Here Is Also the News
Last week, on our Heart of Being Human call, we began by acknowledging the heaviness so many of us are carrying.
The grim headlines.
The heartbreak in the world.
Families grieving.
People fighting for their lives.
We paused to send love outward.
Photo by Kjell-Jostein Sivertsen
The Discipline of Looking
And then, something unexpected opened.
One participant spoke about birds.
About the return of light. About sitting in a living room in a house in the woods, watching pine grosbeaks blaze red in a winter tree outside. A pileated woodpecker hammering somewhere in the background. Squirrels. Song. Chatter. The holy ordinary miracle of looking out a window and being stunned by colour and vitality.
“It was just such a gift,” she said.
Later, her husband told a story about their return from a recent out-of-town visit. As they navigated through dense fog and forecasted freezing rain, the drive had felt tense. Focused on danger, they were bracing for what might go wrong. Until he spotted a snowy owl perched on a telephone pole.
And just like that, the drive changed.
Laughter replaced dread.
Attention shifted.
Awe interrupted anticipation.
“Imagine all the drivers who just went right on by that snowy owl and missed it,” I said.
“You gotta keep your eyes open,” he replied.
Today’s Headline
Right before our call, as if on cue, the poem Today’s Headline by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer* had landed in my inbox. I read it aloud to the group. Here it is in full (shared with permission):
And then one day, while I read
aloud to my husband the news
and felt the widening hole in my heart,
he raised his hand to quiet me.
I followed his gaze out the window
to see in the yard a small fluffy thing
with black and white eyespots on its head.
A northern pygmy owl beside our door,
stout body slightly smaller than my fist.
It turned its neck a full half circle
to look at me with bright yellow eyes.
In an instant, I shifted from disgust
with the world to awe. Awe for this
fierce bespeckled miracle, this wonder
of feather and beak and claw, this
small being in the grass looking back
at me as if to say, Here is also the news.
How surprising the world can be.
How quickly, when I let it, amazement
overwrites my fear and makes
of the hole in my heart a home.
~ By Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer*
“Northern pygmy owl at Alderleaf Wilderness College” by Jason at Alderleaf is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/).
No changes were made. Click to view original image.
*Note: If you appreciated this poem as much as I do, I highly recommend you check out Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s daily published poetry on her website: https://ahundredfallingveils.com/
Turning Toward Awe
When I finished reading, we sat in silence for a moment. And then, just as the bird sightings had prompted shifts, so too did the poem shift our conversation.
We began exploring the importance of paying attention and opening ourselves to awe.
Not to deny grief.
Not to pretend things aren’t as they are: fog, freezing rain, or families holding the unbearable.
But also.
Here is also the news:
The pine grosbeak.
The snowy and pygmy owls.
The light returning.
The laughter in the car.
The fact that we are here to experience all of this in the first place.
The world is breaking in places.
And the world is astonishing.
Both are true.
You gotta keep your eyes open.
An Invitation to Gather
If you’d like to sit in conversations like this — where we make space for the heartbreak and the astonishment — you are warmly welcome at the next Heart of Being Human gathering.
Twice a month, we come together for real, nourishing conversations about the stuff of life: what it means to live with intention, to care deeply, and to keep our hearts open to change and connection.
Photo credit: Emma Love Photography
Author: Karla Combres
As a Legacy Guide & Celebrant, I help individuals, couples, families and organizations make the big and small moments in life count, and shape their legacy along the way. I offer:
Drawing on my vast experience as a Life-Cycle Celebrant and in working with people at the end of life, I am uniquely qualified to help people move through transitions meaningfully and to think about how they want to leave this world so they can live better now.
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