Working to receive!

I assembled  the above photos from the collection of the last week, to make sense of what is happening around me and within me. 

The first is that of a Pale-billed flowerpecker, high on a tree searching for flower or berry. It normally flies between trees with thick foliage to find its feed of nectar or berries.

The second is a Barbet, which found the tender nutmeg fruits, which each Barbet relishes. Its movements is between nutmeg trees to find its favourite food.

The next is Oxyopes, a lynx spider, which is looking for insects on a rose flower. The insects come looking for nectar and the spider traps them.

The following is a photo of a regular Spider, which toils to make its web to trap insects flying around. Its web is sticky that the insects if trapped would not be able to escape. 

The builder of the fallen wall was labouring to gather the stones from the broken wall to rebuild it. It is from such labour, he finds his livelihood each day. 

The following photo is of labourers in a farm doing their day's work of planting saplings of rubber. They work in the open and endure the heat of the day for their livelihood.

The next picture above is my work place where I spend the day doing the different things that I do to consolidate the last forty years of professional work. It is now four months since I started using the 60 years old garage, now a work space for me. It is a quiet room from which I have a good view of the greenery beyond our courtyard. 

The last picture above is a view of our courtyard and beyond, after a downpour, when the sky became bright and the sun was about to set. The hue of colours of the evening is often breathtaking. I feel moved by such sights, visible from my work place, giving an inner prompting about the story of life beyond us. It is when we see beyond ourselves we feel connected and humbled.

The three pictures below give a continuation of the story above. In the above pictures, the message was about the efforts required of each living being, to live labouring and receiving. 

The bird bath and feed for the visiting birds to our garden is a provision for some birds. 

The picture below is of a Barbet feeding on the berries in our garden. The plant offers itself to all the birds and squirrels coming to it, looking for food. 

As I turn to the bunch of flowers in our garden, I have another wave of inner awakening about the gift of silent presence, which  these flowers offer for most part of the year! 

When we feel the burden of the day on account of the experiences we encounter in our work place, let this bunch of flowers bring to us the perspective of the abundance that we are surrounded with us. We are given to receive. Receiving is a way of being grateful for the ability to work and our work bringing cheer to us and being of some help to others. 

Each time I look at the wall, restored by the maison, I feel how much our work has an upbuilding purpose, the benefits of which would go well beyond ourselves. 

This meditation on work was initiated by sighting a pale-billed flowerpecker, who was in the foliage of a tall tree looking for flowers and berries!

A small bird works to fend for itself and becomes pollen bearers between flowers.  

The work we do is a discipline of responsibility, which creates within us a sense of stewardship! That is why work is sacred and creates within us a worshipful attitude. 

 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)