This week-end, my hands cupped tiny bunnies. I frightened them from their cozy nest as I cut the grass in my backyard. I gathered them up, spoke quietly to them, and assured them that I would find a way to bring them comfort and security. I felt so badly that I had disrupted their gentle lives… so innocent they were, so small and fragile. I held them to my heart and gave them as much compassion as I could.
Once, I held a hummingbird. Many times, I have cupped newly feathered birds who have tumbled from their nests or flown into windows. Once I held a bird with a broken leg, and I cried over that one. It had become entangled in a vine on a tree branch, and in trying to get loose, it broke its leg. Once I freed it from that snare, though, I put in in the yard and the little one’s mama flew to it, and called it to come on. And right before my eyes, it flew on its way.
I’ve held many small hands in mine over the years, all precious, but none more so than my own daughter’s hands. (What could possibly feel any better than your child’s tiny hand in yours?) And in a far different life experience, I’ve sat bedside with elder dear ones, stroking their weathered hands in mine as they parted this life for another.
Life is a circle of reaching and giving and being filled and being depleted and reaching and being given to and being filled and being depleted and reaching and giving and being filled and being depleted. I pray to show up every day in these ways so that life is held with appreciation and gentility and humility. Quiet souls make meaningful impact. It is no small thing that I encountered those bunnies. It is no small thing that our eyes met, and that in soothing them, I soothed everything wounded in me. We are called to show up for what is not expected, for what is not powerful or commercialized, and learn how to be with those gifts. When we do, that which is unnecessary in our lives, falls away and that which enlivens our souls springs forth.
“i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)”
--e.e. cummings
Once, I held a hummingbird. Many times, I have cupped newly feathered birds who have tumbled from their nests or flown into windows. Once I held a bird with a broken leg, and I cried over that one. It had become entangled in a vine on a tree branch, and in trying to get loose, it broke its leg. Once I freed it from that snare, though, I put in in the yard and the little one’s mama flew to it, and called it to come on. And right before my eyes, it flew on its way.
I’ve held many small hands in mine over the years, all precious, but none more so than my own daughter’s hands. (What could possibly feel any better than your child’s tiny hand in yours?) And in a far different life experience, I’ve sat bedside with elder dear ones, stroking their weathered hands in mine as they parted this life for another.
Life is a circle of reaching and giving and being filled and being depleted and reaching and being given to and being filled and being depleted and reaching and giving and being filled and being depleted. I pray to show up every day in these ways so that life is held with appreciation and gentility and humility. Quiet souls make meaningful impact. It is no small thing that I encountered those bunnies. It is no small thing that our eyes met, and that in soothing them, I soothed everything wounded in me. We are called to show up for what is not expected, for what is not powerful or commercialized, and learn how to be with those gifts. When we do, that which is unnecessary in our lives, falls away and that which enlivens our souls springs forth.
“i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)”
--e.e. cummings
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