“AM I A BAD BOY” Figaro screeched, over and over again from the confines of his much too small cage. He was an elderly client’s parrot, they’d been together for over 30 years. She was frail and not able to look after him like she used to, I believe they had travelled back and forth to Europe together. I know she loved him, I could tell. I think people had a different view of animals even 30 short years ago. I had two budgies as a young child, we let them fly around the flat and paid them tons of attention, I just didn’t think about it (having a bird indoors) the way I do now. It breaks my heart when I think about it now.
Being politely amused by this bird’s amazing vocal clarity I tended to miss the blatantly sad irony of what he was shrieking from the kitchen repeatedly as I would do his person’s hair in the front room. She would call back to him “no Figaro, you’re a good boy” until the repetitive conversation became b
oring and sweet Figaro was ignored and shortened his sentences to a very loud “HELLO”… “HELLO”…”HELLO”.
When I would go into the kitchen to make my client a cup of tea or throw something in the bin, or do her microwave meal before I left, I would use the time to pay Figaro some much needed attention. Initially and understandably aggressive, Figaro would have definitely nipped a finger that got too near, I didn’t need to test, he made it obvious and he was a big bird with a big beak. I realised that when I made myself calm and focused positive attention towards him, and sometimes (newly attuned) Reiki energy, he seemed to sense it and looked at me curiously and with more calm – once or twice with a ‘mmmm’ sound that I found intriguing. I still wouldn’t have stuck my fingers in the cage but I felt there was a sweet connection there and as insignificant as it seems, being only a few minutes every couple of weeks, that he may have had a little relief from the boredom of his day and something positive that lingered for him. My client also had a kind friend who cleaned his cage regularly so there were other people who cared about him.
My point of this blog post is actually about how the Universe brings us synchronistic events that we sometimes don’t recognise the significance of until a while later. How or why this bird was taught such a strange and random sentence, or whether he picked it up from a regularly chastised child I don’t know, but the oddness of it makes it more mystical to me and thus the message louder.
I was going through an extremely rough time mostly due to an obsessive compulsive level of belief that I was really not a good person, deeply subconscious childhood programming and perceptions that kept overflowing into my life with ridiculous and neurotic amounts of self judgement. It dawned on me like a big wave whilst I was washing the dishes one day that the universe was showing me, by my becoming aware of beautiful Figaro, how truly untrue my BS (that’s belief system) really was.
I had been brought up in the ‘cage’ of parent’s/media’s/society’s programming and it had me believing I was a bad person. Some of it was very literal, being told, or rather violently shouted at that I was EVIL again and again by the very religious and culturally indoctrinated man that was supposed to love me most. I know now it was his way of taking his attention away from his pain by projecting it outwards (lucky me). And I am able to love him, because in hindsight I see it for what it truly was; I also am aware of his kindnesses. However, like Figaro, I was told this enough that it became a dominant thought pattern and, added to my perception of the behaviours and emotions of other family members, plus what I learned on TV and school about life, this perception was set in my mind very deeply. But of course it wasn’t true.
Not everything in life in random, in fact I don’t believe very much of it is. Its always talking to us, we just need be open to it and take notice. There is magic here, we are just not used to seeing it.
Empath In the City 