A mama robin has made a home for her babies in an old nest on a twig wreath hanging from my garage. There are three babies. They have so far grown from tiny, featherless, helpless little things to now tufted grumpy-looking baby birds, crowding each other for room and reaching their long necks, heads back and mouths wide open, waiting for mom to come feed them.
The mama flies off when I open the screen door to the house, and sits perched on the garage roof or on a limb, watching me, waiting for me to leave. She is okay with the dogs being outside, and if I sneak slowly, down low, hunched over, she will allow me to move past without flying away. I enjoy figuring out how to co-exist without disrupting her too much, mainly because I think we humans often tromp along, oblivious to how our actions affect other humans, let alone the natural world, in a rather clunky and obnoxious way.
I have so much of the natural world here, near my home, to keep me grounded, in touch with nature, and in mind of life’s beautiful things much greater than myself.
Yesterday, I learned of a car crash in our little town. Three young men my daughter and son-in-law went to school with had to be extricated from their vehicle that had wrapped around a tree in the early morning hours. The loss and pain from this event reverberate outward, as if the very impact of the crash itself sent shock waves into the community, like waves from a large stone dropped into a lake. I search for the good in it…for something to hold that makes some sense or gives it reason: perhaps someone, several people even, will learn from this event. Perhaps what feels at first so tragic and senseless will become a positive influence for choosing differently as those affected move forward through their days. Perhaps the positive influence will continue for a long time to come, like the ripples spreading across a vast and deep sea.
Later, as I drove out toward the great Lake Michigan shore, I noticed some very large birds soaring overhead – perhaps hawks, or turkey vultures, with massive wing spans throwing imposing shadows across the land below. Suddenly I saw a small bird dropped or flung or flying quickly away from the silhouetted bird of prey – I know that the hawks and vultures will steel babies from nests, and that often the parents will attack the large predators. I don’t know if the small bird was saving its young or escaping an abduction or just fending off a potential attack. I know it is just part of the evolution of life and there is no sense in feeling sad for the starling or for the predator who may have lost a meal. I am finally coming to understand the “zen” of what has long escaped me: how to just appreciate that which is. The birds just are. The cycle of life happens constantly, for we humans too. A virus lives, then dies. I suppose even a car crashing into a tree is a form of this as well, hard as it may be to accept. It is nearly always too soon for a parent to lose a son. It is nearly always sad and hard. Yet the birds continue to fly and we humans continue to step carefully or loudly through our days. How lovely is it that we do.
