What Moves With the Wind

by P. Glenn

(This is a Thanksgiving Season Reflection that I will move to the Individual Reflection Page after the Holidays. For now - just trust the wind with me.)

Lately I’ve been watching things around me
that don’t fight the wind.

A turkey vulture floating over the pasture,
an “ugly” bird by human standards,
yet nothing on earth flies more gracefully.
No flapping, no strain,
just wings open to the warm currents
that carry it wherever it needs to go.

Golden field grass releasing seeds
wrapped in tiny feathers—
little boats made of air.
The wind takes them farther than the plant ever could,
scattering life without asking permission
or offering guarantees.

And dry leaves letting go of their branches
without argument,
falling like butterflies,
twirling like tiny helicopters,
lifting in sudden gusts like a flock of small brown birds.
When their season is done,
they surrender to the breeze
and trust the ground to remake them.

Watching all this, a question rose in me:

What would any of them be without the wind?

The vulture would still be a bird,
but it would never know
the effortless freedom of riding an invisible river.

The grass would grow, yes—
but its future would stay trapped at its feet,
never carried to new soil.

The leaves would cling past their time,
missing their final dance,
never becoming the dark humus
that feeds the next season’s roots.

None of them become themselves
without the wind.

And as I sat beneath the three cedar trees
listening to the breeze thread its way through their branches—
a sound like ancient breathing—
it crossed my mind:

Maybe the wind blew me here too.

Maybe I didn’t drift.
Maybe I didn’t lose my way.
Maybe I didn’t choose this quiet corner of land
any more than the leaf chooses its landing place
or the seed chooses its journey.

Maybe I’ve simply opened my wings,
released what needed releasing,
and let something larger carry me
to a place I could not have found
by force or planning.

The wind moves through everything here—
through trees and grass,
through birds and leaves,
and through me.

And for the first time in a long while,
I’m not fighting it.

I’m letting myself be carried.