Barbets without nest !

The two Barbets perched close to each other at day break in a Teak tree in our garden, came to my attention only because of the movement in the leaves. Their colour of the feathers so merge with the foliage that I would have normally missed them, but for the slow bird movements that caused the leaves to move.

I have recently noticed two Barbets together in our garden and occasionally visiting the feeding station. They live without a nest now! The garden is their home. I remember noticing Barbets flying out from the Teak tree after a spell of rain, which might suggest that the large broad leaves of the Teak tree offer protection to the birds in the rain!

Another hiding place for Sunbirds and Bulbuls are the thick foliage of the tall nutmeg trees. 

The coconut palms are the residents for the wood peckers. The parakeets look for gaping holes in the trees and hide in them. Sometimes the holes in the trunks of trees become their nests. 

When Israel invades Gaza and the American President encourages it or the Russian president receives approval from the Chinese premier and the American president for continuing to bomb Ukraine,  one wonders whether they have frozen their kindred feeling towards other nations!

In this wide world that offers space for all to live, we hear the American president talking about grabbing the Greenland! The president even talked about Canada becoming another state of the United States of America !

The birds in the photographs above remind us that we use what need and allow others to do the same!

I came across a passage in the second epistle of Peter in the New Testament of the Bible  that presents a road map for human behaviour:

'Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge; and in your knowledge, self control; and in your self-control, perseverance; and in your perseverance, godliness; and in your godliness, brotherly kindness; and in your brotherly kindness, love...For he who lacks  these qualities is blind or short sighted....' (2 Peter. 1: 5-9). 

The above text is wisdom literature for living hospitably and mindfully!

I felt moved while reading the above passage at a time when a value based living is displaced by aggressive spirit and acquisitive attitude!

I stay pondering over this !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

In the evening!

I noticed a Magpie robin perched in. dry stem at dusk and watched its changing body posture, direction of look and composure of its face. During that five minutes, it was perched in the garden, when the bird movements in the garden for the day was over, gave me an opportunity to observe how a single bird behaves when the time for finding a night shelter has come! Its silence without any bird call was striking. 

Its aloneness was a message that lingered in my mind for a while. 

What is it which makes this bird look forward to the night and the day ahead! A bird too has its attachments and rhythm for the night and the day. It has its own identity and environment to belong to.

And yet, it is anonymously present in a large garden. 

The intensity of attention with which this bird was looking around gave me an indication that its body behaviour was a message of alert presence and anticipation! It has a night ahead before the day break!

The night before the day break is often a long wait!

I listened to a family which has had all the members needing medical attention in a aspen of three months. The ordeal of stress is not yet over as all the three would need further medical attention. Their son needed three hospital admissions in two months. It has made the family depleted of their financial resources and the emotional endurance to cope. 

This aloneness is an experience of many. 

A friend who was a recently diagnosed  with an  advanced disease, is surrounded by his family with a sense of loss! They begin their lonely journey! The fear of the unknown is upon their hearts. 

This river I happened to visit at day break recently brought memories of its sound of its flow in the silence of the morning. It flows bringing its water for the abundance use of others. It preserves the aquatic life and life of all in its banks. 

A river is a symbol of givenness! 

For the bird above, the two families in distress referred above and all those in similar situations, facing the stress of the night before the dawn of the day need  hope that can sustain them. 

The river became a symbol to me when I reflected on these realities of life! The flowing river feeds and nourishes! Its flowing sound is a constant reminder of its presence to all those near it. 

The whisper of God's love and presence is silently present within and around us! 

The two last stanzas of the hymn of Fred Kaan, 'God has set us free for freedom' brought this message alive to my heart:

"Human hearts remain in turmoil

Till they found their rest in God;

He is source of peace and freedom,

Gives us Christ in flesh and blood.

Give us freedom, Lord to serve you,

Show us where we ought to go,

Never resting till all people's 

Cups are full and overflow".

I felt lifted to a new consciousness that aloneness is not the whole truth, but God's companionship is the truth! The flowing grace of His presence to troubled hearts and lonely voyagers!

When the sunshine at day break made the tree colourful, I was further affirmed of the given grace to dispel darkness and cloud of heaviness upon human hearts!

The night assures us of the day break!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Three sights !

A clear blue sky with its robe of snowy clouds, community feeding of Babblers and a Sunbird in its nectar gathering visit to the flowers, made me feel a message of tranquil while walking in our garden around the cottage!

It is then I felt awakened to the daily rhythm of nature to bring messages of different content!

The sights above have an internalising effect to a beholder!

For a poet such sights offer lines to pen; for a nature enthusiast, it is a sight for  capturing in his lens and for a reflective person it offers an inner orientation towards stillness to behold the surprises. 

These sights are formative in function though their message for an inner composure of wellness and aliveness. 

It is out of this aliveness, we enter the day to live in an awakened state!

The turbulences during the day would get subsumed by this imagery of life in its fullness revealed in nature!

It was while reading Psalm 24, verse one, the above photographs brought a consciousness, that, 'The earth is the Lord's and all it contains, the world and all those who dwell on it' !

We live under the canopy of grace and love of God, who is the truth of our inmost being!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)