all in how you look at it

I spent a few hours outside a retreat center located on the Kentucky River on Tuesday. The warm afternoon sun seduced me outside and I rambled down a path through last years weeds and refuse. Above me a vulture, no two! coasted on a breeze blowing far above my still air.

Finding a mossy clearing I dropped to the ground and spread out my arms my face basking in the sun and eyes feasting on the blue sky. What could be more magnificent than sun warm on my skin in early March? I remembered winter days in Calgary that were so cold and dismal I would lay on the carpet by a window to let the weak rays of sunshine fall on my face.

So I gazed into the sky in peace, but then began to be aware of eyes gazing back at me. One buzzard, no two~!, no three... started to circle down toward me. Before a full minute passed the sky was full of buzzards circling lower and lower. I laid still, and counted 41, probably missing some. They came as low as 20 feet above me, circling and watching, giving me a once-over.

I wondered what I would do if they started to land, desiring to pluck out my eyeball, or rip skin off my fleshy parts. The dance in the sky was too beautiful to disturb, so I just let the moment unfold.

And then they started to fly off - like a crowd of school kids finding out the ice cream truck is only broken down on the side of the road and not vending ice cream - one by one they shrugged and soared south.

We are all something to someone. To the buzzards in Garrard County I am a hunk of meat, a potential feast of rotten flesh, a tasty morsel on a boring spring day. Someone's curse another one's blessing.

Somehow that makes me smile. It puts life into perspective.