I have reproduced it here for you because it has a message of human – animal relationships.

Or in this case a human – bird relationship that is very dear to my own heart.

It’s the type of thing that given the chance I would have loved to have done myself.  But having no humming birds in our neck of the woods it is virtually impossible!

Still it has a lovely message that I’m sure will resonate with you as a reader of Relationship World.

So here for your enjoyment is Steve’s “Petting a Hummingbird”

Petting a Hummingbird

I usually see hummingbirds every day when I’m at home. I don’t have any bird feeders, but the birds love to hang out in my backyard or buzz around my office window. Sometimes I’ll see several of them hovering nearby.

Lately I’ve been wanting to see if I could actually touch one… not in an aggressive way but by keeping myself in a very pure-of-heart state and inviting them to connect. They can dart around very quickly, so if they don’t want me to touch them, there’s no way I’d be able to.

About a week ago, one was flying in circles around my head about 12 inches from my face, but that’s the closest she came. I was trying to get her to land on my finger, but I wasn’t even sure if that would work. Hummingbirds have such little feet that they seem to like perching on the thinnest twigs, and my finger might be hard for them to grip (without injuring me, that is).

Then yesterday I was finally able to pet one for the first time.

A friend stumbled upon a hummingbird sitting cozily in her nest in a tree, just a few feet from my backdoor and right at our eye-level. I’d never seen that nest before. It was a tiny nest, just big enough for the hummingbird to sit in it with her head and beak hanging out on one side and her tail feathers hanging out the other side.

I said hello to the hummingbird and asked if I could pet her. She didn’t say no, so I figured she was okay with it.

She seemed very content as I gently ran my fingers along her back.

Then after a minute or two, she flew up and hovered around the nest, as if to invite us to take a closer look. When we looked in the nest, we saw that it contained two tiny eggs. We were both adorified. I smiled and told the hummingbird there’s no need to worry and that her eggs were safe.

This morning I went out to see if she was still there. It’s very windy out, so I wasn’t sure if she’d be in the nest. Sure enough, she’s still there, presumably keeping her eggs warm. I pet her again, and as soon as I did so, she opened her beak as if to say hi.

I’ve never been able to pet a hummingbird before, so I think it’s really cool that this intention was able to manifest. It only took a few weeks between setting the intention and seeing it manifest.

To me this experience also has a special symbolic, dream-like meaning. Lately I’ve been feeling super happy and joyful; everything in my life is flowing beautifully. I’ve also been eating 100% raw for the past 2 weeks, which often leaves me feeling blissful. Hummingbirds are a symbol of joy, so symbolically it’s like I was able to touch joy directly instead of just having it circulate around me.

I don’t know if this post will hold any meaning for you, but it was a happy experience I wanted to share. Hummingbirds are really cute.

Now wasn’t that lovely?  If you have any stories about relationships with birds please share them with us. Stories like this are good for the soul and we can all do with them!

Our relationship with nature has been so downgraded that we no longer see the enormity of the problem.

We also have excessive whaling, a rampant increase in deforestation, losses of whole animal species and so much more.

Sometimes we have to see things in little bite sizes to make sense of them. The huge oil spills are too vast to comprehend.  But the image of a pelican covered in oil speaks volumes.

I found a poem I had written some time ago that I called “Patterns in the Sand.”

On a very tiny scale it may have some slight relevance to our connection with nature.

So herewith my description of the fragile relationship with nature that we are rapidly losing:

Patterns in the Sand

No more the rustling in the reeds
where finches shout out from the trees
as sunlight gleams on flashing wings
and yellow feathers drift like leaves;
Where grass nests swing in hammocked cadence
teasing muddied streams below;
and dipping branches brush the froth-foamed
earth-browned water’s bubbling flow.

No more the arches overhead
where branches meet in tunneled shade
and close by on the shaded banks
the long-legged crane and water-fowl
print cross-hatched patterns on the sand.

For Nature was improved upon;
and altered till the wilds were gone
No mountain springs or inland streams;
but heated pools and cultured zoos;
with neatly labeled bars and cells;
all individual private hells.

Yes, Nature’s been neutered, cramped and computed
Her voice will be muted for decades to come.
She’s been catalogued and classified,
corrected and defined
homogenized and purified,
amended and refined.

Gusts of progress everywhere
Have blasted through the land
And finches’ nests have blown away
Like patterns in the sand.

© Copyright

Have you ever noticed how the intricate veins of a leaf appear to mirror the structure of the whole tree?

There are myriads of patterns in nature that are continuously unfolding but they mostly play out to an unobservant audience

Many years ago, people used to be aware of these details and were more in tune with nature than we are today. Sadly, we have lost our connection with nature and we can no longer read the signs.

Only when we get a rude awakening once in a while, do we start to pay the slightest attention to nature’s messages. But we ignore them at our peril.

The recent oil spill in the gulf is just one example of the damage that can be done when we don’t take note of the bigger pattern.

And then from an unlikely source we get a strange reminder of the mysteries of nature and something seems to resonate within us.

I’m thinking of the work at the Hadron Collider in Switzerland that recently gave us just such a reminder of our relationship with nature.

Celestial Music

It has been reported that a number of physicists at Cern have been trying to simulate the sounds of sub-atomic particles.

The result of this was a strange kind of celestial music – almost like a modern composition.

Archer Endrich is reported to have said that the physicists who were working on the project were hoping to hear the background music of the universe.

“You feel closer to the mystery of Nature which I think a lot of scientists do when they get deep into these matters,” he said.

“It’s so intriguing and there’s so much mystery and so much to learn. The deeper you go, the more of a pattern you find and it’s fascinating and it’s uplifting.”

What more can one say?

We have lost the old sense of well-being that people used to derive from the rural way of life that was somehow sustaining and reassuring.

We have been separated from the spiritual sanctity of forests and we have been denied the comforting familiarity of well-known woodland paths.

The rose-covered cottage is a myth and we have lost our synchronization with the slow, unhurried earth rhythms that bring in seasonal changes.

And although we are surrounded with many wonderful artifacts and inventions, we have lost the very essence of our humanity because the urban way of life has desensitized us towards nature.

We have become emotionally disorientated and spiritually disconnected because we have lost our way in the rampant jungles of civilization which have progressively altered the face of the earth, changed the environment and modified the climate.

Urbanization and cities erupt about us with tall, forest-like structures of cement and chrome.

Buildings are piled high on one another because space has run out and the pores of the earth are so deeply clogged with concrete that nature can hardly breathe.

Our constructions cover large areas of earth with deep layers of concrete and tar and the jagged horizons of high-rise buildings that extend like huge bar graphs into the sky have taken their toll on our psychic equilibrium.

We have lost our relationship with Nature