Quest of the Nest

Xavi wrote this story inspired by the song - a vision of what is possible:

High up from a lighthouse, Silverwing took it all in. It still seemed like a dream, an amazing wonderful dream.

When they had started out it had seemed like such a small and fairly insignificant thing, asking everyone to join her up on the rooftops. It had seemed almost futile in the face of the crises going on all around them. Yet Silverwing had always believed that, somehow, it held the key. Climb up on the rooftops, get out of the daily grind and gain higher ground. See - and feel! - the bigger picture. “Those who are ready to join me, the pigeon” … Silverwing didn’t even know what exactly she had expected. Maybe she hadn’t really expected anything, initially. But they had come, they had joined her. Up on the rooftops of the once grey and oppressive city they had climbed and they had seen what she saw: That there were no divisions or species or rulers. That all were one and all were free. Because it’s funny when you are up on a roof, looking down upon the life unfolding below - the oneness of it all really hits you, every being out there just trying to live their lives as best as they can. In the big picture, no one is more important than anyone else, the web of life just goes on and on and on, infinitely connected, fragile yet strong, everyone free and independent but dependent on everyone else at the same time. 

She had taken them out to the clifftop next. The sea, immense and powerful, yet tender and vulnerable as well, glistening and singing below them, the land, calm on the surface but laden with innumerable stories below, stretching out to the horizon. What a ridiculous notion that anyone could “own” this! She remembers how they had to laugh out loud at this preposterous idea. Of course there were no owners! No one ever “owned” anything!

And so it had started. The once small group had grown and grown and grown some more. Up up up on the roofs, the cliffs, the trees, the mountains. Away away away from all the harmful artificial boundaries. Into the blue, into a hopeful sky, into the light of an ancient new understanding. Into togetherness.

They had dreamed where they were told they couldn’t dream. They had pulled together when they were told to be divided. They had worked tirelessly, had climbed, fallen and helped each other up again. And now it was there. The world they had uncovered beneath layers of corporate greed and profit and destruction, the world they all shared.

Silverwing rose as the sun lit up the land beneath her. Big Mother River, once dammed and imprisoned within concrete walls, meandered freely once again. With all obstructions removed, eels once more swam from the sea to the river, from the river to the sea. The air was buzzing with insects, their eggs once more hatching in “untidy” woods and gardens, their young feeding without fear now that humans were no longer poisoning the crops under some flawed assumption of ownership and hierarchy. Bees and butterflies danced over the flowers growing on what once had been manicured lawns without purpose. Dandelions and brambles were pushing through the asphalt of abandoned motorways - the decline of fossil fuels had effectively reduced traffic so much that their upkeep simply wasn’t feasible anymore. Instead of a constant din of motors, Silverwing heard laughter, birdsong and music. A group of people were picking apples in one of the many communal gardens, they had come from different corners of the world, for different reasons. They spoke different languages but you could hear, just below the words, the common harmony of humanity.

Joined by her sisters and brothers, Silverwing burst into a joyful circular skydance, into a sunflight, into a celebration of life.