we are born and grow into our talents

 Nature is all around us and it thrills me and sometimes saddens me.  I wish it was something that I had learned at someone's knee and knew.  I am self taught and really kind of lost.  I know more than many, but not a great deal.  Are all the names important?  What I know is that nature has changed dramatically over the years.  It is so around us that you can't miss it.  More winds, more ticks, less birds, butterflies are just a little piece of the changing world here in our space.

This week birds would be the theme.  First I found a intact bird's nest which had been on a light on the garage, but had fallen.  I took it photographed it and put in on a planter attached to the garage.  It disappeared I thought.  I decided maybe it had slipped into the planter and it had AND a bird laid an egg in it.  No sign of birds.  Abandoned.  Probably best.  Not an easy place or safe.

Then Woodpecker ran into LR window the other day when Shunka and I were sitting out.  The bird damn near fell on the dog.  Shunka paid no attention to stunned bird.  I got gloves after looking at that beak.  Picked him up and took him down into the garden planning to put him on the ground.  He had a hold on the gloves and wasn't leaving so I sat on a rock and waited for him to pull himself together.  Took about 15 minutes when he took a deep breath and flew off. Nothing quite so neat as being that close to the wild.

And last I found a dead hummingbird which had also crashed into the LR window.  So small, so beautiful and so dead.  I placed it in the garden under flowers.  May it rest in peace.   

contemplation

Enough

Doing Enough

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once,

but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. 

Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this world,

will help immensely.  It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom

will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts —

adding, adding to, adding more, continuing.

We know that it does not take “everyone on Earth”

to bring justice and peace,

but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale. 

—Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Two Lives..... really.....

MY SOUL HAS A HAT  

I counted my years
& realized that I have
less time to live by,
than I have lived so far.

I feel like a child who won a pack of candies: at first he ate them with pleasure,
but when he realized that there was little left, he began to taste them intensely.

I have no time for endless meetings
where the statutes, rules, procedures & internal regulations are discussed,
knowing that nothing will be done.

I no longer have the patience
to stand absurd people who,
despite their chronological age,
have not grown up.

My time is too short:
I want the essence,
my spirit is in a hurry.
I do not have much candy
in the package anymore.

I want to live next to humans,
very realistic people who know
how to laugh at their mistakes,
who are not inflated by their own triumphs
& who take responsibility for their actions.
In this way, human dignity is defended
and we live in truth and honesty.

It is the essentials that make life useful.
I want to surround myself with people
who know how to touch the hearts of those whom hard strokes of life
have learned to grow with sweet touches of the soul.

Yes, I'm in a hurry.
I'm in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.
I do not intend to waste any of the remaining desserts.

I am sure they will be exquisite,
much more than those eaten so far.
My goal is to reach the end satisfied
and at peace with my loved ones and my conscience.

We have two lives
& the second begins when you realize you only have one.

poem by Mario de Andrade (San Paolo 1893-1945) Poet, novelist, essayist and musicologist.

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