On souls and the male cardinal that keeps throwing himself at my study window.

I have heard from everyone that the red cardinal that visits me at my study window is a dead ancestor visiting me. And honestly, if that is true, I am a bit alarmed.

I can’t imagine what message is so important. Am I on the wrong path? Am I not seeing what is obvious, the essential, the most important thing?

Can I not see what life is for? Is any moment of attention to my ego and its failings a lost moment of precious life?

He has become more frantic recently, not just chirping and calling, not just cocking his head and looking me straight in the eye, but now throwing himself at the window pane, his perfect red wings splayed out and his beak hitting hard.

I come from a family of dreamers and scientists so I can go either way with this but I don’t see why the spirits that float about would choose only red birds for messaging. It is very particular, specific.

Why is the messenger always the beautiful red cardinal? Do the spirits pick this bird because they know our small minds will notice him?

And what about this individual bird, the little fellow that visits me? What is on his mind? I have seen him looking into the mirrors on my car, so maybe he likes his own reflection.

I do enjoy looking up and seeing this beautiful bird looking in my window but I don’t think it is about me. Let’s face it, it’s not about me. I just happen to be here on the other side of the glass.

I am happy enough to believe in spirits. If they want to talk to me, I am open. It’s just that they haven’t so far. Or maybe they have.

I can’t say I know where the a person’s spirit goes after death. One thing we do know about energy, from a scientific point of view, is that energy changes form. It transforms. It’s the first law of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed.

So what happens to the spirit of the person who dies? Where does it go? Can it shift into a living animal or person, or even a tree? Does it whirl off into space and join a kaleidoscope of swirling energy?

It goes somewhere. It has to, it’s the law.

But I don’t know if I can accept that the wandering spirit is the same as the person we lost. I don’t understand how a spirit would hold the personality of the dead person without the body or the mind.

But maybe, and is this a revelation to me, maybe those parts of us that we hold so dear, our personality, our body and brain, are inconsequential. Maybe our spirit is made of soul, energy without containment.

Maybe what I saw as my father was a fraction of his real self, the self that was freed when he died. Maybe when I die and become energy, I will recognize his energy out there, and say, there’s dad!

We see colours and think the sky is blue, but it is only a refraction of light. Maybe our corporeal bodies are as substantial as rainbows.

I have felt visited. But who is to know whether it is a visit or something my mind created.

Once when I was deep in mourning for my dad and standing alone in the yard, I felt a warm wind circle around me. It felt like a warm hug and very deliberate.

And then only months after my father died his devoted wife joined him and I was sitting on the porch feeling their loss when two black capped chickadees flew on to the porch and circled around my head.

That had never happened before or since. I remember speaking to them, but I always speak to birds.

And now my cats, bored by the cold, have taken to watching for my cardinal with a glint in their eyes. They throw themselves without restraint at the window.

I still watch for him. I hope he comes back.

In any case, I know what the message was and what I am supposed to do. I mean, the cardinal always catches me when I am writing.

Write the truth, keep scraping the bone of truth. And live like the birds, celebrate spring, sing your song no matter how cold it is out there.