A season for Butterflies !

The recent addition to our garden is colourful butterflies! 

They are colour rich !

Against the greenery in the garden, their colourful presence is a visual feast!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Th wind and the air!

The two ways of presence, was a visibly inviting contrast in our garden yesterday morning ! A suspended dry leaf moving in the wind and a colourful flower cluster  radiant in the morning sunshine!

The wind moved the suspended leaf and the Sun made the flowers and buds look luminous ! Both are present, moving or still, receiving what is given! 

Our breath gives us life each moment !

We breathe without being aware of our dependence on the air we breathe to live! We live receiving the life giving breath, although unaware of it when  we breathe about 18 times each minute!  We live receiving this gift of life, upon which our life is dependent to survive! 

The wind moves the  suspended leaf; the sun gives the radiance to the flowers; the air we breathe keeps us alive! How much we are dependent on this provision that preserves our life on earth! 

Do the leaders of the nations currently in war, think of the polluting effects of air produced by the warheads used to attack! To me this is an indication of self harming behaviour! We pollute the air that sustains life on earth! 

The peace activists often remind us of the call to preserve life on earth by taking care of our earth to sustain life! 

The air and light are two gifts to humankind which foster life on earth! 

We are called to be stewards and custodians of this gift!  

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The becoming journey by revision !

The more I observe the bird behaviours, the more I sense the mystery of details they reveal about the way they process and respond to each situation. 

How the Bulbul proceeded to feed at the feeding station gave me a sense of the details ingrained in its behaviour. The orderly behaviour and preciseness of each step indicate the aesthetic sense it has developed to be the style of its behaviour! The birds inherit a lot of this as a species specific behaviour. 

The science of epigenetic, which conditions gene expression and function that happen without altering the DNA sequence is now a field of investigation extensively. 

A retired woman army officer who is in the social media as a motivational speaker referred to her years in the army as a young woman, who was greatly influenced by the 'discipline' of conduct, and behaviour instilled in her during here training years. She talked about internalising them as values which subsequently helped her to be what she is in influencing others to live with regard and appreciation of one's potential. 

I was involved in preparing a protocol for appreciative appraisal by each staff in an organisation and a fraternal appraisal by the colleagues. It was during that exercise of defining seven domains of self appraisal, I realised how much a person has the opportunity to 'become' what one envisages for oneself. I felt encouraged to suggest that a 'personal vision statement' can be a pathfinder for this becoming process. Carl Jung elaborated on the process of 'individuation'  when a person moves out of his or 'persona' to become an authentic ' Self' each person is endowed to be! 

I had time to reflect on this 'becoming journey', which ought to become a conscious personal journey for each person. It is when 'becoming' is a decisive  personal pursuit, we transcend our 'shadows' of beliefs, hurts, grief, disappointments or aspirations, to see the prospect of who one is in the interior, born with the gift of love to receive and share.  

When a three year girl returned home with the chocolate bar from the birthday party she went to attend, her parents were surprised by her desire to share it with her younger brother at home! That is the genuine human nature each of us gifted with. It is in our DNA. The epigenetic influence of greed, acquisition, possession, success or personal prosperity have made us prisoners within with self absorption. 

The becoming process is for finding freedom from this habituation to return to a way of living mindfully, by 'loving our neighbour as ourself'  ! 

The human character is endowed with goodness and thoughtfulness! We need that journey of restoration to begin at each home for this to spill over to become the ethos in our society!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The resting time!

Some birds hide in the foliage to rest, sleep and recover ! It is part of the rhythm of the day! 

This is the way they spend the in between time !

From movements and activities to rest for wellness !

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

 

Presence with awareness!

 

The Magpie robins visiting our garden find this cable in our courtyard a comfortable perch in the morning! It gives a good view of the movements in the garden around the feeding station. 

A Mynah was bathing in the water bath which the Magpie robin seemed watching. 

The chirp of a squirrel turned the attention of the Magpie robin to the corner where the squirrel was waiting for its feed. The presence of the Mynah in the water bath inhibited the squirrel. 

The squirrel disturbed the Magpie robin; the Mynah was an inhibition to the squirrel ! 

This is fearful living! 

This is what the leaders of the word are advocating. 

The Russian president and Chinese premier arrived at New Delhi for the BRICS summit, two days ago in their planes with  sophisticated protection even against nuclear threat. They travelled from the New Delhi air port in cars imported from their countries with all the fortification to protect them! 

They live fearfully although they are leaders of two great power blocks in the world! It looks like that they create fear psychosis all around them! The north American leader is another victim of such a fear drivenness!

I get another message from the Magpie robin. It was aware of all that was happening around it. Its alert presence was evident in its body language! But was it did look overcome by fear! 

Its gift of flying is its security! 

I came across a verse in Isaiah 51 in the Old Testament Bible this morning: "Was it not Thou, who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; who made the depths of sea a pathway"! (v10). The writer made this trustful declaration in the safety and provision God offers to people who turn to Him. He was recollecting the act of God by leading the people to cross to the promised land by parting the sea! (Exodus 14:21-22).

God brings provision and peace and lifts us from our fear proneness! 

The world leaders impose upon us fear; the God of our lives blesses us with peace and hope! 

The Magpie Robin was a visitor to our garden with the message of alert presence overcoming fear!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The wisdom of a girl!

 The still colourful presence is the language of flowers in. agraden!

The flowers transform the ambience of the garden with colours and fragrance.  They quietly draw the attention to transport us to a state  of awe and wonder! 

The response to such sights is poetry in some human soul; transcending calm and composure in some others;  the engaging delight in the pattern and array of colours for some; the aesthetic appearance of order or such other experiences of delight and insight for others...!

The flowers are fragile and transient ! And yet they reach out dancing in the air swinging to the move and the tune of the wind !

A three year old boy was about to pluck a few flowers, which was stopped by his elder sister saying, 'There are more visitors waiting to be greeted by the flowers' ! She said this pointing to the sunbird on the flowers on the other side of the garden ! 

The flowers are purposefully present in a garden !

Yesterday when the United States of America remembered the thousands who died after the 9/11 attack on the twin towers in its 25th anniversary, I felt appalled how such a nation who suffered violence can ever resort to violence of war in the recent months! It is a regret to watch that a nation drifts from its calling to be purposefully present to  violent presence! 

It was a young school going girl who stopped her brother from plucking the flowers from the garden because she was moved to watch the Sunbird feeding from the flowers! She did not want to deprive the Sunbird of its source of its daily provision! 

I thought about the wisdom of a school going girl! She practiced  mindful presence while living her life ! She had a feeling heart and a soulful sense!

 

Most of the news we read or hear from the media contain details of ugly events in the lives of people! 

To me, the news of the still and  purposeful presence of the flowers and the mindful presence of a girl make news worthy of wide publicity! The flowers and the girl are the Voices of sanity and invitation to change our violent behaviour !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The relational presence of human life !

All the five photographs above from our garden, tell the silent presence of flowers, birds, squirrel and spider, each in different sites in the garden. All of them occupy a space in the garden and live their rhythm each day!

The garden sustains life by giving itself to all those who need its shelter and provision! 

Yesterday, when the Rambutan tree in our front garden was being pruned as it covered the lime bushes, I felt that we were hurting a tree that gave us fruits just a few months ago. And yet the Rambutan tree would restore its foliage shortly with greater vigour! 

I happened to visit a home twice, in the morning and evening, on one day for a practical help. On both occasions, I found the person under the effect of alcohol. I sensed a gloom in the home. 

I felt sad  that the aspiring outlook to life of that young person is drowned in his self-gratifying habit, leaving his two adolescent children and wife in anguish!

Two senior citizens who are members of the local senior citizen's forum invited me to attend their meeting which is held once a month. They told me of the increasing alcohol dependence among younger people, making their homes a in-hospitable place !

I reflected on this contrast! The garden flourishes with its hospitable gift to all. The homes are becoming stressful places because some men have lost the vision of life in the family! 

I wonder whether that is the state of the political leadership of some countries who are in war with other countries! Yesterday the prize of the Apple products of phones were announced in india. They were about thirty percent more than the price in the USA, all because of the increase in the tax tariff imposed by the USA. There are some billionaires who are after establishing Data centres to promote wider use of Artificial Intelligence to become evermore prosperous and they have monopoly to control ! A prominent democratic leader of the USA made an appeal yesterday to have a moratorium on establishing Data centres, as the AI displaces human interface and relationships. 

When I watched the silent events in different parts of our garden, I was moved to discover how we are to cherish life and relationships even more! 

We remain human only as much as we are relational and interdependent! That is the culture of human beings! I hope it remains so!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)