Flight, Fright and Feast

I spend my mornings by a picture window on the fist floor of our home, working on my laptop if my body feels well enough and hanging a load or two of laundry on the line outside if it is a really good day. From my window seat I can see my large tray feeder hanging from some dense foliage that provides quite a bit of shade and protection for my little feathered friends. Over the tops of the birds of paradise I can watch as the sparrows, finches and occasional bunting comes to nibble in my garden. Sometimes we will see a small gathering of mourning doves who are surprisingly territorial feeders, not so much though as the scrub jay who announces her presence with a series of squawks as she dive bombs in to gather up a few choice morsels of cracked corn or scattered nuts.

As I sit zazen there is a peace and harmony in watching the world fly by outside beyond my curtains. The gentle breeze moves the wind chimes to add just a wonderful overtone of joy to my morning sit. As I said to someone recently, these moments of extreme emptiness and bliss can be like an addiction. We come to experience such deep states of well being that we become less willing to wade in the ebb and flow of the tides of life. Which is why I suppose that I still tend to berate myself when my body flares each day … with undertones of story about how it shouldn’t be this way, or I should handle it all much better than I do in this moment.

[flv width=”400″ height=”250″]http://coolkarma.com/video/hawk-in-flight.flv[/flv]

Such expectation on how things should be has become mortally apparent at my backyard feeder this month as a local Coopers Hawk has taken up residence in my backyard. Certainly I have seen the occasional bird of prey dine on my delicate friends from time to time over the years, but this opportunist raptor comes by on a daily basis to take her pick of the flock. The dense shrubbery is not much match for this massive and powerful creature who darts directly into the middle of the thicket and pulls out a small songbird with her razor sharp claws.

I realize that not everyone is vegetarian and while I do not condemn this bird of prey it certainly puts a different spin on my view past the bird of paradise plant that sits outside my window pane. And while I may at some point decide to stop placing bird seed in my backyard habitat, I realize that it would not stop the hawk from her hunting. For me it serves as a reminder that I can not pick and choose what experiences to have. The raptor lives even inside my own rapture and while I wish it was not so, it does decidedly seem to be this way.

Perhaps the perfect gift that I could realize on this week of thanks giving.