Cardinal Questions

Last year was an extraordinary one for cardinal watching. For the first time in over two decades we were able to keep tabs on and celebrate the procreational success of our resident pair of cardinals. This couple—I'm now calling them Charlie and Alice—have been monogamous mates (well, at least as far as I can tell) for over half a dozen years.

What was so exceptional last year is that, for the first time, I discovered the location of their nest and was able to watch them raise three broods over the summer. Since their nest was close to the feeder (which is right outside the door), I was able to monitor the family all summer—watch Alice sit on the eggs, spy the tiny hatchlings, view the fledglings leave the nest, watch Charlie stuff their beaks for a couple of weeks, and then one morning find the youngsters gone, as mom was now sitting on the next batch of eggs.

What a great gift that was! I believe that Charlie and Alice have lived here long enough that they've become comfortable with me ogling them. We've become members of some kind of extended family.

This year, however, the location of their nest remained a mystery to me. I tried to keep an eye out, but my observational skills need more honing. Not only have I not seen their nest, but also never spotted any fledglings all summer. Were Charlie and Alice unsuccessful this year? Did their nest get raided by some predator? Did they take the year off—given that they were so prolific last year? Like many wild plants that fruit every other summer, were my cardinals doing the same? Were they just not as robust this summer or as successful at insemination? Surely Alice was not denying Charlie?

So many questions: so few answers. I find that, when becoming absorbed in Mother Nature, questions keep piling up and answers are slower to come. This is generally true of life, I believe. In fact, we should be wary of possessing a passel of answers about most anything—especially the deeper things of life. Having too many answers can stunt the growth of our minds, as we become complacent and over confident in our knowing. Answers appeal to our mental laziness—convincing us that we are wise when we're just smug. I believe that our lives are so much richer when our questions greatly outnumber our answers.

I finally saw two cardinal fledglings recently—at the very end of summer. I took great joy in finding out that Charlie and Alice were still willing and able to participate in the procreational drill. Now, I question what will next summer will bring.

Rogelio's Garden Spider

Compassion or Violence?

Two tendencies we humans have that seem to me to be quite antithetical are compassion and violence. They appear to me to be opposites, primarily because one involves helping the world, while the other causes harm.

Compassion is often simply interpreted, according to the dictionary, as “sympathetic pity and concern for the suffering of others.” That's only half of the definition, however. To be fully compassionate, one must also feel the urge to help ease the pain of the other—not just to experience the admirable sensation of pity or sympathy. It implies that we get off our butts and do something to help. Compassion is not a passive emotion.

By definition, violence is the (usually intentional) act of hurting or causing harm. The intentional aspect of this definition is crucial, I think. The worst kind of violence happens when we purposefully cause harm to our world. Anger and hatred can fuel this kind of action. But we can still cause much harm when we unconsciously or unthinkingly hurt. Maybe we didn't intend to hurt, but our insensitivity and heedlessness still resulted in violence.

Just as it is our duty to help when we feel compassion for those less fortunate, it's our duty to be mindful of how our actions can cause unintended harm. Both of these obligations stem from the need to be a responsible citizen of our world. And our citizenship expands beyond just other people; to all of the world and its creatures.

The power of nonviolence, I think, stems from the fact that it implies not just “not harming,” but going the next mile and helping. Nonviolence and compassion are thus closely related; they both require action.

It is difficult to be a member of American society, and also try to be nonviolent and compassionate. We may want to be a good person, but by simply participating in our acquisitive culture, we so easily can commit unintentional harm. How many of our consumer goods come at the cost of increasing the suffering of people who literally are slave laborers in a distant land? How many of our food choices cause violence to animals and to the environment? It's a huge job just trying to decrease the harm we cause—let alone help. Thus, compassion, like nonviolence demands a lot of us.

So how does one diminish one's harm? Where do you start? It helps me to figure out how to decrease the harm I do by cultivating the activity that is its opposite. That's why I often ponder opposites. How may I reduce the harm (the violence) my actions cause? One way is to cultivate its opposite: compassion. That can simply mean paying attention to the suffering of the world and do something to alleviate a little of the pain. The hard part? The starting point? Paying attention!

Bee in flight

Hummingbird Encounters

Hummingbirds are one of those critters that most people agree are almost too cute. They are tiny, fragile, beautiful, and so fun to watch. There are few better animal entertainments than to put up a hummingbird feeder and watch the little guys come to suck up the sweet sugar water.

The hummer has an extraordinarily long bill, from which an even amazingly longer tongue will protrude to get at nectar deep within flowers (or fake flowers on a feeder). Although they feed a lot on nectar, they also go for tiny insects, thus getting necessary protein in their diet. In fact, some hummers will steal insects from spider webs, rather than catch their own. They also like to steal weeping sap from the holes that sapsuckers drill in tree trunks.

Even though they are the tiniest birds in the world (weighing only a fraction of an ounce), they are very aggressive little dudes. They are largely solitary. The male will take up residence near a feeder and fend off any other bird that may wander nearby... except a female hummer, whom he will allow to sip some sugar water in exchange for mating with her. The female does the kid raising on her own and is even more aggressive than the male. She will attack hawks,snakes, and crows... and even buzz humans who wander near her nest.

A hummingbird's wings beat at about 70 times per second, creating a low “hum” that attracts one's attention, much like a large insect. They have a unique motion to their wings, that allows them to hover, fly backwards, and even upside down, if they are diving into a flower for its nectar or the male showing off to his potential lover.

The ruby-throated hummer is the only species we have here in the eastern US. The male's throat appears a very dark black color, except when it faces you. Then its throat appears a brilliant ruby red color, flashing like a beacon. The hummer's feathers are not really ruby colored, but appear to be, because tiny air sacs in the feathers refract that color from sunlight.

Besides the fun of watching them at the feeder, I had a special encounter a few years ago, as I was watering flowers; one of those graced moments. I was watering the peonies—the hose pointed upward, spraying the flowers. I love to pay rapt attention to the flowers when I water them—soaking up their beauty as they soak up the life-giving water.

I noticed a hummingbird slip into my field of view and land on one of the wire cages that I place around the peonies. He was about five feet from me and only a foot or so from the stream of water from the hose. I was rather taken by his boldness, as hummingbirds are one of the more timid critters around here. I've never gotten that close to one before.

He sat there, looking towards me, with no apparent jumpiness. He seemed to be eying the stream of water, so I very slowly turned and moved the spray towards him. When the first few drops of water hit him, he opened his wings and fluttered his feathers, seeming to revel in the mist. I got the cue, and began spraying him more directly. He danced around on his perch, flapping and fluttering, getting a good bath, until I moved the hose away again. Then he took flight and was gone. I stood there, shaking my head; wondering if I had really experienced what I seemed to have. What a gift!

Tree Cricket on Sedum

What's Now?

In a recent blog on NPR (“Where is Now? The Paradox of the Present”) astronomer Adam Frank tossed out a fascinating idea: there is a lot of ambiguity in the definition of the so-called “now.” Many people have spoken of the now, in contexts from religion to philosophy to science to New Age notions—as though it is a well-defined and precise thing. It is often defined as “the present moment,” referring to the instant between the past and the future.

Frank points out, however, that the present moment is really a rather fuzzy and enigmatic concept. He gives the simple example of what we're seeing when we gaze at the night sky and observe the stars. We can't perceive them in their present moment at all, but how they existed in the past. The light I'm now seeing from that star that's 100 light years away (about 600 trillion miles!) departed 100 years ago. What I'm seeing at my present moment is the star's present moment as it appeared 100 years in the past. It's history. It's antiquity... not the now. The star could have blown up five minutes ago and I won't know it for another 100 years. (Actually, I will never know it, since I'll also be history by then.)

In fact, at the present moment that I'm watching all those stars at various distances, I'm seeing them at various times in the past! So my starry “now” is really composed of countless overlapping starry pasts. I am unable to observe any one of those stars in its present moment, but only as it existed long before now (my now, that is). Some being living on a planet several light years away experiences a completely different set of starry nows. As Frank writes, “Where is now?” Whew!

He goes on to describe how this situation of overlapping pasts is true for any sensation logged by our brain. Each sensation begins with an organ of one or another of our senses—sight, touch, sound, smell, taste—and then travels via nerve pathways to the brain. Depending on the type of signal, its speed is somewhere between one and 200 miles per hour. That's pretty fast, but it's not instantly.

So our present moment is, just like starlight, an aggregation of multiple past events. Our “now” is a collection of old “nows.” We live in the past. Furthermore, the time differences for different observers of everyday events may be on the order of microseconds—rather than years—but it still is true that your present-moment perceptions are not the same as mine. Your now is not my now—you have your own collection of outdated nows.

That fact is a wee bit mind blowing, it seems to me. It causes me to ponder the various ways I have heard people refer to the present moment—particularly when it's implied that there is one unique now that we all share; as if it's the same now everywhere; as if the dividing line between the past and the future is something we all simultaneously experience; as if we all cross the demarcation line that marks the present moment in unison, collectively stepping from the past into the future. But no, your past could be my future, or vice versa. If that doesn't blow my mind, then it surely overwhelms it with paradoxical and perplexing images. As Frank asks, “Where is now?” I don't know, it's already gone.

But there's another, maybe more serious, message that this conundrum brought to me, after I mused over it for awhile—a message that's not nearly so enigmatic to me. If my now is really an overlay of multiple pasts, then my present moment is already over and done with. I can't change it; it's a done deal. I might as well not fight it, but accept it. It is what it is. Why get upset and get into a fuss over my lack of approval of it?

Now, that message may seem like a fatalistic one to some folks, as if I'm saying,
“It's too late. I can't do anything about it. It's fate.” With this interpretation one can become passive and powerless. The message I take, however, is that the only now I can perceive is my own now, and although it may already be locked into the past, my response to it is the crucial thing. How I respond to my now has a major influence on my future, since what I do now directly impacts my future.

And that response is directly determined primarily by how well I'm paying attention... right “now.” If I allow myself to be drawn into the past, or find myself leaning into the future, or have my attention diverted by distractions, I don't even get a clear picture of my now. It's muddied by diversions, or the fixed past or possible future events. My daydreaming can cause me to miss the reality of my now, and my subsequent actions may therefore be foolish. They'd more likely to be influenced by my inattentiveness, rather than reality.

So, pay attention. Act wisely. Enjoy the moment, because, in fact, it's already past. Soon you will be yesterday. Now... you got that?