HOW do we work with our tendency to block and to freeze and to refuse to take another step toward the unknown? If our edge is like a huge stone wall with a door in it, how do we learn to open that door and step through it again and again, so that life becomes a process of growing up, of becoming more and more fearless and flexible, more and more able to play like a raven in the wind?
Where I live on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, I see that the wilder the weather is, the more the ravens love it. They have the time of their lives in the winter, when the wind gets much stronger and there’s lots of ice and snow. They challenge the wind. They get up on the tops of the trees and they hold on with their claws and then they grab on with their beaks as well. At some point they just let go into the wind and let it blow them away. Then they play on it, they float on it. After a while, they’ll go back to the tree and start over. It’s a game.
Once I saw ravens in an incredible hurricane-velocity wind, grabbing each other’s feet and dropping and then letting go and flying out. It was like a circus act. The animals and the plants on Cape Breton are hardy and fearless and playful and joyful; the elements have strengthened them. In order to exist there, they have had to develop a zest for challenge and for life. As you can see, it adds up to tremendous beauty and inspiration and uplifted feeling. The same goes for us.