Saturday, March 12, 2011

On Any Given Day

This morning I was privileged enough to be able to go in to work. And truly, I view it as a privilege. Not every person who needs a job, has one; here I sit, a college student well on her way to graduating and a career, have a part time job that I enjoy.

As I was working in the drive-thru (not my favourite place to be at the coffee shop) I looked through the window and up into the sky. You see, the coffee shop is located next to the bike trail (it's less than 3 blocks away) and along the bike trail runs the Sioux River. Flying due north above the river were a gaggle of geese.

I'm not openly saying that I adore geese, but to see them flying north is beautiful. It has been a good old South Dakota winter - meaning it's been dragging on for quite a while. But, the geese were beautiful. More than anything though, as I was steaming milk feeling for the correct temperature, I marveled at how the geese knew which way was north. There isn't a compass built into the leader (which is constantly changing, something that should be admired, a goose acknowledges when it is getting tired and it falls back and lets a different one lead). Mother Nature has given them this beautifully strong instinct.

Often, I wonder what instincts humans have lost through the passage of time and modernization. Would we have that beautiful instinct of directions? Perhaps we could sense things like water beneath the Earth.

Perhaps we knew the creative spirit.