We had some overnight isolated summer storms a few weeks ago. I remember waking up to the sounds of the rolling thunder, the lightening brightening up my bedroom, and the pounding of the rain on my window. I always enjoy a good storm, especially at night. Nature has a way of calming me and putting me back to sleep. I remember a smile on my face as I turned over to get comfortable and fell back asleep right away like a lullaby being sang to a baby.
Unfortunately for some, this evening was not so pleasant. The next morning, my fourteen-year-old daughter found three baby birds on our front lawn, two of them were dead, one of them still moving around lost and hopeless. Her motherly instincts kicked in immediately and she put the bird in a box and googled what to do. She nursed the bird feeding him water through a dropper and egg mixture on a toothpick. The bird was not quite feathered all the way, with patches of exposed skin. My daughter couldn’t help but notice "she" had a big behind, so she called her “Bubbles” short for “Bubble But.” For the entire twenty-four hours she had the bird in her care, until it was brought to the wildlife center for rehabbing, my daughter was dedicated to ensuring Bubbles survived. I thought quite a lot about instincts the entire time as I watched in amazement of how easy it was, without thought, for her to save a life. How easy the humanitarian side of her kicked in. I was reminded of all the homeless she wanted to give money to and feed whenever she saw them, or the food packages she sends every year to the poor in third world countries without effort or second thought around the holidays. I like to think that nature is inherently good, and that everyone has a heart like her. That is not the case in our world however. I believe we all have the capacity to be good, some of us are very in-tuned with nature’s light and love. However, some of us just are not. Animal instincts are for survival purposes, whereas human instincts can at times be selfish and unconcerning. Intuition comes natural, without reason, there is no justification. Our intuition takes over sometimes and we are not aware of it. Intuition is a first response, a quick reaction to a situation. When some find a wallet with money on the ground, immediately the initial thought is to keep it, steal the money and use the credit cards. However, some immediately try to find its owner without taking its contents. The bird seemed orphaned by its parents, as there was no sight of them coming around. Since its siblings had passed on it was possible the mother of the bird was dead as well. We will never know. Perhaps it was natures call to have this family separated and left for dead, in which case Darwin's survival of the fittest is then the winner. Regardless of nature's plan, maybe this newfound personal spiritual reality my daughter received from this experience will make her more "fit" in the future to survive in this fragile life. Maturement of her intuition may have been needed for some future anticipation. Bubbles ended up at Flint Creek Wildlife Center where they are tasked at rehabbing her and sending her back into the nature.
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As I look into my garden, scorching in the summer weather, I see growth and life. What amazes me about my garden, and what makes me pursue one every year, is the beauty of its life cycle. Albeit life in a different form from what we typically know it as human beings, but nonetheless life. Or is it really that different? Water, sun and soil are all the seed needs. Very little human intervention is needed. In fact, some plants grow yearly without any of our help, purely natural. Are seeds considered dead then when they sit untouched by soil, water, and light? When does life begin with a seed? Some seeds never get the chance to have its life-cycle initiated. The diversity of life with seeds fascinates. Not only are there at least 10 different kinds of tomato seeds available, but depending on its environment they can grow so differently from one another. Life that springs from seeds also can undergo disease and genetic mutations, producing an extra limb off a carrot flesh, or an abnormal looking onion.
I had a conversation many years ago with a consultant that I worked on a project with that told me that plants are intelligent as well. They know to bend towards the light to grow, and climb to produce strength, to flower in specific spots and to begin germination when water is present. So I watch my garden year after year, and bask in its diversity, its intelligence, its natural yet flawed process, and reflect on how similar I am to that cucumber. Even the genetic material of humans is of the same process and components of plants. Life on two very different mediums, sharing the same building blocks of life. In fact, Iowa State University states that humans share 50% of the same DNA with bananas. Unfortunately, like in human life, weeds are a part of this beautiful garden of mine. As they annoy me and the surrounding plants, I tend to think about the human weeds in this world. Whoever made the decision to put the Boston Bomber on the cover of Rolling Stones magazine is a weed, infecting the world around him/her. But like all weeds, even after they are chopped down, they come back, naturally. The nature of annoyance, or evil if you may, is ingrained in our lives, and we have to deal with it, just like the plants that grow stronger to deal with the presence of weeds in their soil. There will be another weed in the future that will try to celebrify evil, and some will be consumed, yet others will be happy to cut them down, only for another to come shortly after. Yes, I did just create a new word...Celebrify: the process of turning something into celebrity status, and in affect, gaining the perks that come with it. |
Kat Lahr
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