The things that call me home.
It’s been a difficult week. Unexpected bad news has thrown me off kilter. The week’s tasks have been more difficult to accomplish than I anticipated and the list, instead of being addressed, is only growing longer. I can feel the old anxiety rising up, the temptation to just do something which would help me forget about things, even for a short while. Because it feels too much to deal with and I don’t know what steps come after this. I’m feeling overwhelmed …
And then suddenly a wailing, haunting cry pulls me back from my spiralling thoughts. The yellow-tailed black cockatoos are flying over the treetops in the neighbouring park, their distinctive silhouettes floating effortlessly against an azure blue sky. Calling to each other as they go. Calling to me too, and letting me know that everything will be okay.
A bird call in the distance told me where I was.
These birds have always been my favourite. Not just for their size and beauty but for all that they remind me of. I was just a little girl the first time I ever heard them. Walking deep in the bush with my Dad, we were following a track that moved through dense forest, transitioning every now and then into pockets of ancient-looking rainforest. In the distance there were waterfalls and that’s where we were heading. We were both in good spirits. Happy. Two creatures in their favourite element.
Suddenly in the distance there was a cry like a child screaming. I froze, my Dad stopping involuntarily too as he turned to look at why the body attached to the hand he was holding had just ceased moving. ‘What’s that?’ I asked, slightly afraid, but trusting my Dad would know.
We stood there for ages like that, listening to the bird’s calls as they fluctuated from the childlike wails of the flock to the deeper, more penetrating contact calls of birds further away from the others. ‘Come on,’ my Dad said, as we resumed our trek to the waterfall. ‘I’ll show you.’
I’ve never forgotten that day, nor the magnificence of the birds that were eventually revealed when we reached them.
Those same birds have helped me through many times. When my parents separated, when my dancing career ended, when I lost my ex-partner, and through my years of addiction and the darkest times of my life, my favourite birds could always be found. I would go on bushwalks or long hikes without contact with other people, but I would hear the calls of the yellow-tailed black cockatoos, or I would see them flying overhead, feeding or passing through, and I would know I was not alone.
They became my symbols of resilience. Reminding me who I am beneath it all. Urging me to keep going, to believe that things will be okay. More recently, when my Dad passed away, they reminded me he was not really gone. That his spirit and our memories, and everything he taught me, live on.
I’ve learnt to trust such symbols of nature; to hear its call and let it bring me home. It’s something inside of me, in who I’ve always been, even if I don’t fully understand what it is. And it calls me back to the place within myself where there is love, understanding and enoughness in being what I am, no matter what is happening around me.
I’m so grateful for the natural environment surrounding us – for being able to immerse myself in it so freely and without fear. I love how it makes me feel part of something so precious as is life, and yet simultaneously grounds me by assuring me of my smallness.
If I’m not careful, I can take my life too seriously, ruining the brief time I have. Symbols like the yellow-tailed cockatoos – what I have come to see as a kind of spirit bird – remind me to be present, to stop worrying and to appreciate. And to know, without a doubt, that I am part of something much bigger than myself.
Nature was here long before we arrived, and it will be here long after we are gone. Do you ever find yourself awestruck at the fact that we are even a part of it at all?
I do.
I write from lived experience, not as a clinician or expert. What I share is what I’ve noticed and what has helped me, not advice for everyone. [Why I write this way]
If you’re struggling, Lifeline is on 13 11 14.
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