Birdsong wisdom & love mycelium

1.
Here in the forest
and heart of crumbling empire
we’re watching a new season
of Father Brown on BBC.
Well, “watching” is an overstatement.
I love having 
gentle mystery on
somewhere in the background
in winter and early spring.
BBC mysteries
my too-lazy-to-look-for-actual-podcasts
podcast.

This new season—13–
a few episodes in or maybe
halfway through the season
as we cook or clean or read or
train to accompany immigrants
to appointments that shouldn't be dangerous
or terrifying
but are now
or play games, read news, and explore curiosities
on our phones
in the dark cool evenings
there is one clear voice 
that’s been calling out to me—
directly speaking to me:
“Key-caaaaw!!!”

Without hesitation or thought I reply
out loud, each time
from wherever I am 
and whatever I’m doing:
“Key-caaaaw!!!”
Hello, friend!

And if we’re in the same room, Daniel 
looks up from his book, game, or work
over his readers. He says nothing. 
Because nothing else needs to be said. 
Just sharing the awareness
(and now and then even silently impressed
I like to imagine)
that a poet 
and a woman
will speak whenever
and with whomever
they wish to speak. 
Even with creatures that others
don’t notice
cannot see
or hear 
or believe in.
Without explanation.
Explanation of the self is not needed— 
is it, my fellow strange hidden being?

It's not cool anymore to be unaffected,
we hear. 
But it's fire to be profoundly affected
and changed by everything
everyone who makes your heart soar.
Everyone you both hear and are heard by.
Or see and are seen by.
Your responses fluid
unafraid
automatic
welcome. 

That said, it’s a bird. 
I’ve been talking with a bird
in a should-be-foreign-to-me bird tongue. 
A bird on Father Brown. 
A loud bird speaks to me
in the background
of some of the outdoor scenes this season
and I speak back.
A bird never seen or discussed by
anyone on the show, so far. A show set in rural England.
In the 1950s. A tropical bird whose species
was unknown to me until we researched the
lovely mystery.
Indigenous to India and southeast Asia.
A peacock. Or, perhaps, a peahen—the forgotten
girlish bird name of birds most just call peacocks now.
Typical. Hen blocked.
Yes, we researched it. We get to know our friends well
wherever they hail from.

The actual characters in the show, themselves
may be smart or clueless or diabolical or concerned
or hiding things—yet, in all cases,
they seem oblivious to the true mystery:
Who is this hidden tropical bird among them?
What is she saying?
When did she get here?
Why is no one else listening to her?
Why in the bloody hell
is an invisible peacock or peahen or peathem–
now that's better– running around the town
offering really solid clues about this latest murder
only to the poets and dreamers
(of which I am both)
and perhaps to the ornithologists and birders 
(of which I am technically neither) 
watching or listening
75 years
in the future
from another country
in a different season of the year?

Why is nobody noticing the most interesting character among them?

That's all to say here,
there is wisdom in birdsong
and unexpected places. 
Wisdom missed entirely by those/us when
fully trapped in the (lie? abuse? desire?) that we are
helpless powerless isolated alone trapped
destined to be victims
unneeded
doomed
as a town or species or planet or country
or region or family or being. 

As long as we hear and share birdsong
we cannot be doomed.
We
have musicians as neighbors!
Musicians who go to sleep at a reasonable hour!
Miracles!
Key-caaaaw!!!

2.
I’m Facebook friends with a town elder
who shares photos from her day
every evening
with those she loves, 
which seems to be everyone. 
Photos of her dog greeting seals
nose to nose
on the dock. Her cats getting into cat mischief.
The deer in her yard, all of whom
she knows by name, and all of the friends
she visits, people at church, on the sidewalk, in shops,
at protests, and even graveside.
She notices lichen. Loves water. Loves smiles.

In an online world pumped full of real and imagined fear
and advice about how to keep yourself safe
by never again showing your face
or sharing anything real about yourself, really–
she stands apart. Strong. Loving. Maybe even defiant.

I love this woman.
I don’t even know her IRL.
We just both happen to live in a rural place
where 
when a local gentle human
asks you to be Facebook friends or to connect on
Instagram or TikTok or at the coffee shop or wherever else they are
or they tell you to become friends with someone else
because you would love them,
you say yes, thank you, and you do it. 

Anyway, she also shares a photo of one or two
political events or news of the day. And then.
She goes outside with her birding app,
has it identify every bird that she can hear
in the forest, and she shares two or three or 
sometimes four screenshots full of birds.
She's getting to know them now too.
Robins and sparrows and towhees
juncos and chickadees and warblers
blackbirds and bushtits and woodpeckers.
Never a peacock, that I've seen, although
I’m sending good thoughts her way
about that
now. 

We are sisters, she and I.
We know how lucky we are to hear
that many birds. We who have witnessed
US bombs and Israeli fears blow almost every bird from the skies of Gaza
and children from mothers' arms in a dozen countries we deeply love
and may never get to visit. We've stood in the rain
holding signs and raising funds in solidarity
with life
for the living.
Certain
that the murder, abuse and theft of beloved children, community & land
is no human's right.
We will stop them soon.
Old women know it globally now. 
It's why abuse-carrying men fear and mock us.
Why they always have.
It's why we smile. Why we have always smiled.

This local woman who I love via her photos on Facebook 
and don’t really know yet in person?
I hear her call, too, just as clearly
from behind the scenery of now.
Key-caaaaw!!!
We who speak to deer and birds know. 
I know how lucky I am
to be near so many people
who love all birds and people and trees
and land and libraries and schools and humanity and earthlings
so much that they manage to keep the daily horrors of now
in some perspective. Within all rage and weeping now,
we have every reason to trust ourselves and each other.
We show up for one another. 

3.
Today when Daniel called from the city
and asked what I was writing about and I told him
it was too early to tell but it involved
what the invisible peacock has been telling me lately–
Key-caaaaw!!!–
completely unfazed, he reminded me of more birds
who spoke to us.
He reminded me of a too-warm summer 
seven or nine years back. One of the now
dreaded Wildfire Season Augusts
that turn the best summer month here
into the worst month by far.
We’d been suffocating in wildfire smoke for a week. 
Orange-gray sky still and empty and too quiet to comprehend
like a corpse that was your breathing beloved
only moments before.
It was worse than living on Mars, I imagine: more destruction, more losses
more witnesses. Huddling inside
breathing filtered air
worrying nonstop about all our neighbors inside and outside
who had no such luxury as the smoke descended.
Before then
I didn't know what it felt like to have to
override your entire body screaming only
"Run!!!" for days and nights on end. It's exhausting.

He said, oh! Do you remember the day
that the rain finally came? How we opened 
the sliding glass door and every bird for miles
was singing in the rain, all at once, as the smoke cleared?
It was a majesty and symphony and unbelievable relief
like what church should be, I imagine.
Relief is found in community long before blue sky returns.
Pure, connected, undeniable joy!
We thought they’d all fled the smoke but they
were with us. They were everywhere.
And they were singing.

I remembered it well. I even recorded it.
If we ever get a fire season that bad again
I plan to replay it for us and anyone else who wants to hear
what collective community resurrection from the dead sounds like.
And, regardless of what else happens in the future
I want there to be ample evidence of boundless joy.
Like all earthlings do at heart.

4.
So.
If you’re like me there will come a day
when you'll wonder who to trust in the world
anymore. Are they safe? MAGA? ICE? Nazis?
Is it a scam? Real? AI? Is that a real person hating others
and making your skin crawl or some bot farm or fake account
designed to garner clicks, generate emotion, and push/buy/steal/con
money and votes?
Which billionaire is it this time playing worthless-god
opening for-profit concentration camps
and dropping bombs on children, families, and elders again
and again and, dear God, not again?
Is that the real me or just a manipulation?
Can I even trust myself today?!

For that day, here’s a tip from a woman in actual 2026
and an invisible bird from the fictitious 1950s: a wingtip, if you will. ;-)
Key-caaaaw!
There is wisdom in birdsong and unexpected places. 
There is wisdom in birdsong and unexpected places. 
Was. Is. Always will be.
Listen to the land and birds until you feel wisdom from within.
Drop to the ground or bring the ground with you.
Join them when you can. Find neighbors—
emotionally local others somewhere on earth—
who speak with the land and the birds
who share what they learn in the listening. 
Listen to them. Watch what they do behind the words.
We don't even need the same language.
Some offer you ground. Some offer you sky. We need both.

Our world temporarily overflows with cruel billionaires
who seem to know nothing more than fear, grasping, and loathing
and she also still overflows with birds, fields, trees, and other neighbors
who know and love almost everyone
and damn near everything
when together, listening
noticed, heard or seen. 

Grow curious about the land or neighborhood
and about birds and breezes you can’t see 
whenever you hear and feel them 
and listen, grow curious, to
hearts you can feel across space, time, and nonsense.
These are your gifts.

To become elder, factor nonsense
and playful or heartbroken response
into every interaction and equation now. Elderhood isn't about age.
It's about ample practice with generously
and stubbornly staying present
until you all feel and acknowledge the unspoken.
This is the gift of being together.
Don't forsake it.

Remember.
Key-caaaaw!

5.
There’s more sense
in listening to hidden peathems
key-caaaaw! in British jungles of
mown lawn and lavender on TV
and to local forests, rivers, frogs, and sunshine
and to dragons and mermaids for that matter—
than you’ll have been taught to expect
almost anywhere
except within playfulness, grief,
and nonsense
and except
from within. 
Bodies know
what fear trains
brains to forget.

My friend, Peahen
demonstrates that wisdom
drops everything believed when lonely
in favor of who and what is present now
and in much-needed-by-all solidarity
with whomever and whatever makes the parched hearts
present here
sing, speak, grow silent, or dance again
with boundless wonder, curiosity, or joy.

Wisdom knows when a look, a touch, just your presence, 
or a tiny contribution to what may at first
appear to be utter nonsense
is far better than rushing to judgement, ignoring what happens,
or pouring out too many expert or also-true words
trying to make sense of nonsense. 
Right, my love?

What if we give this nonsense some breathing room?
Some time to grow into what she's here to be or say or become?
Something better than we can imagine now.

This is the wisdom of love.
The language of Earth's mycelium.

Whenever you worry that love doesn’t exist, breathe. Or
return from Mars however you can.
Join all those still holding and sharing love here
on your behalf,
and decide to fight for love again
like you truly believe that love still exists somewhere
and is worth the effort.

You're worth the effort.
The land, children, birds, music, libraries, forests, mystery, community, nonsense– all –
are worth the effort.

Love's wisdom
is that our real friends
true friends and belonging
are everywhere we're brave enough to follow our own curiosity and strangeness.
We can't possibly know where a new best friend
will show up next. But we can be open to the mystery.
We can follow a strange new voice
so clear and insistent
that we remember how to hear and trust our own voice again.
Right, peahen?
Awww.

And in her language now, we
respond and say...