The red-winged blackbird moves through life as if it carries the pulse of the prairie in it’s chest. Its scarlet epaulets flash like embers against the tall grass…small banners of purpose, not only for display but for declaration. It knows it’s place between earth and air, and it announces it without hesitation.
There are stretches of late winter where the world feels stripped back to bone, and then one morning, the blackbirds return. Long before the trees bud or the soil warms, their calls lift across the fields in sharp, bright bursts. In folklore across the upper Midwest and the Canadian prairies, the red-winged blackbird has always been a hinge between worlds: a bird for liminal spaces, messenger of thaw and threshold. Farmers once believed their arrival meant not just spring, but the return of the land’s memory.
They come back year after year to the same branch in the tree outside my window overlooking the field beyond my house. It’s where I first noticed them settling - confident, unhurried, unapologetically loud. Their call is not polite. It rings out over gravel roads and open ditches, as if marking the land as it migrates.
The red-winged blackbird does not ask permission to be seen. It simply is. Bright shouldered, sure-voiced, entirely itself. And in that way, it teaches a lesson: about heart and direction, about speaking your truth boldly, and taking up space whenever you land.
So many of us carry a fear of visibility, of being truly seen. I know I do. And yet, when we look around us, we’re reminded that it’s our birthright to exist as we are, without apology. The blackbird doesn’t concern himself with labels or perception. He doesn’t quiet his song because it might irritate another bird.
While kindness matters, and we should take care not to cause harm, we are still allowed to speak our truth - even when it makes others uncomfortable.
You can find Blackbird - A bold cup to remind you to speak your truth, here...https://innergardenbotanicals.com/products/blackbird-roasted-herbal-infusion