A leafbird returns after a break !

 

The first four photos of a golden fronted leafbird before the sunrise and the latter three after the sunrise!

The colours looked subdued in the twilight, but became vivid and vibrant with sunrise. 

What was even more pleasant was its sweet, short and subdued bird calls! They had a character of their own, different from the calls of other medium sized birds. It sounded like a love song to a baby, when mother is singing a baby to sleep. 

I wish it stayed for a little longer time,  to get better photos and capture colours of its plumage in good daylight. The crest on the head, golden and triangular stood out. 

Some birds by their routines convey a message of friendly disposition. The leafbirds are befriended as pets in some places for this reason. There are about ten species of them, four of which are seen in India. 

I came across a stamp with a golden fronted leafbird from Thailand in my search. The Jerdan leafbird without the golden hue is another species that is common. Th blue winged ones might be the next common ones. 

What made the leaf bird exotic in one sense was its tuneful singing. Although not musical, I could hear its singing with an unusual auditory sense, which was soothing and mellowing. 

I took a while at the end of this walk to trace back my mood before and after sighting a leaf bird! After sighting and listening to its bird calls, Ia felt a calming effect within! To know that there can be another level of calmness within, in itself is a gain!

A leaf bird moved me into another level of consciousness about the ambience of interior composure, which I needed!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

Th first impression!

I happened to notice a Bulbul arrive in a nutmeg tree in our garden during its morning flight movements. I wondered if it had a yellow fruit between its bills! The first photo was most suggestive of that.

When I kept watching through the zoom lens, I realised that a yellow leaf happened to be behind the bills of the bird, which appeared to be in its mouth during its bird call. A photographic illusion!

The subsequent photos show, how the Bulbul was engaged in its bird calls and the yellow leaf captured in the first photo was behind the bills of the bird. 

I was more than surprised by this sight, bringing an object lesson that the first impressions about what we see or hear might not be the whole truth. 

In this case it was the following photographs, which clarified the matter and revealed the full fact. 

How important it is necessary to be factual lest, we cause serious misrepresentations. 

A historic misrepresentation that I remember, which forced USA to invade Iraq and capture its president, was because of an impression that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Following the war it was clear that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction. The damage in human and property loss was colossal. 

An exaggerated view of a matter has the same damaging effect. 

This morning event did bring home a message of some significance for me-avoid making the first impression as the final opinion !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Houses and homes!

The morning view of the garden below us at sunrise is often captivating with the blue sky in the background. It is a home for birds and we get the benefit of birds visiting us from their night shelter, although the movements of the birds in our garden are less than what is usual due to birds  moving to cooler places. The day temperature touching 39 degree celsius. which is uncommon for April in our area, is not  hospitable for birds.

After a few days, I moved about in our garden yesterday. I noticed the red ants crawling on the tender cashew nuts. Now the cashew tree is full of blossoms and tender nuts, the red ants have even made their nest on the same tree. I got bitten by a few of them while plucking the ripe fruits of cashews. 

What surprised me as I walked further, was the bee hive in a nutmeg tree, which according to the gardener has appeared in a week's time. That was surprising. Usually the bees gather in places where they have flowers in plenty. With the onset of summer the flowers in our garden are only few. I have often noticed the honey bees hovering around the butter cups in our courtyard. They are found on the lantana flowers and the purple orchids. But those flowers are only few now.

I watched the honey bees in action for a while. It is a young colony of bees as the hive is yet to be fully covered by them. Th nutmeg tree offers a safe place as there is shade and protection from strong wind. 

While I was at that site, I noticed a Myna with nesting materials between its beaks on another nutmeg tree. That aroused my curiosity about a nest being made in the garden.

I heard the bird call of another Myna in the adjacent tree and soon the Myna with the nesting materials in its beaks joined the calling Myna.

What followed was an interesting sight of the romantic behaviour of birds during the nesting season. One Myna was in continuous chirp and chants louder than its usual bird calls, looking in all directions. The bird calls resonated in the air and following a special chirp,  both of them flew away beyond my visibility.  

I walked around in the nutmeg grove hoping to find the Myna pair. I shall keep looking, as the nest of Myna birds are usually on a height in a safe place of a tall tree. 

The red ants, Bees and Myna birds have their home in our garden. The garden is a place of new life for the avians. We have had Bulbuls, parrots, Magpie robins and Barbets building their nests in our garden. 

A day in our garden often brings surprises. 

When I returned after my walk, I was greeted by the desert rose bush with its blossoms!

How refreshing it is to be blessed by the variety of experiences in a garden!

Thanks to our gardener and domestic helper, who tend the garden!

The above photos are not just physical events, but carry symbolic meaning in more than one way. 

We live in our houses. The birds live in the garden around our houses. How important it is to have avian friendly environment around our houses!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Cashew fruit in our garden !

 

My parents had a garden of cashew trees, which normally had ready to harvest fruits, during the summer school holidays. During the month of April, one daily activity I enjoyed doing, was to pluck these fruits and gather the nuts to dry. The fruit pulp was a good meal for the cows. They relished the daily feast.

An interesting aspect of this time was that, I could climb the cashew trees to pluck the fruits unnoticed by my parents. My parents would send me to collect the fruits with the instruction not to climb the tree, but to pluck them with a pole, which had a hook at its one  end. 

Every day I had to return with an anxious thought, what if someone told my parents that I climbed the trees! The domestic workers who saw me climb trees, were on my side, as they saw how much pleasure I derived from climbing trees. They were protective and supportive. Later, I found out, that my parents knew that I climbed trees to pluck the cashew fruits, but did not raise it as an issue of disobedience, probably because I was doing a favour to them by gathering the fruits. 

I go to the cashew tree almost each day from the time they were in blossom, from January this year,  in order to go back to the summer months during my school days. For about six years, I would have been engaged in gathering the cashew fruits during summer holidays, till the land was sold.  

During the monsoon months, at the week ends my mother would roast the cashew nuts in fire. I was given the chance to shell them to gather the kernel inside. The shelling was done with a pair of coconut shells. A roasted cashew was placed on one portion of a split coconut shell and with the other half of the shell, one could crack the roasted shell to gather the kernel. I confess that I kept eating, while doing this, so much so, my mother would be surprised by having only small portion left at the end of shelling the nuts. 

It was similar with banana. Once the bunch was ripe, whenever I passed by, where it was hanging, I helped myself. In order to have a sense of humour, I was crafty to split the skin with a knife and take out the pulp and leave the skin of banana hanging! When my mother would go to peel the banana from its stalk, she would only have the peel left in her hand. My mother did not mind that practical joke except that I had to eat the full plate of food served, even if I had filled my tummy with banana fruit just before the meal time.

The two cashew trees in our garden with fruits, bring many memories of my childhood! It is good to recall how one's childhood was conditioned by restraints and freedom!

Anna makes fruit juice from the pulp of the cashew fruit. It is refreshing drink! 

 As I write this, I have a sense of having been blessed by my parents !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Beyond the sameness!

I was gathering together all the photos of the Lilies in our garden, taken from December 2023. It was while gathering them together into one folder, I came across that a few of the stems had three flowers, the majority had four flowers and occasionally five flowers in a stem!

The ones with the three flowers were scattered among the others. Their flowers and stem looked similar to the rest, which had four and five flowers. 

The majority of the Lilies, in the photos below, had four flowers and looked similar in every way, like the ones which had three or five flowers. They formed a cluster, suggesting that the bulbs which multiplied from the original bulb planted produced similar number of flowers.

I do not recall observing that a few of the Lilies had five flowers, like in the photos below,  when I took their photographs. I went back to the files of the earlier years of Lilies, since we had them for the last five years. I noticed that a few had three or five flowers, but not in the collection of flowers of every year as they were not captured in the photo.

I lived with an impression till now, that this species of Lilies had four flowers as that was evident and commonly seen. 

The exercise of gathering together all the photos from December 2023 was for the purpose, of transferring them to an external hard disk to create space in the computer. 

This discovery of three and five flowers, unlike the usual four flowers in a Lily plant, alerts me to look for Lilies with one or two flowers. I have not come across that in the collection of photographs which I have currently.

 

In the above photograph, there are two plants with three flowers while the other two have four flowers. I suppose the bulbs grow and reproduce new plants and therefore, it is likely that the plants which bear three, four or five flowers would be usually in clusters. This is a lesson about being more skilful in the art of observation. 

We look through the optic of our belief or assumption and see what our mind has conditioned us to see. 

The bias of confirmation is at work, which almost deceives our perception and prevents our mind from observing anything else other than the mind is used to or has believed as the norm.  

An alert mind is an enquiring and discerning mind and travels beyond the bias of familiarity. 

This experience brought me to a new consciousness about my habit to seek for confirmation of my thought from others, whom I talk to, rather than being open enough to entertain other thoughts than what I had considered. 

There was a road traffic accident involving five vehicles yesterday. The four reports I listened to by different channels in the TV differed in the details about the cause of the accident. The accident occurred around 6 am in a lonely part of a high way. Therefore the opinions can differ as only few might have been on the spot before the accident. It is when the closed circuit camera or the satellite pictures can give the images, one can be sure of the sequence of events. Till then the information would be a mixture of facts and fiction. 

A lesson that comes home to me, from the first time discovery, is that there can be more or less flowers than four flowers in one stem of a Lily plant. 

Every situation has its own uniqueness and is often not a replica of a similar situation in the past. It calls for openness and readiness to see every situation in its own context. 

Our mind might tend to present to us a situation through the filters of our past experiences, which might not be fully factual !

The breakdown of communication or relationships occur, because we view a situation conditioned by our past experiences, memories or impressions. 

Each situation needs a fresh appraisal, in which case we are less biased or dogmatic. 

I was given an opportunity this morning to know that, a Lily plant can have more or less flowers than the usual four in a stem. 

What a call for openness!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

8.50 am: Post Script

After I finished writing the above text, I went for a morning walk. I went to other sites where, we have some Lilies blooming in our garden. They being in the rear portion of our cottage, I was not used visiting those sites regularly. 

This morning, after the surprise observation of three and five flowers in a stem unlike the usual four flowers in a Lily plant, I wanted to find if there are stems of Lily with one or two flowers. 

I found three Lily plants with two flowers!

It turned out to be a jubilant time as well as a humbling time. Jubilant, because, I noticed for the first time that some Lily stems can have just two flowers. Ther might be more surprises awaiting. Humbling, because, it places before me a challenge to grow more open and less dogmatic about my impressions being the whole truth. 

As one grows older, the learning opportunities open up even more, if only one is observant and open enough to enough to revise opinions or impressions her so far!

A journey in unlearning and revised learning!

This might appear trivial in one sense, but it carries a profound meaning for me. Use the experiences to learn new lessons rather than loose the opportunity because of confidence in what I am used to believing!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The pruning of Jasmine !

The four different types of jasmine flowers are in full bloom during this summer in our garden. When we open the door to our courtyard early in the morning, their fragrance is abundant in the air. 

Most of the other flowers in our garden have a weary look due to the high temperature and humidity of the day. But the jasmine flowers look fresh and are fragrant, although they last shorter time, than what they usually last during the winter and spring months. 

They are plants which do not need lot of attention in the garden. From the time I was a child I remember that we have had jasmine flowers in our courtyard. 

The difference between the rose flowers and the jasmine is that rose bushes would need considerable attention to protect them from insects and fungal infection.

A garden is a home for plants. They flourish to the extent they receive timely attention. The jasmine and rose bushes need pruning, which is an art in itself. If the stems are cut carelessly, it would harm the plants. But if they are pruned by preserving the parts from where the new shoots would spring, then the plant restores its growth normally. The pruning facilitates growth. The new growth brings new shoots and flowers. The pruning is restorative and promotes growth. 

It is in the recent months, since I have been involved in a listening role to some professionals, I sensed the restorative and refreshing role of listening. The human stories and experiences require resonances to promote de-briefing and de-mystifying. When conversations become restorative, they lead people to renewal and path finding. 

We bring freshness and spring of joy into the lives of others, when our listening attitude becomes affirmative and supportive.

Listening with heart, is a way of bringing wellness in to the lives of others! That shall make them radiant and graceful!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Beyond the loss!

The above sights in our garden yesterday, the Easter Sunday, brought me some memories of hope. 

A flower opens, a fruit is about to be ready and a butterfly is being provided for. These three represent how life around us is being taken care of!

Until the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, death reigned as the ultimate. Since then, the hope of life transcends death. 

With no active response to settle the ethnic conflict in Manipur, the fierce fighting in Gaza and Ukraine, it is suffering and loss of human lives that dominate the daily events. 

Amidst such a gloom, we have a former president of a nation, going to elect a new president later this year, readying to fight election by selling Bibles for his election funding. We have a Prime Minister of another country, going to national election in a month, stifling the opposition by arresting the opposition leaders and freezing the accounts of the opposition political parties. We have a president of another nation, elected for the sixth time by suppressing the opposition, threatening to use nuclear war head in its war against the neighbouring country. All these announce oppression, hatred and autocratic domination. 

It is in the backdrop of these frightening events, the three photographs taken  on the Easter Sunday, offer me a transcendent view of life! Although suffering does not get abated, one is still left with hope and promise of peace and provision!

While reading the story of Ruth in the Old Testament of the Bible, I felt moved as to how Ruth accompanied her mother-in-law to go to Jerusalem, having lost her husband and father-in-law! Her journey from her homeland of Moab to Jerusalem was from one loss to another! But her decision to support her mother-in-law and herself by gleaning in the barley fields opened the door for her to meet Boaz, who  having been a distant relative, decided to redeem her and receive her as his wife!

I remembered a recent experience of loss, of suffering at the hands of people whom I had known closely for several years. I have been on a journey out of that loss for a few years now. 

In a dream yesterday, I felt being carried out of that loss into a field ready for harvest!

We live with our losses. The disciples of Jesus lived with their loss of Jesus since His ascension, but moved on to live their lives fruitfully in the service of others. The loss can renew life to give us a new horizon of the opportunities awaiting our attention. 

The Easter brought a turning point to my thoughts and feelings! Let me not stay grieving my loss, but find a passage to go beyond the crutches that I was leaning on! I got up in the morning with this effervescent thought !

A flower, fruits and a butterfly-symbols of hope, peace and goodness!

 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)