The Open Window
The point is to say something out loud to whatever exceeds your account of the world, without asking it for anything.
You need a window that opens, or a door, or the outside. Five minutes. Nobody else in the room, or somebody who will not mind.
Open the window.
Say what is true right now, out loud, in ordinary words. Not a summary and not a prayer in anyone's borrowed cadence.
- The dog died in March.
- I got the job and I am frightened of it.
- I have been awake since four.
Say it the way you would say it to a person who already knows and does not need it explained.
Then say one thing you are not asking for. This is the part that does the work.
- I am not asking you to fix it.
- I am not asking for a sign.
- I am not asking to be told what it meant.
Name the thing you would most like to be given, and decline it out loud.
Then say thank you for one specific thing that is not yours and was not earned: the light on the wall at this hour, the fact that water arrives when the tap is turned, the heron standing in the flooded field, the particular weight of the air tonight.
Expect no answer. Say it anyway. The saying is the practice, not the reply.
Close the window. Do not interpret anything that happens in the next hour as a response. If something arrives later that you did not send for, that is the Bird Gate's business, not this one.