take flight

This bird had been kept in a cage for so long, a cage that was tattered and rusted and unkept. The door to the cage grew weaker and weaker by the rust and negelct, so much so that the door no longer held her. She made her way out of the door and found a new home, her new cage was beautiful, shiny, well cared for, hanging in the most beautiful of places but it was still a cage. Little by little the bird pecked her way through the bars, each time making the opening just a little wider and the cage a little weaker. Eventually the cage could not hold her any more. Knowing no life other than the ones she had lived confined to such small spaces, whether tattered or beautiful, she didn't know where to go. She perched herself on top of the cage.The cage was not meant for the weight of the bird on top of it and it fell to the ground.

She was forced to open her wings and fly. She had to find the stength in herself to keep flight, against the harsh winds and in the rain and to find a place to rest, exposed to the elements. In doing this she found beauty in a world that she hadn't known before. She found the stillness in the morning, the warmth in the sun, the illumination of the stars, the possibilities of long windy roads, and the calmness and peace in the water.

She no longer seeks a cage, no matter how protected and promising it may appear. Now she picks up pieces of her journey along the way and is building a nest instead. One that will remain vulnerable to all that nature puts in her way but with what she has learned from her experiences one that will grow and support her without the the bars that confined her before. She has been given the gift of freedom, not from anyone but herself and the constraints that she kept in place. For she is not meant simply to fly but she is meant to soar.