Right now, none of us knows what the future looks like. We never really do, but right now the uncertainty feels heightened as we have no idea what the new normal looks like, or even when it will come.
So, it feels important to cultivate hope.
I have always loved wild birds, and bird nests feel like hope to me.
Recently, Harold and I were repairing an outside light fixture, which is right outside our back door.
Many years ago, a pair of robins built a nest on that light fixture, and the female laid her eggs.
It didn’t matter to the robin that two people and two dogs were constantly coming and going right by that nest, while she sat on her eggs.
She just sat.
For three years, that robin came back to that nest and laid her eggs in it. Then, the next year, she didn’t come back.
The nest has remained empty for a several years now; we have left it there in her honor.
This Spring, in order for us to repair the light fixture, we had to remove the robin’s nest. Now it sits under the eaves on a grain bin.
Harold and I take a couple of long walks every day along our road, and I have been collecting small rocks that look to me like bird’s eggs, from the gravel that lines the road.
I come home and place those stones in the nest.
For me, this nest has become my symbol of hope.
Right now, this is my way of cultivating hope, because the eggs represent potential, and potential resides in the future.
I don’t know what other ways I will cultivate hope, but I do feel that it is important for each of us to find ways to cultivate hope, each in our own ways, especially during this time of heightened uncertainty.
How are you cultivating hope?
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