Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness.
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel
Bath Time
When I started sit spotting I almost always sat in the woods because I wanted to see coyotes and Hawks, foxes, deer and raccoons. I was completely entranced at the thought of the special lives I could meet in the woods.
Now, I sit mostly in our garden or yard which ever you prefer to call it. And though I do still love seeing coyotes and other more 'exciting' mammals, the truth is that I love this little titmouse above them all.
Every evening just at dusk this male makes his way to this bird bath (and we have more than our share of them). He hops right in and plays in the water. He doesn't just bathe. He sticks his beak in and saunters around the edge splashing his wings in the most delightful and playful way. Joy exudes from his almost weightless body. His joy for this moment draws me in every single night.
How can I be anything more than happy when a bath in an old bowl brings this little titmouse unending delight?
It really is the simple things, isn't it?
I imagine he is raising babies in this season of his life. This brief check out from his responsibilities seems like it is probably the happiest moment of his day. His babies are fed and tired from flitting around the big world all day avoiding everything that wants to eat them. Every night upon his arrival I picture him waiting impatiently for the sun to reach just the right place in the sky when he can 'Zhweeh' his mate farewell and take his short sabbatical in the bird bath. His 5 minutes of satisfying joy.
This.
This is connection.
Pitchfork Perch
In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake. Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Cedar
Winter day
Cloudy sky
Stillness
Except the birds
Who seek
Food.
Above
The deafening silence
The red shouldered hawk
Calls
From the pecan trees
Of my childhood...
Crows
'Caw'
In the south...
The fly westward
Chasing
The hawk
Of out THEIR woods...
And still the hawk
Calls...
Wren knows this call
Is not the call
Of the hunt.
She returns to her song...
A brown creeper
Scratches its way up the pine
Chickadee and titmouse
Fly to and from...
A ruby crowned kinglet
Hangs upside down
Fetching its meal...
Still the hawk calls
Still the crows chase...
Until
It
Stops...
Until
It leaps
Into
Flight
Air catching under his wings
In one
Powerful
Wing beat...
His body lifts
Easily
To the sky.
In the flash of a mere second
The voice that filled
The silence
Becomes the voice
Of the silence...
The world
Returns
To winter.
