The Quietest Guest

I spent this morning watching the frost crawl across my kitchen window. It was so cold outside that the birds usually crowding the feeder were nowhere to be found. I felt a strange sort of sympathy for them, tucked away in the hollows of trees, waiting for the world to soften. We spend so much of our lives trying to be loud, trying to make sure our presence is felt in the rooms we enter. But there is a different kind of power in simply enduring. It is the quiet strength of staying put when the wind is biting and the ground is frozen solid. It makes me wonder how many of us are holding our own ground in silence, waiting for the thaw, unnoticed by the rest of the world. Does survival always have to be a struggle, or can it just be a way of being?

Sarvenaz Saadat has captured this exact feeling in the image titled Tree Sparrow on Black Mulberry. It is a beautiful reminder of the resilience found in the smallest of creatures during the harshest days. Does this image make you think of a time you had to weather a storm on your own?