
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Winged beings
Red-tailed hawk is always nearby. She swooped down from the veranda rail corner as I opened the door, the exhalatory sigh of her wings the first intentional sounds I heard from another being yesterday. We both like to spend the early morning facing west, sun behind us, meadow lit up below. She’s looking for prey, me, for glimpses of newly germinating peace.
The bluebird box sits right beside the ongoing stonework foundations for the upcoming greenhouse. After fighting with its own azure reflection in the master mason’s truck window, the bluebird settles back into making its nest hospitable for growth. Perhaps it senses that’s what the masons are doing, a big nest requires a different calibre of material but the impulse to make room for growth is universal with all of us earthly creatures.
Will you bear with me while I weave through the thickets of what’s growing in my heart right now? The path may meander but the walk will have interesting views. I may point at things you’d rather not see. I’ll understand if you turn back but I think this walk is better taken together.
Uncivil Savant is available to all with no financial barrier to access thanks to my paid subscribers. Please subscribe to help me continue writing here.
The full version of this podcast with footnotes, links, images and full transcript was first published on Substack on 22nd May 2026. Click the button below to access it.
My art, music, writing, research, audio and teaching is created without the use of AI.
I am part of Writers Against AI.
By Caroline RossWinged beings
Red-tailed hawk is always nearby. She swooped down from the veranda rail corner as I opened the door, the exhalatory sigh of her wings the first intentional sounds I heard from another being yesterday. We both like to spend the early morning facing west, sun behind us, meadow lit up below. She’s looking for prey, me, for glimpses of newly germinating peace.
The bluebird box sits right beside the ongoing stonework foundations for the upcoming greenhouse. After fighting with its own azure reflection in the master mason’s truck window, the bluebird settles back into making its nest hospitable for growth. Perhaps it senses that’s what the masons are doing, a big nest requires a different calibre of material but the impulse to make room for growth is universal with all of us earthly creatures.
Will you bear with me while I weave through the thickets of what’s growing in my heart right now? The path may meander but the walk will have interesting views. I may point at things you’d rather not see. I’ll understand if you turn back but I think this walk is better taken together.
Uncivil Savant is available to all with no financial barrier to access thanks to my paid subscribers. Please subscribe to help me continue writing here.
The full version of this podcast with footnotes, links, images and full transcript was first published on Substack on 22nd May 2026. Click the button below to access it.
My art, music, writing, research, audio and teaching is created without the use of AI.
I am part of Writers Against AI.