Stillness
Sharon June 10th, 2009
During the winter, I managed the not-very impressive feat of hand-taming some of the birds that come to our feeders. The chickadees particularly are both greedy and fearless, these tiny, courageous things that don’t seem to realize just how small they are. In the dead of cold winter, food is important, and after a few passes, coming to my hand was not all that hard.
The boys, of course, wanted birds to come to their hands. Isaiah, who is naturally good with animals, managed it once or twice, but the others simply couldn’t stay still long enough to have a bird come to their hand – the wriggles of childhood were just too built in, and when one approached, they would get excited, and begin to jump about. So we shrugged and went on to other things
This morning, however, I came out to see all three of my younger boys carefully, silently, in perfect stillness, holding up nectar-rich flowers, and from hand to hand, there flitted a yellow butterfly, sipping from those flowers, which my sons – 3, 5 and 7, managed to keep perfectly still.
After a while, the butterfly wandered off to find new nectar, and I asked the boys how they had kept so very still for the butterfly. Simon told me that they’d seen the butterfly approaching, and that they knew that it wanted to come to them. So, as he said, “we decided we’d be flowers ourselves, and flowers don’t move when the wind isn’t blowing.”
I admit, I was a little astonished that my three bouncy children could be as still as plants, rooted to the ground, and I wondered how they knew so certainly that the butterfly wanted to come to them, so I asked. Isaiah looked at me as if I was the silliest creature ever – “It looked like it wanted to be with us.”
If I were a good writer, I’d make that a metaphor for something, but in a way, I think it would spoil it. But it is good to know that stillness comes when the moment calls, and that boys and butterflies have much to say to one another.
Sharon
- home
- Comments(15)
That was lovely, Sharon. Thank you.
>That was lovely, Sharon. Thank you.
Well said, +1.
Beautiful
I think that one of the great joys of motherhood is being able to participate in moments like that. Two of my kids came down the stairs together, hand-in-hand, early in the morning a couple of weeks ago and something about the moment was so touching that I haven’t yet forgotten it. It’s awesome to witness those moments of tenderness coming from our little angels who spend so much time as screaming banshees!
Your boys are learning and growing, and I imagine they made a connection to breath within their new found stillness.
Thanks for sharing this precious family moment that draws a few tears.
Just amazing, your boys. Wonder what they will do next!
Years ago on a hot summer day I had a butterfly on my hand, drinking my sweat. It nibbled
around for half an hour. I never forgot these wonderful moments. The butterfly seemed so fearless.
Bettina
The outdoors is such a powerful force in our lives. Sadly, it’s the the story of our era how little quiet time people enjoy outside nowadays.
A few days ago, at the residential treatment center I work at, I found myself outside after dinner in the garden I manage over there with a student that had been admitted to our facility earlier in the week. He was out in the garden picking strawberries and suddenly got very excited because he found a grasshopper. Trying (rather poorly perhaps) to hide my amazement that “Mike” (I think he’s around 15 or 16) had never seen a grasshopper before, I asked in too drool of a manner: “You’ve never seen a grasshopper?” Still overcome with amazement of the little creature he was now holding in his hand, he said, “not for real, up close.”
Wow! (It’s a good thing we were about 60 feet apart at the time because I bet I rolled my eyes fairly well at hearing him report this.)
Gardening and farming slows kids down outside just long enough for them to see things they would otherwise miss, as Mike found out as he was bending over, poking through strawberry beds, looking for fruit. There is a lot of grass next to the strawberries, especially around the grape vines in the neighboring garden plot. There’s some wheat and rye nearby too. As a matter of fact, Mike and I talked a bit about the “grass” I was standing in. I should say that I was literally standing in the wheat as we discussed grasshoppers while pulling errant rye and hairy vetch “weeds” out of the wheat patch, and as I did, Mike and I talked about wheat and rye basically being tall grass plants (for grasshoppers!)
Thankfully, not all kids have to wait until they are 16 to discover grasshoppers or butterflies. Sharon, your boys are off to a great start. Thankfully however, one of my 16 yo students got a little caught up the other night himself.
I wonder what “Mike” will say after he wanders somewhere into our facility’s 150+ acres of woods some evening soon and is confronted with the sight of a dark, shadowy woodscape filled with sparkling fireflies?
Re my previous post, “drool” should read “droll.”
Oops… ‘time for bed.
Sharon, you are the Lady of the Birds. I blogged about you, although you are too busy living to read about yourself.
I wish that I had children.
What a simply delightful story. Thank you for the smile.
My first encounter with a tufted titmouse reminds me of your childrens ‘knowing’ what the critter wants.
A titmouse landed on the end of the hammock I was lying in and gave me a beady stare. As time grew on I knew it wanted something from me. My strategy was to lie still and wait. The bird hopped along the side of the hammock and perched behind me. Suddenly it was on my head and pulling at my hair. I retained my cool and it did this for about a minute. After that I had many encounters with titmouse’s.
I discovered reading that it isn’t that uncommon for them to do this as they are looking for hair to build their nests. They will do the same to dogs and any other furry creature that will stay still. But it felt like I was singled out for some kind of grace.
Hi Jim – Thanks for blogging about me! And Stephen, I think what you do is a lot more important than what I do in a lot of ways – think how easy it would be for this kid to have never gotten that, much less such a wonderful introduction to nature. I admire you.
Sharon
How beautiful! What creative thinking on the part of your boys!
Just that.
I’m glad your kids have the opportunities that they do to discover the wonders in the natural world. I discovered fireflies for the first time in my 20s, and I still think they are totally magical.
A very interesting trick that would surely help people to be more aware of the value of natural preservation and the delights of the natural world which I cannot experience here in the vast concrete plain that is urban Melbourne today.
The story kind of reminds me of what one would see in the nectar-rich flowers of the extraordinary heathlands of southwestern Australia. They are one of the two or three most species-rich plant habitats in the world, because of the extremely old and impoverished soils that do not permit competition but encourage an extraordinarily intricate web of inter-species relationships to develop. Whereas in Europe, Asia, New Zealand and North America it is easy for a single species to dominate, that does not naturally happen in Australia – until the cheapness of land and the availability of concentrated phosphate from Nauru allows it to, when this land that should I think have been the very first or one of the very first declared World Heritage areas becomes the breadbasket at the expense of superior farmland abroad.
[...] Stillness from Casaubon’s Book (don’t miss this sweet story!) [...]