23/08/2026
Soulful Sunday
The Rain Bird
This morning, I had breakfast outside; it was a little chilly, and the ground was damp from overnight rain. Rain I was very grateful for after the drought we have had over the past couple of months.
As I sat there, a Green Woodpecker flew into the garden. I haven't seen one here for ten years; the last time was the day after I moved into my home. And here it was again.
The Green Woodpecker in some ancient traditions is known as the Rain Bird, which felt rather lovely after the much-needed rain. But as I watched it, something else occurred to me. It wasn't tapping away at the bark of a tree, as we so often imagine a woodpecker doing. It was on the ground, quietly digging into the softened earth, finding its breakfast amongst what should have been grass! I found myself thinking...
Sometimes what we need isn't where we expect to find it.
We can become so used to looking in a particular place, doing something in a particular way, or waiting for an opportunity to arrive in the form we imagined, that we don't notice another possibility right beneath our feet.
Perhaps the rain had simply softened the earth enough for the woodpecker to find what it needed, and perhaps there is something in that for us too.
Sometimes life needs to soften a little before a new way becomes visible. We don't always have to keep knocking at the same tree. We can look around. We can listen.
We can trust ourselves enough to try another way.
I also couldn't help thinking about the old saying, “opportunity knocks.” Maybe an opportunity is knocking for me. I don't know what it is yet, but that's okay, because part of trusting our intuition is not needing to know immediately what everything means. Sometimes we simply notice. We remain curious. We allow.
When the opportunity reveals itself, we realise that the message arrived before we were ready to understand it.
Ten years ago, the Green Woodpecker appeared as I began a new chapter in this garden, in my new home. Today, the Rain Bird returned.
For now, I think I will simply say...
I noticed. I am listening. And I am open to whatever comes next.
With Love
Linda x
To your remembering.