Habitually mindful!

The two Bulbuls above, who are regular visitors at the feeding table in our garden follow a pattern. They perch in the cable overlooking the feeing table and look around and engage in bird calls! I am unable to get an insight about the intent of this regular ritual. 

Is it way of announcing to other Bulbuls or birds about the food in the feeding table! They look around and wait before they move to the feeding table!

On arrival at the feeding table, they take time before they start feeding! Is it another indication of waiting for other birds to join in!

There is something noteworthy in the behaviour of the Bulbuls as there is a language of communication they practice towards others and between themselves!

I noticed a few days ago, two adult Bulbuls perched in the same cable above, with a juvenile bird between themselves! 

I have a suspicion that it was the same pair of Bulbuls now back in the cable as before after long absence, to move to the feeding table after Barbets vacate the feeding table!

The Bulbuls by habit are sociable and mindful of other birds!

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)

 

A transition !

A fledging of Greater coucal bird on its way to being a juvenile bird in the above picture. It leaped into the branch of a tree rather than flew the distance. Its feathered coat had an orange tinge more than what is normal for an adult bird!

This is the fourth species of a fledging or juvenile bird that stays around in our garden during the last one month- Magpie Robin, Red vented Bulbul, Barbet and now Greater Coucal. 

It is when I see a fledgling who is learning to fly and move I remember a lot about changes that come upon on me as an older person. When I was descending and ascending the steps this morning on the foot path during my walk, I realised how it is different from the earlier days, when I could run up and down the steps. A fledgling is entering into its fuller exploration of life. I realised how while at the other spectrum of life span, one learns to slow down, and moderate physical activities corresponding to the declining agility of the body! 

The transitions in life happen all the time. 

The growth itself is a transition. 

A fledgling has a transition into adulthood and a senior citizen into being an elder, to live mindful of  the needs of others!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

From wellness to welfare of others!

I noticed this Bulbul after its feeding time, perched in the garden in a restful manner! Its posture and look conveyed a state of composure ! To begin the day with that a state of wellness is a good start for the birds. The inclement weather and predatory behaviour of other avians are ahead during the day!

This is how some birds who reside in our garden or are regular visitors to the garden start the day. This is their ritual. 

Our inner composure is our gift to ourselves!

What is within is what affects our orientation!

The Bulbuls will not chase away Barbets who come to feed at the feeding table and are comfortable to co-feed with them!

That is an indication of how a bird behaviour is a reflection of the state of wellness and accommodative habit!

The two Barbets above are in conversation with each other after their feeding time!

That was another indication of how birds share happy moments and relate in a regardful way!

It is a language of mindfulness that we receive from the happenings around us !

That is why it is too hard to watch the intolerance that we see in the behaviour of the leadership of Israel towards its neighbours!

Learning to live well and let others have a share in that wellness is the vocation in life!

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)

Life, Living, Learning - 17

This two dried rolled up leaves hanging in the Rambutan tree from which we gathered the fruits two weeks ago caught my attention yesterday!

During the process of gathering the fruits of the tree, we damaged a few twigs, one of which remains hanging as a reminder of the trauma the tree suffered !

Every trauma has a history and memory!

Every physical or emotional trauma we suffer from too leave memories, which sometimes can stay on !

I have a discomfort in one knee which dates back to a fracture in 1982. I remember strained relationships that occurred with few people during the forty five years of my clinical work. 

What do we do with the after effects of emotional trauma!

What is in our domain is make confessions and acknowledgements of our role leading to stressful situations! About two weeks ago, I was able to write the final set of letters to two people whom I knew would have felt strained due to some difficulties in which I too had a role.   Does that bring closure to that! It need not as the other person concerned might need more time to bring it to a closure. 

Often an acute stressful situation might find an earlier resolution unlike a chronic stress or trauma!

I know of a senior friend who would knock at the door of every opportunity to apologise and confess to lessen the effect of emotional stress upon himself and the others !

To forgive is to free a person from our expectation or prescription. It is this act that brings comfort to move on. In so doing one can create an openness for communication as and when it might happen !

However mindfully we might live, we can cause stress and strain in relationships ! The balm of giving and forgiving is one way to lessen the after effects of acts of commission and omission. 

Forgiving oneself and forgiving others become the means for psycho-behavioural comfort and growth! 

The healed emotional scars can get subsumed by the new optic of consideration and appreciation for others. 

We value others because of who they are and whose they are! Our acceptance of others is therefore not conditioned by what they do or do not do to us! 

This liberated view to life and relationships is a journey worth pursuing. It can get interrupted, but to continue on that journey is the pathway to bring wellness within and offer it as a gift to others!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Bulbul receives and Barbet takes!

I am fascinated how a juvenile Bulbul has the habit of receiving the feed from the parent bird and a juvenile Barbet has the taking habit from the parent while feeding !

In both instances the parent bird is a giver!

The difference in habit is a pointer to such possibilities in human behaviour!  

It is the combination of taking and receiving we come across in infants and toddlers in their early childhood. It is later taking dominates in a toddler's behaviour, which gets once again balanced in the pre-school years! A child grows up as a giver along with taking and receiving. 

If we come across adults who do not exercise efforts to provide for oneself but expect to receive passively, it is an  aberration. If we come across adults who are habitual takers unmindful of others and their needs, that too is an aberration!

Taking and receiving when well blended with giving in adult behaviour , it is a socially graceful  activity!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Getting drenched together!

 

I watched the two Bulbuls above, perched in a coconut palm, about two hundred meters away in the garden when it was raining heavily! They appeared soaked in rain from a distance. 

I remember watching King fishers and Greater Coucal braving the rain  in our garden! 

The Bulbuls normally take shelter under foliage in rain!

I remember a keen bird watcher telling me that during courtship of birds, some birds want to affirm affinity to each other by demonstrating bravery and resilience. I wonder whether it was one such occasion. 

What intrigued me was their next step!

They were perched at the tip of a stem of a palm, getting swayed in the wind while it was still raining! 

The twenty minutes I was able to watch this pair of Bulbuls in these two  sites, offered me an insight into the equation between pairing birds. They test  fidelity and faithfulness !

The pathway for building marital relationship is through the discipline of  fidelity and faithfulness! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Knowing your child- 19

The self feeding instruction of the parent Barbets to the young siblings  is what I noticed in our feeding table. It was this which brought an awareness about the parent-offspring relationship, the parents being the feeder and the offsprings being the finder. 

Today, I was surprised to find a third dimension to this feeding-finder equation!

The parent birds were feeding from the feeding bowl as in the photo below. Their several bird calls did not bring the young birds to the feeding table. It was drizzling and getting dark just before a heavy downpour!

I noticed one of he parents flying away with mouthful of food. 

The parent Barbet waited with its mouthful of feed in the tree where the young birds stayed protected from the rain. The two young birds soon arrived close to the parent bird. 

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The above four photos of the feeding process intrigued me!

The parent bird on this occasion became a seeker !

That adds a third dimension to the parenting functions. 

A parent is a Seeker and Feeder and a child is a finder !

It is this question that surfaces in my mind for further enquiry!

Are parents active seekers to befriend their children!

Do parents practice the seeking role consistently across the transitions of childhood !

How much parents know of the inner world of thoughts, aspirations, hurts, fear, inhibitions, suspicions, fancy, fantasy, indulgence.... of their children! 

Knowing the child and being known by the chid is the mutual obligation of parenting!

That is the way to usher in children to the safety of parenting watchfulness, when  a child might drift away enticed or drawn away by instincts under the peer influence! 

I wonder whether parents would consider their role as voyagers with their children in their transitions from toddler to a preschooler, then into mid childhood, pre-teenage years and teenage years! 

How can parens accompany their children without spying on them or act as intruders? 

It is by following some family based parenting rituals parents can be voyagers into a child's mid space! Let me suggest from the stories of some parents, how they created unhurried conversations at bed time while reading a story to a child, turning the meal time conversations to the questions and interests of children, each parent having a private time with each child few times in a week,  encouraging the hobbies of a child, befriending a child's friends, making special family occasions at home to be co-travellers with their children to know them!

Parenting then involves, voyaging, seeking, and accompanying!

I feel grateful to Barbets in our garden for giving me more insights about parenting, from the way the parent Barbets behaved towards their baby Barbets! 

Let parents be open to be voyagers and seekers to know their children!

 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

The outing of a Butterfly !

I have been looking out for Butterflies in our garden since the heavy incessant started about ten days ago. As I am used to the sites where the Butterflies go to gather nectar, I positioned myself during the dry spell in between to get a glimpse of the visiting butterflies. 

I was glad that I was present camera ready, during an ultrashort visit of the Butterfly to the front garden!

Normally a Butterfly rests on the flower or flutters over it to gather nectar!

What I noticed was an unsettled behaviour of the Butterfly flying between flowers. 

The Sunbirds had already visited the flowers earlier in the day! No wonder there was not much left for the Butterfly !

It is when one sees such sights, one gets more familiar with the various  constraints or adversity a Butterfly has to overcome !

A flower is a feeder and a Butterfly is a finder!

That thought stayed with me during the morning- to be a feeder for finders!

A mother bird is the feeder and the baby bird is the finder!

That was what I noticed yesterday in our feeding table when the mother Barbet waited with mouthful of banana chunks for the baby Barbet to come and take a portion from the bills. 

Am I conscious about my role as a feeder for the finders to receive their daily portion of encouragement! 

It is what and how I say or write or how regardfully I stay in touch with, which finders are looking for!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Knowing your child- 18

An adult Sunbird is on its flight station in our garden!  A juvenile Bulbul is learning to make  bird calls although dysphoric now ( notice the absence of the tuft of red hair below the eye, unlike in the adult bird next to it). A red rose is in its advanced stage of opening to be a flower!

All these happen because there is a garden of trees and plants. The garden becomes a home for the flora and fauna. 

A Barbet looked well sheltered under the cover of foliage of a tree in our garden, when it was raining!

A family of four Barbets, two adults and two juvenile were at the feeding station in the morning ! Birds make the garden their home for nesting and nurturing new life!

A garden offers a flourishing ambience for life to grow! 

I have often thought of a garden as a metaphor for a home! 

What is central to a home is adults and children. 

It was this bud above, which became the flower as seen in the third photo!

The garden nurtured and nourished to allow the bud to become a flower!

That defines one large function of a home!

The adults at home provide the nurturing environment for children.

I received an audio message of greetings from a child yesterday! That reminded me of the mindful attention that parents created in the child to be warm, communicative and relational. 

A home is a place of belonging that a child naturally feels when parents create an ambience of acceptance and affirmation. 

I suspect that many children receive materially from their home but not enough emotionally and relationally!

What is the core in parenting is to bless children with the feeling of being treasured and honoured! 

It is this which would make pre-adolescent children turn to parents as their trustful companions during the transitions of life! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Living in the shared space!

The lawn in front of our cottage, with the setting sun casting its light and shadow offered an enchanting sight to watch today. With most evenings in the recent two weeks were either cloudy or raining. That blocked the sight of the setting sun in the horizon. 

As  I stood watching the lawn, after it was mowed, I remembered the different birds that frolicked in the lawn during the day. A Barbet family and Bulbul family of birds came to the lawn for flight training of the juvenile birds. The juvenile birds liked the space because they could fly between the small trees and the lawn during their flight initiation. 

I had noticed a juvenile Greater Coucal finding its feed from the lawn in the morning, when the grass was mildly overgrown. 

Now that the grass was mowed, insects and larvae that birds feed on would have been harmed or displaced. 

This is the delicate balance in the eco-system. The gains from mowing the lawn are many, but there are some losses especially for avians who feed on what they can find from the grass. 

I remember an elderly couple telling me once, that after about a week following the mowing of the lawn, they would scatter seeds and nuts on the lawn to feed the birds. Once the grass grows, the birds would find insects to feed on in the grass. 

Every time we disturb the eco-system, there is a cycle of events about which we do not often think about! 

I was reminded that a lawn is a public place and not just a private space in front of our cottage!

We share a collective living!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)