I used to assume the qualities of quiet reflection and watchful mindfulness went hand in hand but, at times they seemed to be at odds. Sometimes, in fact, being mindful is just plain hard...Like this morning as I walked along the Potomac, thinking deeply about the past, the future and the present, and almost missing the strident calling of what turned out to be two flittering, agitated golden-crowned kinglets. Padding along the dirt road,my thoughts were turned inward, focused on some needed internal discussions and prayer time, and at the same time, reaching for the solace of the autumn glory of the woodlands that surrounded me.
Once the high-pitched voices overhead finally caught my attention, my focus shifted altogether to alertly waiting and watching, and the only matter on my mind was to identify the singers. Familiar as I am with golden-crowneds, what I was hearing did not register and so, after a short time of intense concentration, I was rewarded with the sight of two irritated kinglets obviously disgruntled with each other. I wondered from whence they had come and to where they were bound on their migration, and I wondered what was troubling them so on such a bountiful morning.
The most unexpected benefit of birding is that it calls for and returns me to mindfulness. When I pull the binoculars to my eyes, all other thoughts fade into the background and I am left fully with and in the moment. Sometimes I think that the more unsettled I am, the more refreshing are these short breaks in my ponderings. The natural world calls to me and as I answer, God speaks to and comforts me through what He has created. For a time, t
he moment is enough.
She stood calmly as I milked, and we shared the early morning quiet of the milking barn in companionable silence. Soon others would arrive on the farm, but for those precious moments it was still just she and I, welcoming the day together, each in our own fashion. She gave two gallons, filling the bucket with a rich, warm stream topped with a foamy layer of milk and air and the word that came to mind was, "abundance."
They hopped among fading flowers, moving up stems and over ground in their search for insects, seldom resting in one place long enough for me to get a good look at them. They had come from who knows where, winging their way southward to a warmer land with a more friendly winter, and had stopped in my yard to refuel. My native gardens are no longer flowering, for the most part, but the dried stalks still bear volumes of seed and host the tiny insects that these Common Yellowthroats were after. They stayed several hours, apparently finding food enough to make their stop worthwhile, and the word that came to mind was, "abundance."
In the Children's Garden, they fly purposely from flower to flower, drawing as much nectar as they can before the soon-to-be-coming freeze. Monarchs, Black-swallowtails, Painted Ladies, Cloudless Sulfurs, and Buckeyes feed on zinnia, Mexican sunflower, cosmos, tall ageratum, tropical milkweed and aromatic asters swaying in the breeze. I planted the flowers for just such moments, moments when butterflies need sustenance and a chance to rest from their constant foraging elsewhere on the farm. In these last warm days of autumn, I look around at the myriad colors of flowers and busyness of butterflies and the word that comes to mind, once again, is, "abundance."
The vines were long... ten feet long, some of them, and it was time to cut them and clear them away from the sweet potatoes that will be harvested tomorrow. In some parts of the world, sweet potatoes are grown for the vines rather than for the roots and ensure an almost endless supply of nutritious greens in the diet. Here, on the farm, I harvest the roots for people and the greens for the barnyard animals who seem to appreciate them as a great delicacy. I looked at the mounded pile of greens and imagined our cow and sheep and goats eagerly partaking and the word that came to mind was, "abundance."
We, unfortunately, often think of the word "abundance" in terms of what we may purchase with our money. The dictionary defines it as, "overflowing", "teeming", "richly supplied". Many times, it has nothing to do with money, ours or anyone else's. We are all richly blessed by the abundance of the land that provides for us and for the creatures with whom we share our world. We are blessed by moments of abundance that turn our eyes away from our worries and, if even for a moment, to wonder. The more we determine to look for abundance all around us, the more we see, and in the seeing, the richer we become.
