For birds, it seems, the very act of flight is their ultimate destination. While they mate and migrate and look for food, there's a palpable sense that being airborne is where they truly belong.

In contrast, we humans often cloud our journey with incessant preoccupations about our destination, often hindering our ability to soar. We stifle our innate desires to love, to learn, to play, to seek spiritual truths. We want to be certain of where our efforts will lead us.