Tom Turkey is proud as can be. I find it amazing his size when he puffs out his feathers like that and holds his pose for such a long time making sure we notice. He doesn’t speak, but his intentions are quite clear.
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I was with my meditation group last night and we talked about how words fail to capture what we experience spiritually. An appropriate topic for a community that spends so much time in silence together.
I spent some time with the orioles this morning again and one came up to the screen to greet me. Actually, he came to the hummingbird feeder which has the same sugary water as the oriole feeder but red instead of orange. I think he did it as an excuse to get closer to me, though, because in order to get the nectar from this feeder, he had to hang upside down. He could barely keep his footing on the plastic and he kept looking over at me. That is why I think it was just an excuse. I thought I’d better check out the message of the oriole in my book, Animal Speak.
Oriole’s theme is “The Weaving of New Sunshine”. This means that I am supposed to look for sunshine to show up which is encouraging on this grey misty morning. The male and female orioles are always in close proximity so I should notice a special closeness with my mate, which I have started to notice as Bernie and I are putting in the garden, one of the few hobbies we share.
“The oriole weaves its nest from plant fibers to form a hanging nest from forked branches”, the text explains. The oriole may help one to suspend time and space and reconnect with the inner sunshine of one’s soul. Since the oriole is a weaver it also reflects an increasing ability to weave one’s life along new lines, ones that bring greater joy. Joy is surely what I seek today.
The oriole who wears the color of a sunrise brings joy whether I read its message in a book or not. But there is something sacred in knowing that a particular little bird has a particular message to bring to the world. It makes me think about what it means to be a bearer of a message. The writer in my contemplates this on a quiet May
Spring has finally come to Minnesota. This morning I was watching the oreoles at the feeder Bernie set out for them. On a rainy day their orange feathering is brilliant like a candle’s flame in a darkened grotto. I have been noting the other of the most colorful that come to our feeders: the red cardinal, the blue jay, the purple finch, and the goldfinch. Other current visitors include the three varieties of woodpeckers, the white-breasted nuthatch, the grosbeak, and occasionally the robin.
When I was a child in Chicago, the robin was especially treasured as the first sign of the coming of Spring. I remember the song:
When the red, red robin comes bob, bob bobbin’ along, along.
There’ll be no more sobbin’ when he starts throbbin’ his old sweet song.
Wake up, wake up, you sleepy-head.
Get up, get up, get out of bed.
Cheer up, the sun is red.
Live, love, laugh and be happy…”
A message from the robin today.
I went to Duluth on Thursday and spent a night with a friend. I am blessed to have so many women friends in my life. If one cannot pick me up, another can. This one helped shine a light on my blues.
It is rainy this morning. Thunder during the night was awesome for the growing things. Bernie got the garden planted while I was at my friend’s so the little seeds are ready to go and the small pepper and tomato plants are jiggling in the breeze, excited to do their thing.
After my friend’s watering of my soul, I am ready, too, for growth.
Driving south on Minnesota Highway 371, headed home. I look into Bernie’s ear from the passenger seat. “You’ve got a gookie in your ear,” I say.
“Gookie?”
“Yes, a gookie.”
He puts his index finger in his ear to dig the gookie out. I look again. “The gookie’s gone,” I say.
Bernie looks at his finger, finds it empty. “I guess I must have pushed it in further.”
He puts his finger in the other ear and looks at it. “Here it is,” he says.
I picked up a book from the Friends of the Library book store, my favorite place to buy used books: The Te of Piglet, by Benjamin Hoff. The pieces are from his chapter called The Eeyore Effect and it is about the Eeyores in our lives:
Benjamin tells Piglet, “Don’t mind Eeyore. He just likes to make others feel small, especially if they’re smaller than he is…That makes him look big, he thinks…”
Piglet: “I wouldn’t mind his being miserable by himself, if he enjoys it so. But why does he have to spread it around?”
“Eeyore’s are Realists, they say,” writes Benjamin about the Eeyores in the world, “But reality is what one makes it. And the more negative reality one nurtures and creates, the more of it one has…But one Eeyore effect (is that it) makes a great many people believe that they are powerless. And because they believe they’re powerless, they are.”
Benjamin tells a story: “There is a great bird known as the P’eng. Its back appears as broad as a mountain range; its wings are like clouds across the sky. It rises up like a whirlwind until it breaks through the high mist and soars into the infinite blue.
“As it glides effortlessly along on its journey to the sea, a quail in the marsh looks up at it and laughs. ‘What does that bird thinks it’s doing?’ says the quail. ‘I jump up and fly a few feet; then I come down and flutter from here to there in the bushes. That I what flying is for! Who is that creature trying to fool?’
“…the small-minded cannot reach to that which is great, just as the experience of a few years cannot equal that of many. The mushroom of the morning knows not what takes place at the end of the month; the short-lived cicada has no awareness of what happens in the seasons beyond.”
I was telling someone recently what it means to be weather sensitive. I discovered this about myself years ago when I noticed four children all crabby at the same time while a crabby mother reacts. It always seemed to happen on rainy days. At first I blamed the fact that they could not go out to play or because the sky was grey, but when I checked it out, I found that the barometric pressure is the culprit.
In my case, a lowering pressure, often before the rain, means a queezy stomach, aches in my joints, and edginess. Not a good day to work out marriage problems. Once the rains come, relief comes with it. A rising pressure means sleepiness and sometimes a headache. It sucks to be sleepy when the sun finally comes out after days of rain. While everyone else is out playing I am napping.
Yesterday was a rising pressure day. I took two naps, the second during the dinner hour. Then I had to drag my bag around to get through supper and dishes. Bernie asked me if I was mad about something. No, I told him. He asked me two or three times more until I got mad at him for asking. I went to bed at 8:30 and fell asleep before I got through two pages of my book. I woke up this morning at 7:30: 12 hours of sleep. My reaction to the change in weather seems normal for me and sometimes inconvenient. It is something I have learned to live with over the years.
I learned something new this time though, that I hadn’t noticed in the past. I found myself hungry through the whole ordeal. Starting at about 4 pm, I ate until my head hit the pillow. I ate half a (large) bag of Doritos at 4:30 and it went downhill from there. I started to think about the chocolate candy my daughter had given me for Mothers Day. After taking a few too many, I gave them to my granddaughter to get them away from my addicted self. But yesterday, after the Doritos, I regretted this and thought maybe I could sneak into her bedroom and find them. Unfortunately, Maddie was in the kitchen when I went down to Kate’s house. “You sure are getting tall,” I said. I wanted to ask her if there were any candies left, but I was not ready to share my state with her. Nor was I ready to show Emma my madness when I picked her up from school and wanted to stop at the grocery store for chicken wings.
You might say I was saved by my shame. A good thing, too, because the barometric pressure is steady now and I feel safe again. Rather than regretting the Doritos, I am appreciating the fact that I did not eat candy and chicken wings.