The presence pf those who labour !

I was trying to capture the fruits in the tree in the camera! I failed to capture the fruits  due to poor light. 

But the camera captured the web between the Lilly plants, which was right in front of the fruits! 

I noticed the fruits and not the web while taking the photo! 

It came as a message! 

There are many things I miss seeing or hearing, which are important! The preoccupation with thoughts or sights can obscure the sight or experience of some events in life! 

The abandoned web is a reminder of the labour of a Spider for cat hing insects for its feed! 

A symbolic pointer to the hundreds who labour for their livelihood each day! They remain unnoticed or ignored in our society! Other glaring scenes and sights occupy our attention obliterating the views of those who live with hunger or no shelter! 

A call to live looking for those who are not in the lime light! 

During the recent BRICS conclave at New Delhi, the Delhi government decorated the roads and covered both sides of the road from the air port to the conclave venue, where people from low socio economic state live in inhospitable dwellings. We can miss seeing people in need or will stay protected from seeing them by other glamorous sights.  

The silent presence of those who 'labour' for their livelihood looks an embarrassment to the ruling dispensation! 

It is only by owning their presence among us, we live mindfully to make a difference for their lives. 

The experience of missing the web reminded me how what is real is sometimes missed and stay distant! 

To stay aware of those who labour to live is more transcending way of  living! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Giving before taking!

 

The second photo of the Bulbul, having arrived at the feeding station, remembering to let other birds know of the food with its bird calls gave an indication of the fraternal spirit among birds!

It was 'giving' before 'taking' !

This form of 'giving' springs from a fraternal spirit ! The goodwill towards others and the awareness of the needs of others become the way of living! 

Seeing this Bulbul engaged in bird call rather than feed oneself, was a refreshing sight of hope! The last photo is a testimony of how the first Bulbul's call brought another Bulbul to the feeding station!

When humans loose neighbour consciousness, birds come to announce what is truly human! 

I thought that birds are also messengers to revive us from our self absorption of 'me, mine and myself' !

On a Sunday morning, this message brings a meditative orientation to the way of living! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Too much is a burden and self choking!

The above three photos of a Bulbul struggling to swallow the bread piece, it has managed to break from the loaf caught my attention.  The pieces were too large for their beaks to mouth and swallow. 

The same Bulbul soon learned to break smaller pieces, comfortable to mouth and swallow. The Bulbul impressed me as one who is a good example of being able to learn from experience! 

It continued feeding with ease and comfort pausing in between! 

It occurred to me that the Bulbul learned to take just enough feed each time and feed as much as it needed for a meal!

When it had a sumptuous feed, it moved on to the water bowl and flew away for its morning flight elsewhere !

I remembered the heads of the governments of the USA, Russia, Israel, and China, who have something in common with the first attempts of the Bulbul to eat. I wonder whether the political leadership of India is also leaning towards such a mindset! 

Their territorial passion and aggressive habit to accumulate by usurping what rightfully belongs to others, has created a season of war with human lives lost, displaced or harmed! The leaders remain untouched by the pain of thousands who are deprived of normal life! The leaders violated the vocation of peace, which the nations pursued under the UNO after the Second World War, except for a few aberrations.  

I feel touched by the wise decision of a Bulbul  to overcome greed and adapt quickly to take just enough for its one meal! 

I saw Bulbuls at the feeding station later in the day! Each had enough and more !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Human awakening and becoming !

The Bulbul in the above series of photos adopted different body postures while perched. From a crouched position, it positioned itself for its next flight path during those few minutes. The incremental alertness and awareness of the environment is an inner response, which was reflected in the body movements of the Bulbul. 

In the Book, Human being and Becoming, Living the adventure of life and love, Dr David G. Benner devotes a chapter on 'Love at the Heart of Life'. In that chapter under the subtitle, 'Love and Transformation' (p104), he wrote: " We each awaken in ways that are unique to us, and transformation starts with awakening. Both great love and great suffering offer enormous potential for transformation-quite possibly, the greatest potential of any experiences available to us. But as potentially powerful as the experiences are, most of us sleep through them and avoid invitations that they offer to awaken us from our self-preoccupation so that we can leave our minds and come to our senses".

I was fascinated to review about fifty photos of the bird above  during its seven minutes of perch to notice this 'awakening' presence to the environment. It was a bird call of another Bulbul at a distance which made the Bulbul appear becoming flight ready from its 'slumbering posture' in the first photo! It was the love instinct which awakened this Bulbul, while hearing the bird call. 

It was a time to have an internal conversation with myself! What is the inner instinct that draws me to listen to others! Does what I hear in a conversation awaken me to feel the experience that I am listening to me ? 

I remember a 12 year old girl telling me on phone a few days ago, after her surgery, how she still suffered from pain even after one week of the surgery! Her voice choked and her mother had to step in to continue the conversation! But the girl returned to the phone to close the conversation saying, 'I feel better than before, because my mother is always with me'! Her mother is her companion in her pain! 

The Phrase Dr Benner used, 'to leave our minds and come to our senses' was well demonstrated in the engagement between the mother and her daughter at a critical time. A mother's wakeful state arising from her awareness of pain of her daughter!  

A father who called from overseas yesterday talked about his six years old son, whom he wants to see using his interest in drawing and story telling! He too was awakened to sense the interest of his son and pursue it to let it evolve into fruitful expressions. 

A mother who homeschools her two children wrote about the 'aliveness the children brings to her life by their enthusiastic learning of history', which did not interest her  when she was learning history at school. For that mother, her children bring an awakening of love that feeds into her soul! 

I found these conversations creating within me a longing to move beyond the twilight of living to more fuller experiences of awakening and awareness ! 

It was the bird call from a distance that awakened a Bulbul and made it fly away searching for the caller! 

Human awakening is a journey towards human becoming!

M.C. Mathew (text and photo)

 

 

The voice from within!

A dragon fly moves only when it chooses; leaves in a plant move when the wind moves them. 

The stillness of a dragon fly is its choice; the stillness of the leaves is conditioned by the wind!

A dragonfly chooses its rhythm and ritual ! A dragon fly follows the rhythm from within and the leaves follow the rhythm of the wind! 

For twenty minutes when the dragon fly did not move, even though I had become restless watching its stillness. The stillness is for a purpose! 

It was while being still and not preoccupied, one gets an inner prompting. On Monday morning, I felt prompted to send a greeting to a family who was awaiting the arrival of their first baby. I postponed to do it. Yesterday the family broke the news of the arrival of their baby on Monday. 

The gift of inner stillness is an awareness and awakening! It is only by habit, the inner voice is heard well to be moved to act on it! 

The rhythm in living can be conditioned by an inner sense of purpose and a gentle movement of responses! 

That is restful living with graceful responses! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

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)