A bird’s sudden collision with a transparent window became a powerful lesson in impermanence, mindfulness, letting go, and choosing a more aligned path through life.
This morning began in stillness.
I was alone in the pool at my condo, surrounded by water and morning light, moving slowly through the familiar rhythms of my practice—stretching, yoga movements, a little cardio, allowing my body to wake in its own time.
Healing mantras were playing softly.
The water held me.
The music surrounded me.
My breath was easy.
For a few precious moments, there was nowhere else to be and nothing else to accomplish.
I was simply there.
Present.
Then—
a thud.
The sound startled me.
I looked toward the windows just in time to understand what had happened.
A bird had flown directly into the glass.
One moment it had been in flight—wings open, moving toward what must have looked like endless sky.
The next moment, it fell.
And suddenly everything was still.
I stood there in the water, shaken by what I had just witnessed. The mantras continued playing, strangely beautiful against the silence of what had happened.
Life had changed in an instant.
What has stayed with me is the glass.
The bird couldn’t see it.
From where it was flying, there appeared to be nothing in the way. Light was coming through. The sky was visible beyond it. Everything must have told that little creature:
The way ahead is open.
But it wasn’t.
There was an invisible barrier between where it was and where it was trying to go.
And I cannot stop thinking about how profoundly human that is.
How many times have I done the same thing?
How many times have I seen where I wanted to go and assumed the answer was simply to keep moving forward?
Try harder.
Work harder.
Figure it out.
Push through.
There is a strength in that part of me, and I honor her. She helped me survive.
But perhaps she does not need to run my life anymore.
At 78, I find myself standing at a very different threshold. I am no longer being asked simply to survive. I am learning how to live. How to receive. How to listen. How to discern between effort that is aligned and effort that is simply an old habit of pushing.
And perhaps some of the barriers I encounter now are not invitations to push harder.
Perhaps they are invitations to change direction.
That feels especially meaningful in this season of my life.
I have been thinking about my teaching, my writing, my meditation practice, my future coaching work, my home, relationships, community, money, purpose, and the life I still want to create. There are so many possibilities before me. Sometimes I can feel myself wanting to make everything happen—to know the answers, construct the future, and get there faster.
The bird reminds me that forward is not always the same thing as aligned.
There is wisdom in the pause.
Mindfulness gives me that pause.
It creates the tiny sacred space between impulse and action where I can ask:
Is this mine?
Is this true?
Is this still aligned?
Am I moving from love—or from fear?
Am I being called forward—or am I simply repeating an old pattern because movement feels safer than stillness?
I don’t need to crash into every invisible barrier to discover that it is there.
I can notice.
I can listen.
I can turn.
And I can trust that changing direction is not failure.
There is another truth this little bird brought painfully close to me: impermanence.
One moment there was life and movement. The next moment there was stillness.
Buddhist teachings tell us that everything conditioned is impermanent. We know this intellectually. Bodies change. Relationships change. Identities change. Seasons change. Communities change. Dreams change. Eventually, life itself changes form.
But occasionally life gives us an experience that takes impermanence out of philosophy and places it directly before our eyes.
Today did that for me.
And strangely, the message I receive is not dark.
It is:
Be here.
This life is precious precisely because it does not last forever.
I don’t want to spend whatever years remain trying to force myself through invisible walls.
I don’t want to rush through breakfast, rush through conversations, rush through my work, rush through meditation, rush toward some imagined future version of myself who has finally gotten everything right.
I want to inhabit my life.
I want to taste my tea.
Feel the water against my skin.
Look into someone’s eyes when they speak.
Notice the morning light.
Write what is true.
Teach what I have lived.
Love generously.
Rest when I am tired.
Say no when something is no longer mine.
Say yes when something makes my heart quietly expand.
And allow some things to remain unanswered.
Perhaps this is one of the deepest teachings of impermanence: because nothing is guaranteed, presence matters more than perfection.
I am also realizing that this stage of my life may require a different kind of courage.
For much of my life, courage meant continuing.
Now courage may sometimes mean stopping.
Waiting.
Turning.
Letting go.
Allowing an identity, responsibility, relationship, dream, or expectation to complete its season without immediately replacing it with something else.
There are choices before me now. Some I can see clearly. Others are still forming.
I don’t need to make all of them today.
My work is to become quiet enough to recognize what is truly mine.
The bird could not see the glass.
I cannot see everything either.
And perhaps that is the humbling truth underneath all of this.
I will never have perfect visibility into what comes next.
None of us does.
Mindfulness does not promise me certainty. Meditation does not give me control over life. Spiritual practice does not exempt me from loss, aging, grief, disappointment, or death.
What these practices give me is something quieter and, perhaps, more valuable:
the capacity to meet what comes.
To notice.
To breathe.
To feel.
To listen.
To choose consciously.
To begin again.
So I will not turn this bird’s death into a prediction about my future. I don’t need to believe the universe sent a bird to die in order for this moment to become sacred.
The meaning comes from what it awakened in me.
Life is fragile.
Life is changing.
Life is happening now.
And perhaps the question before me is no longer:
How do I get through the barrier?
Perhaps the wiser question is:
What becomes possible when I stop flying into what will not open—and trust myself enough to turn toward the open sky?
Today, I choose the open sky.
Not because I know exactly where it leads.
But because I am learning that I don’t have to.
I only need enough stillness to see the next opening, enough courage to choose it, and enough presence to experience the flight.
And for today, that is enough.
With love,
Sandi
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