Entry Three – Frank, the Bird, and the Burnt Map

I held a bird today.

Frank.

He didn’t struggle. Just let himself be held. His body—feathered and fragile—settled into the cup of my hand like it was always meant to rest there. And then I felt it.

His heartbeat.
Steady. Small. Sacred.
Warmth, alive in my palm.

There’s a quiet power in holding something that trusts you back. Something that doesn’t speak your language but understands your presence. We didn’t need words. That was the strangest part—how connected it felt without a sound.

Frank had one eye stuck shut.
He came to me that way.
As if we were meant to meet right there, in the stretch of sunlit grass, where I had just begun to let go.

I was mid-movement, mid-breath, mid-release.
Not surrendering to anything grand. Not praying for guidance. Just…being.
The kind of being that isn’t about effort. The kind that happens when you finally drop the reins.

And there he was.
Broken in some way. Open in another.

I unsealed his eye with a gentle touch and a silent prayer—something not said, but known. And in that shared stillness, something else happened. He opened. And so did I.

This wasn’t a rescue story.
It wasn’t divine intervention.
It was a moment.
Sacred because it was ordinary and fleeting. Sacred because I was paying attention.

I used to chase clarity. Wait for signs. Hunt the roadmap.
Now, the map is burnt, and I’ve kicked the conductor off the train.
He tries to sneak back, whispering old orders—but I’m not listening anymore.

This journey, this hollowing—it’s not a straight line or a checklist. It’s a practice.
Of letting go. Of releasing the illusion of control.
Of being empty enough to be filled.
Of being still enough to be moved.

Being a hollow bone means I’m not the source, not the speaker, not the one deciding.
I am just the space.
The channel.
The soft place life can move through.

Frank reminded me that the universe doesn’t shout.
It arrives in small bodies and quiet pulses.
It lands in your lap when you stop looking for it.
And it speaks in ways we’ve forgotten how to hear.

So I listened.

Even if just for a moment.
Even if it was only a bird.
Even if it was everything.

With Grace and Ink,
~Mai