“I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul”
–Cat Stevens
It’s May Day, or Beltane. I’m lying on my back on the top of the mesa looking at the sky, which is quickly going from light to darkening blue. It’s like looking into a gigantic, upside-down fishbowl and it extends as far around me as I can see.
I’ve been here for a while. Even though the sky is getting darker, there is something about looking into that infinite space that is so uncomfortable I have to squint. My eyes strain to find…something… sooner than forever, to focus on.
As the world will have it, I do find something: about 40 swallows are circling so high that I didn’t spot them at first. I guess they are back for the summer, because I haven’t seen them since I’ve been here. They look like an undulating tornado of specs, but every now and then they dive down, and I feel as if I stuck out my hand they might hit me on their roller coaster ride down and then up. It’s amazing how different their flight is then that of the noisy crows’ flapping, or the silent hawks’ dignity, or the sparrows’ scuttle from tree to tree.
It has been a singularly un-Beltane-like day: no ceremony, no ribbons, no fires, no maypole, and, in fact, no people at all.
I woke up WARM and in a spectacular mood at 5am, full of absolute joy. And now, the sun goes down, and I’m thinking about my busy last two weeks. I flew to New York for work and greeted the Statue of Liberty eye-to-eye from the 33rd floor of an unfinished green building. Then, Liam and I drove to Sedona to meet some friends for a few days of hiking and play.
Now I’m back here, and I wait for for what I have learned will come: the sigh of the wind as the sun goes behind the hill, the exhale that comes after all the day’s heat and activity. It’s a breath that I love to feel, because it reminds me to do the same: to let it all go for another night and find the stillness in the dark silence.
Happy May Day; be well through the next turning.
Kyra Epstein 