A small bird with distinctive features!

This morning sight in our garden of Sunbirds coming to feed on nectar is a a pleasant sight. On arrival in the green, it visits its regular flight stations and then arrives at the flowering plants searching for nectar. These flight movements are swift and it took a long time for me to learn to be alert and prompt to capture them through the lens. Even while feeding on nectar, they move and are not stationary enough to give sufficient time to focus by using the manual mode of the camera. 

The few photos I have of them in some measure of focus provide a lot of information about the body care routines they follow. The features are dry and well groomed to give these birds an unusual appearance of beauty with multiple shades of colours. 

A small bird but with many distinctive features! 

Our good habits, practices and thoughtful ways are what would make us distinct to offer a message of mindfulness towards others! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The Quiet presence for doing good!

 

On some mornings, the garden around our cottage is silent with no bird calls. The above three photos are of one such morning! The quiet presence! That is one way of being present! The hidden presence! 

The Barbet was later seen in the fruit tree!

How they live finding their daily needs! 

This is a contrast to the stress of daily living many of us carry with us!

When we live stressed we become less mindful of others. I experienced a thoughtful act of kindness from an auto-rikshaw driver yesterday. I was looking for an ATM to draw some money in a town that I was visiting. With the ATM that I went to, not being functional I felt at a loss. The auto driver, seeing my difficult situation, offered to take me to another ATM about a kilometre away. He is a college student who drives an auto in the evening to support his family. He supports his mother and two sisters who too are studying! He was effusive, helpful and courteous with no signs of stressful life experiences he goes through. He returned half of the money I offered to him for the auto charge. He needed persuasion to accept the whole amount! 

His is a quiet presence, doing good as much as he is able to. He was not self absorbed in the demands of stressful living he encounters. 

I returned from this experience, refreshed by the reminder of goodness of people from whom we receive in surprising ways!  

Being present to do good! 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Returning home burdened !

All the above photographs on the road in the late afternoon,  in a rural area tell us the routines of the people 

I noticed this man above walking unsteadily with a bag on his back, crossing the leg with each step at the ankle joint. As a developmental physician, it took me on an inner journey of his probable  personal difficulties in mobility! 

Each photo above tells a story of their lives! 

When I noticed the birds engaged in a fight in the air and a Butterly looking injured in its wings, I became even more aware of the stress and strife of life that each person encounters in the daily journey of life! 

I wish more and more people think of the neighbours as in need and live missionaly!

Our altruistic way of life would become pathfinders for others in need! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Missing birds !

These old photographs remind me of the missing birds in our garden!

With change of the environment and the paddy field beside the stream converted now with saplings of Rubber trees, many birds find the place inhospitable!

Yes, we miss something when we disturb the habitat of birds!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Giving presence!

The Rambutan trees in our garden after their season off fruiting, give new shoots to grow for the season of fruiting by April-May next year. The cycle of growth and fruiting is the natural rhythm to these trees. The sight of the different shades of the green make the trees ornamental to behold. During the fruiting season squirrels and birds came to feed. Now they come for their shelter during the day and night.  In fact some birds use the trees as rain shield! 

The trees live purposefully! They live during their seasons, bringing their gifts to the garden. This is also the season when the Rambutan trees shed their aging leaves. Our domestic helper gathers a heap of dry leaves for the compost pit from underneath each tree every day. The tree gives away the leaves to become manure to the garden. 

The trees offer a giving presence! 

I find this revealing! When our gardener was pruning one tree as its branches were drooping, he remembered the fruits he gathered from those branches a few weeks ago. A tree suffers even while giving! 

Its giving habit does not earn an entitlement to be protected from pruning. The pruning although makes the tree suffer a loss, offers protection and growth in the long run! 

The message the Rambutan trees bring to me is their mission of giving presence! 

That is a theme to meditate upon! 

Giving is a gift of love!

I received this in the WhatsApp message from a dear friend a few days ago. Knowing my habit of brewing coffee in the morning, this person sent this to greet me in the morning! 

This was a reminder to me of the thoughtful ways we can be giving to encourage others.  

Giving is the lifeline of living! 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

 

Abundance of hope and love !

Blooming wherever a plant is rooted ! 

That is the behaviour of each flowering plant! Each flowering plant adapts, thrives and flowers. That is their biography! 

The Magpie robin and Taylor birds come to sing tunefully in our garden on most mornings. That is their behaviour. 

The Bulbul and Sunbird were at the garden for their morning feed! That is their routine of the morning!

The garden becomes the home for families to be born! 

For me, watching these sights each day in our garden brings comfort and hope! The sights of blooming, singing, feeding and becoming a family are all uplifting experiences. 

This is a counter to the stressful and fretful human behaviour that we come across all around us. 

While watching these sights, I am reminded of a God who is making us aware of love, peace and hope as an anchor to live in troubled times! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

At the beginning of the day!

The rituals of birds  often have a pattern!

For Mynah, it is drink, eat, bathe and fly to be with others ! 

As Anna and I watch these rituals in our garden, we get introduced to the way some birds have found our garden a place to come to at day break of these rituals. 

I noticed this Mynah perched on a tall tree after leaving our garden! 

This movement was preceded by its rituals in our garden! The bird can fly high and long distances because it was quenched, fed and groomed to be flight ready. Every morning a bird moves from its perch at night to the dawn of the day ! The dawn gives it another day to explore and find the companions in the air! 

  

This is a journey of becoming! 

A bird too has its relational living!

This is a message that birds leave behind. They are a community!

Each of us is more than an individual. We belong to each other! Let me quote from Dr David G. Benner: "The self is too small, partial, and vulnerable to withstand the assaults of life alone. It was never meant to to do so. It was meant to exist within a web of interdependence that provides substance and belonging. Lacking this...everything becomes about me- my goals, my needs, my plans, and my fulfilment....self- fulfilment is not wholeness. Neither is it completeness of fullness of being. It is a pitifully poor substitute; it is egocentric self-encapsulation" (Human being and Becoming, page 112-113).

The bird above began the day by being with others of its family! I notice such bird behaviours almost every day!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)