Conversations with a Soul Read Online Free Page B

colored budgerigars.
    Once a week we made our pilgrimage to the pet shop just to be in the presence of living, playing creatures.
    It lost a foot in an accident with the cage door , said the pet store owner one day. I can’t sell it so you two can have it if you want. You might as well have that small cage in the corner and I’ll give you a bit of seed.
    The “it” was a yellow and green budgerigar!
    That bird was the most wonderful gift I could have received. In the weeks that followed we continued to visit the pet store. Frequently we returned home with more budgerigars: some had lost their head feathers, one had a beak that veered off in a strange direction; a few had broken wings or legs that reset at the wrong angle. Often the gift came home with us because it had “molt,” causing it to lose a good percentage of its feathers and which, apparently, influenced potential customers in a negative manner.
    Each bird shared in our triumphal entry back to the tiny apartment. Each was given a name and admitted to the bird cage.
    Then, one day it occurred to me that there were far too many birds in that small cage. They should be free! They should be free to go wherever they wished in our apartment!
    Too young to articulate my feelings I, nevertheless, hated the idea that the birds somehow mirrored our captivity. So, mindful of the many warnings to be careful lest the birds escaped, I made sure all the windows were closed and propped the cage door open.
    Not a single bird moved.
    (They are probably a bit nervous and need encouragement.)
    I put the seed and water bowls outside the cage.
    Still no movement towards the open cage door.
    (More encouragement is needed.)
    I reached inside the cage and carefully took each bird out, only to find the moment the bird was released, it scampered to get back into the cage.
    When I took all the birds out and closed the cage door. They simply climbed onto the cage, and waited for me to prop the door open. As soon as I opened the door they trampled on each other in their haste to get back into the cage and then fought for a place on an overcrowded perch.
    I learned that day that birds which have adapted to captivity fear freedom.
    I have learned since, that so do humans.
    I have also learned that cages come in many forms and configurations and it takes the fiercest opposition from my Wisdomkeepers to enable me to walk away from the cages that invite me and then imprison me.
    My Soul assures me it is a journey of faith.

    If we free the word, “faith” from its bondage to religious and sectarian ownership we find that it’s a powerful word, one that nurtures a yearning for something to believe in , and suffocates in the shallow, lifeless marriage of believing that .
    Here’s how I think it works:
    I believe that exercise is good for me and smoking is bad. I believe that I need to drink several glasses of water every day: I believe that I ought to lose a few pounds about my middle and I believe that being a responsible parent entails spending time with my children.
    So?
    Believing that exercise is good feels like a mere statement of opinion, copy for an advertising campaign, and doesn’t imply that the speaker, in fact, exercises.
    Believing in exercise, on the other hand, is a statement of commitment and experience and leads us to assume that the speaker actually exercises. So much so is this the case that if we were to discover that someone, who claimed to believe in exercise, never actually exercised, we would feel that we had been lied to. Future declarations about their beliefs would be greeted with scepticism and no small reservation. On the other hand we expect no such personal commitment from someone who merely expressed the view that exercise is good for them.
    I may, after a lot of reading and questioning, arrive at the place where I believe that bungee jumping is a relatively safe sport. This is very different from believing in bungee jumping! I feel quite safe believing that