Ornate Bridges

There is an East Asian love story celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month each year that seems to like to greet me more than I it, and as I sit beneath the stars, I welcome it this year, to let it stir, or maybe churn, all that exists within me. Timely, because this year it falls on 19 August in the Gregorian calendar. In Chinese mythology, they are called Niu Lang and Zhi Nu, roughly the cattle herder and heavenly weaver maiden, in Japanese mythology, they are known as Hikoboshi and Orihime. This unlikely pair of star-crossed lovers is represented by the stars Altair and Vega, separated by the Milky Way. Their love was so vast, so encompassing, that they defied the heavens, embodying sheer rebellion, but even more so, hope and courage against all odds. The sheer potency of their love moved the hearts of magpies - magpies, of all creatures, maybe it is because they could see the way that what existed within and between them shone. And so, once a year, a flock of magpies forms a bridge, allowing the lovers to reunite in a meaningful embrace.

I’ve always found resonance with understated, or perhaps misunderstood birds, those who fly under the radar because their freedom matters more than admiration. But even more so, I love the Sanskrit concept of antevasin, non-conforming border dwellers who exist between worlds, cradled by the liminal. Much like birds, they’re always shifting, gliding, moving, the only constant being that they belong in the in-between, the transitional, the transformational, the transmutational - to acquire knowledge and become conduits of it, to understand, to see, to act as bridges between that which is seemingly disparate and disconnected, to refuse to align with any extreme, to reject the construct of having to choose between binaries - because juxtaposition, nuance, paradox, and duality are the languages of their souls, the place where sanity lives in an insane world.

I sit here chuckling at my rudimentary exploration of it all since the last time I picked it up internally, how while I found recognition and resonance in such a concept, it was rather selfish or maybe egoic of me not to take it further. It reminded me of my father, how he used to always tell me to take what I see and question how I can contribute. And so, with warmth in my chest, I let the feeling of antevasins bringing the gift of translation land in full, to let the painstakingly acquired perception, discernment, and diplomacy born of negotiating felt displacement be honoured, to let the ability to weave threads that can only emerge through a bird’s-eye view and the resourceful synthesis of serendipitously collected trinkets be appreciated. They’re not just glorified threshold connoisseurs, but true ushers capable of forming the most ornate of bridges, enabling meaningful collaborations to occur.

It is all rather beautiful, don’t you think? Seashell collectors of the soul, making a wind chime they didn’t know they were making.