Migration

I walk outside, a lot.

Recently during one of my walks I noticed hundreds of thousands of birds swirling overhead, so I stopped to admire them.

They seemed to be playing — together and alone — amongst the powerful and changing winds. It hadn’t occurred to me just then to wonder what else they were up to and I walked on. But night after night they filled the sky and captured my attention.

One evening a passerby stopped to ask what I was staring at in the sky. She looked up and then back to me. “They’re migrating!” she exclaimed.

Migrating…
Of course they are!
It felt as if that single word had been what I had been waiting for and craving for days.
Migration.
I hadn’t realized that was going on until she pointed it out to me.

That word resonated with me for days. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I pondered the idea each night, in walking reflection underneath massive broiling clouds of birds. I began to appreciate that not only are they migrating, but that they must.

In order to survive, they must seek change.
Abandon the known and embrace the unknown.

As night fell and the birds disappeared, my attention would return from the clouds to the city around me and I began to wonder…

Why don’t humans continue to migrate?

Maybe we should?
Maybe we must.