Learn “to live from day to day and be kind”

I have always admired the work of paper cutting artist Rob Ryan. His intricate, delicate, poetic designs give a touch of magic to his art books.

His book “A Sky full of kindness” is a lovely demonstration of his delicate paper cutting art, with a poetical story to go with his illustrations that just warms the heart and makes you smile.

“A sky full of kindness” is about life, love and some adventurous birds who get over their fear with love and kindness. The birds don’t really envy humans but think it would sometimes be nice to have hands in order to cuddle their young ones.

Love and support fill the sky with kindness

Birds believe that humans are jealous of the way they can fly, they can see it in their eyes, but they wonder too why when humans seem to have everything that they would be jealous of some small, flying birds ?

The two songbirds are about to become parents for the first time and they worry about being a parent as they build their nest. It is the love and support from their bird friends that fill the sky with kindness.

Indeed, each page is a work of art and needs to be lingered over, they are unique. The story takes us back to our childhood and reminds us of nighttime storytelling leading to sweet dreams and unconditional love.

Perhaps many of us are a little jealous of the birds being able to fly and as I am woken each morning by the melodious singing of a bird in a tree in front of my house, I think I would like to be able to produce bird song too ! I can’t see the bird but his (I say his as most early morning bird songs come from males, protecting their territory), singing is a lovely way to start the day.

An ornithological friend says the bird is likely to be a blackbird, or robin or a thrush, too early for a nightingale. The bird song is certainly uplifting, it offers a new start to a new day and much better than hearing traffic noise. These birds are quite amazing, waking up so early, singing so loudly before they start their search for food. Perhaps it is a thank you song for the food and water I give them !

Morning singing

Apparently early morning is a perfect time for the birds to sing, it is too dark to look for food or to be seen by predators and the sound of the song goes a long way as there is less background noise – the songs impress the females and scare away competition.

For the many reasons that birds sing in the morning it is a delight and a privilege to hear this beautiful bird music, said to be one of the most magical experiences in nature and as one of Rob Ryan’s birds says to his partner – “I want to grow old with you until my feathers go grey, my beak wrinkles and my wings are too weak to fly - all we can do is to live from day to day and be kind.”