A Gift of Connection

Seeing how things go together sustains me. The moment of such grasping is like a synapse that is fired and life-force is released…In such moments, we are sent back into ourselves illuminated. —Mark Nepo, from his latest post on the Three Intentions website.

Two Violet-Crowned hummingbirds* hovered outside the living room window. As I watched, one of them hit the window with a soft thud. I called the dogs inside, grabbed the small spray bottle of Bach Flower Rescue Remedy, and hurried outside. The tiny bird was alive though stunned and sprawled in the grass below the window. I sprayed the Rescue Remedy on the tip of its beak. It shuddered slightly as my finger touched its small body, and its tiny sharp feet grasped hold of my finger as tightly as any newborn baby. Keeping my hand on the ground, it wobbled there on its newfound perch, both wings limp.

I sprayed more remedy on my finger and touched the liquid bead of it to its beak. My gasp of surprise filled the silence when the filament of almost transparent white tongue extended out from its red beak to slurp it up. I raised my hand slowly, the bird’s small feet still firmly grasping my finger. I gently rubbed its amazingly soft white-feathered chest, then stroked its iridescent purple head and greenish-brown back feathers, amazed that it allowed me to touch it.

We sat there in the grass for several minutes, while it ocassionally fluttered its wings. It was so delicate, and so trusting. Still perched on my finger it ruffled its feathers. Suddenly I both heard and saw the familiar whirrrr of the hummingbird’s wings… it hovered above my hand, then by the window, then landed on a lavender plant a few feet away, a bit wobbly but upright.

I slowly walked over to where it was perched. It let me touch it one more time, and took one more lick of rescue remedy. Then in true hummingbird fashion it zipped over to another lavender, and then the waving plume of some deer grass. I watched it for awhile before going back inside, my day made inexplicably complete.

The other night at a dinner party I told some friends that those moments described God, though writing about it now I find the words aren’t accessible that describe the peaceful wonder inside of me as I held the hummingbird.

I’m not sure the words exist. The moment always will.

* Copyrighted photo of Violet-Crowned hummingbird taken by Brennan Mulrooney , tour leader and biologist.

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