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Easy By Nature PodcastExploration and insights into re-wilding your yard, neighborhood, and spirit. Author: Bill Davison
Exploration and insights into birds, re-wilding your yard, neighborhood, and spirit. billdavison.substack.com Language: en Genres: Home & Garden, Leisure, Nature, Science Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Take Your Cues from the Muse
Friday, 7 June, 2024
Amy Tan is best known for her novels, especially The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Her latest book is The Backyard Bird Chronicles, which details her love affair with birds. When she was 64 years old, she reached out to hummingbirds, and they took her on a journey into the heart of birdwatching. "I heard the staticky sound of a hummingbird. It was a male. I had left the feeder on the table where I was sitting. I put it on my palm and held it out. Within 10 seconds, the hummingbird came over, landed on my hand, and immediately started feeding. I held my breath and kept my hand with the feeder still as possible. His feet felt scratchy. He was assessing me the whole time he fed. We stared at each other eye to eye… He had acknowledged me. We have a relationship. I am in love."Her love of birds prompted her to take a nature drawing class where she learned how to sketch birds. She quickly became obsessed. Her yard became an intriguing scene, where she observed an unending parade of visitors from around the world, connecting her to bird migration and the profundity of nature. "Thanks to the birds, I have never felt cooped up staying at home. So much remains new, so much can be discovered… When watching birds, I feel free."Birds also helped Kyo Maclear feel free; she is another amazing writer who came to love birds later in life. Her approach to birdwatching is outlined in her beautiful book Birds Art Life. Kyo mirrors Amy Tan's view of birding. "The goal in birding, you will discover, is to become as quiet and invisible as possible, and the easiest way to do this is to stay in one place, minimizing your wake of disturbance. When you stop with your fast movements, your sudden noises, and unnecessary fidgeting, the birds (even the nervous perching varieties) may begin to respect you, by which I mean ignore you."Amy's sketches improved as she learned more about birds, which started a virtuous cycle of observation, sketching, and connection. All of this is fueled by curiosity. Amy’s innate curiosity was enhanced by a chance meeting with a 13-year-old girl named Fiona Gillogy. Fiona was part of a nature drawing class that Amy attended. At first, she was annoyed by Fiona's constant questions, but then she saw that Fiona embodied a beginner's mind; she was deeply curious and engaged with nature. Amy started lurking near Fiona, and they became friends. Fiona became her bird mentor. Together, Amy and Fiona followed the deeply human urge to watch birds. Amy gave herself permission to pursue what she loved. She discovered that you can follow your curiosity, grow and change at your own pace, and follow your own rhythm. You do not have to conform to our overly technological and algorithmic culture. Doing so is dehumanizing and demoralizing. It forces you to live inside a box made by someone else. A better approach is to take your cues from the muse. This creative force lives within you. All it needs is a small opening and permission to flow. Just let go, and your thoughts can fly like a bird. Living a more natural life that is in tune with our inner needs is hard. It often takes an accident, illness, or epiphany to break through our conditioning and the desire for more. Complications from undiagnosed Lyme Disease made Amy Tan slow down enough to see the birds. A mid-life transition helped Kyo Maclear … and me … open up to birds. I highly recommend embracing this transition at any point in your life. The experience is painful and challenging, but sublime beauty awaits on the other side. The key is slowing down. The beauty was there all along, but we tend to move too fast to notice it. When you step off the modern high-speed treadmill of life, you are left standing still and a bit bewildered. You start to return to your senses. A new world comes into focus as your old concerns are whisked away. This experience may precipitate a strange new thought: Maybe I am enough just as I am. Maybe I don't need more … maybe I need less. Yes! Enter the tiny birds. Now, you can place a miniature hummingbird feeder in the palm of your hand and reach out to life. Kyo Maclear has an entire chapter devoted to smallness in Birds Art Life, where she describes the beauty of small, realistic goals. "I like smallness. I like the perverse audacity of someone aiming tiny. Together, we would make a symbolic pilgrimage to the wellspring of the minuscule."When Amy Tan started feeding birds in her yard, she whistled to them as she put out seeds and mealworms. The birds started calling back to her. She took great delight in common birds. "I am still new to birding, so every bird is a good bird to see."This includes the Oak Titmice that nest in her yard in California. She observed them at her feeders, where she put out mini suet balls and live mealworms. During the spring, she noted the courtship behavior, which prompted her to set out alpaca wool that the female titmouse used to line her nest. If all went well, the whole titmouse family would show up a few weeks later. I was struck by the many similarities between Amy's experience and mine. We have a family of titmice that shows up at our feeders about this time every year. They are noisy and conspicuous. The parents are still feeding their young, but you can tell it won't be long before the young feed themselves.I watched one young titmouse hop around our cherry tree. I saw her peck the trunk and, to her great surprise, catch an insect that she held in her bill. It was clear that she did not quite know what to do next. She eventually ate the insect, but it was a slow, awkward process. As soon as she swallowed the insect, one of her parents flew in and perched above her. She immediately started begging for food. This whole episode must have made her tired. She promptly flew down to our pond, got a drink, and then fell asleep on a rock. Intimate close encounters with birds are healing. They are available to anyone with perseverance, patience, and curiosity. Kyo Maclear notes, "Even though you will inevitably discover that not everything within the spectrum of human desire is instantly available to you, your patience may be rewarded. You will encounter reluctant and well-hidden things. These things may be fleeting and fading, and without any obvious payoff, but you will discover that the realm of birding is also, sometimes, the realm of miracles."After years of watching birds in her yard, Amy Tan shares a final insight. "If there is anything I have learned these past six years, it is this: Each bird is surprising and thrilling in its own way. But the most special is the bird that pauses when it is eating, looks and acknowledges that I am there, then goes back to what it was doing."I live my life in growing orbitswhich move out over the things of the world.Perhaps I can never achieve the last,but that will be my attempt.I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,and I have been circling for a thousand years,and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song. Rainer Maria RilkeEssays like this one are a labor of love. They do not appear out of the blue like a hummingbird at your feeder. They rely on my decades of experience working as a biologist and farmer. If you are not already part of our growing community of paying members, please consider an upgrade. Thank you! This is a public episode. 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