Cycles of Life

One of my chickens died.
Each morning I go out and open up the door to their chicken house so that the chickens can spend the day rummaging around in the yard. When the days are long they want to be let out earlier of course. I usually bring them some leftover foods or at least a little corn and toss it out where they can find it easily. On a normal day the chickens will be right inside the door ready to rush out the minute the door is open to search for goodies. Occasionally, one will already be in a nesting box. This time was different.
Two of my Australorp Hens were by the door waiting to be let out but the other was sitting underneath the nesting boxes in the farthest corner. Nonetheless as the first two began their rush out the door, she started out as well and then abruptly sat down about half way across the floor.
I went in to look for eggs and then stopped by the sitting hen and reached down to pet her. Are you okay? I asked before heading back to the house. I made a note to come out in a short while to check on her. When I did, she was dead, having fallen over right where I had last seen her. In the way of creatures in tune to their own bodies and the cycles of nature, she had known that something was coming.
Death is a normal part of the cycle of life. All creatures, all living things, begin and end but in between the beginning and the end, there is life to be lived on this amazing planet, Earth. Facing the reality of death makes me want to live with greater intentionality and care. My focus being not on frantically doing what I can to live as long as I can personally, but rather on enjoying the days and the people and the creatures who are around me, knowing that life is fragile as well as resilient but that everything ends eventually. It is the natural rhythm.
I woke up listening to the news. Drones in Pakistan are creating fear, anxiety, and depression in the people who hear them as well as a growing hate towards those who send them. In Libya missiles are falling in "remote areas" and still there is war in Afghanistan and Iraq and in countless other places in the world which may be remote in distance from where I live, but are not at all remote to the people and the creatures who are there. There is nothing natural about life and death in places where there is war. The cycles are disrupted, torn apart and turned upside down as children die and old people live, as creatures that have no way of sensing what is about to occur die in the midst of their lives.
I woke my husband up and he came out to help me bury the chicken. My grandson came out to pet her before we put her into the ground. I tossed a few treats in and then we closed up the bed we had made for her in the Earth. I cried for a while but the tears were not all for the chicken.