I try to take early morning walks for two main reasons. One, I like to start my day with a long walk recorded on my Apple watch; it makes me feel like I’ve done something good for my body and soul. I also love to take an early morning walk because, over the years, I’ve developed a relationship with the places and paths. I know where the owls like to rest, where the hawks nest, where the raccoon raised her babies, and where the hummingbirds roost. One morning a few weeks ago, the hawks were more active and vocal than usual. It seemed there was a convention of hawks with all the calls and return calls I heard, not to mention flying between trees. (I think it might have been the mature hawks checking in with the juvenile hawks who might have recently left the nest?)
Further, on my walk, I noticed some finches and warblers (I think!) quite active too. I paused to see the fuss and noticed another hawk perched at the top of the tree. The finches and warblers were not too happy about this state of affairs. They did everything possible to let the hawk know she was an unwelcome visitor. They were circling her with shrill calls; they were dive-bombing her head. I saw one little bird fly off and return a few minutes later with back-up, more finches to chase off the hawk. It was a captivating scene.
The hawk was utterly unmoved by all the efforts of the smaller birds. The dive bombs, the wings, the circles, the calling, and the numbers did nothing to move the hawk. In fact, in the minutes I stood watching, the hawk didn’t move her head or even blink her eyes!
I have thought about the lesson of the hawk every day since. She was so centered, calm, and unmoved amid chaos and distraction. Her peace was palpable. Her peace was contagious. I’m still savoring the gift of her peaceful presence.
The whole scene was a contrast in energy. The energy of the little warblers and finches was frantic, fearful, intense, and chaotic. Understandably, there was an invader in their space or the space that was theirs for the day.
The energy of the hawk was grounded, purposeful, and peaceful. She knew her power; one snip of her powerful jaw, claw, or wing would have taken out a little bird. Yet, she restrained herself; she let them do their chirping, diving, and panicking while continuing with her watchful watching.
The hawk was a model for mindfulness and “centered now-ness.” She perched and watched. When distractions came, in the form of lots of noisy little birds demanding attention and generally trying to make her uncomfortable, she didn’t gratify their offers of distraction. She let the warblers warble and the finches finch. Her engagement was with her watching, her listening, her center. She was of one mind, she knew where she was and what she was doing, and she let all the distractions go.
Oh, to be like the hawk! Daily I face (and I bet you do too…) distractions just like the hawk. I don’t know how the hawk could stay centered with the flap of little wings, the sting of beaks on her back, and the general chaotic noise of all the birds. But she did. She didn’t let any of the distractions distract her. She sat in perfect peace and calm while chaos, directed at her and happening because of her, fluttered and flapped around her.
I have thought about her every day since. I ask myself how she does it? I think about how it felt to be in the presence of that much calm. (Good, it felt good, several weeks later, the stillness of the hawk is still offering me a piece of that peace.) I’m starting to think that peace and centered-calmness are contagious. If a few of us can practice it, or if we can be so lucky to be near a hawk amid it-can we catch it? Can we pass it along? What would happen if we could? Could we start a pandemic of peace and calm-centeredness?
I ponder when I am the hawk, the warbler, or the finch. (Too often, I’m the warbler or the finch. I like to flit about and make chaotic noise for no real purpose. I want to go and get my friends to join my cause and back me up. I like to flutter and flap!)
I love that one little finch that flew off and came back with a friend to help the cause. (Was that what happened? I don’t know. I saw a bird fly off and two return.) I like the thought of a little one going to get help and another little bird joining the cause. Sometimes it’s helpful to have the help of a friend, and it’s empowering when we need help and have the courage to ask for it and help arrives.
I know I’ll never attain what the hawk has. But, I will carry the lesson of the hawk. She has much to teach me. (The finches and warblers, too, they were doing the best they could, with their tiny bodies and voices, to protect what matters to them.)
I take a morning walk because it’s good for the body, heart, and soul.
Blessings:
May the peace and calm-centeredness of the hawk ease into your soul. Through the trials and distractions of the week, may you be invited again and again back to watchful, peaceful peace. When the wings of perplexity flutter and flap around you, may the example of the hawk invite you to perfect peace.
What are the birds, bugs, trees, clouds, and pets in your life showing you? Have you seen something that keeps drawing you back? What can you learn? What can you share?
What can you give your attention to this week?
(This morning on my walk, I encountered a robin-redbreast perched on a fence post with an early-morning worm breakfast in her mouth. I paused to watch her; she grew still as she surveyed the field. It wasn’t quite the hawk calm but it was a powerful, peaceful pause. Even a common robin has something to offer!)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has been on my to-be-read list for a long time. It is often mentioned or quoted. I heard a podcast in June on this book, and I thought it was time I read it. I enjoyed it, however, it’s not my favorite. I have read a few other books by Annie Dillard, that I enjoyed more than this one. (Those are The Writing Life and Encounters with Chinese Writers.)
I enjoy a good book of nature essays; I found this one alternating between super enjoyable and very tedious! The podcasters said they felt like you had to get through the first 100 pages to enjoy the book. Maybe because I was prepared to slog through the first 100 pages, I found them enjoyable, and I found myself lost and just done through the last 100 pages. If you enjoy nature essays and good writing, this is a book to check out. I kept a highlighter handy because some single sentences or paragraphs were perfect. I guess I would say this book is complicated. It’s so well written and certain passages are truly masterful, and yet it can be tedious and over-written.
It’s passages like this that kept me reading….
“Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage.
I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.
Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock-more than a maple- a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valarie Kaur
I loved this book! I feel like it should be required reading for everyone. I discovered Valarie on this podcast with Brian McLaren. I loved every word she shared on her podcast and ordered her book as soon as I had a chance. It’s not an easy read. As a student at Stanford in the days after 9/11, she traveled around the US and documented the hate crimes that were happening in the days, weeks, and months after 9/11. I didn’t know that happened. She is Sikh, and there were many Sikh people murdered in the days and months after 9/11 because they wore head coverings. She is a true activist and is so passionate about building a better world through the power of what she calls Revolutionary Love. This book is just as the title states, a manifesto, a how-to-guide, and a memoir.
Davin, Michael, and I recorded our June Haiku conversation this week. (Yes, it’s July! June was just too busy for me-and they were kind enough to reschedule to accommodate my life!) If you, like me, have never had the experience of seeing fireflies start to light up the night, you’ll want to listen to this to hear about this magical thing that happens in the mid-west and east.
Visit Profound Living to view the recording and see the other haiku offerings this month!
This week I’m sharing quotes from Valarie Kaur from her book See no Stranger. Read each quote slowly and look for what word or phrase catches your attention or challenges you. Let it be an invitation or a mantra for you this week.
“Love” is more than a feeling. Love is a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving—a choice we make repeatedly. If love is sweet labor, love can be taught, modeled, and practiced. This labor engages all our emotions. Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love.”
― Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love
“When suffering constricts the heart, awe stretches it back out, making us more compassionate, more loving, more present.”
― Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love
“When we choose to wonder about people we don’t know, when we imagine their lives and listen for their stories, we begin to expand the circle of those we see as part of us. We prepare ourselves to love beyond what evolution requires.”
― Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love
“Our lives are long and our circles are small. We remain linked to the ones have loved, if only in our minds. The question is how to be in right relationship with them, even if we may never agree with each other, or even see each other again. Right relationship is knowing that we are interconnected and finding a form of connection that allows us peace.”
― Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love