Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Beauty on a yet another misty, moisty day

SE Michigan feels like Seattle in January or our first trip to New Zealand during their late winter/early spring months - in the 50's, rainy or misty, windy, and gray skies nearly every day. Better than winter in Michigan for sure, but honestly, I am tired of continuing to put away and then pull out my winter coat and gloves!

However, the birds know it is spring and they are coming right on time and cheering up my day. Tonight I changed the photo heading my blog to show one of my all-time favorite birds, the rose-breasted grosbeak sitting on top of a pole holding suet, giving me a great view of his rose-colored feathers on his chest. With the white and black contrasting patterns, his coloration is stunning, in fact just drop-dead gorgeous, even and maybe especially because of the contrast with the gray skies!

(Photo: Rose-breasted Grosbeak showing off on yet another gray, misty, moisty spring day at the Dyer Family Organic Farm in SE Michigan)
He has found a female who is also visiting the feeders, and sometimes I even see them together. So I am hopeful they will nest in our woods and bring their babies to the feeders later in the summer. I love having events to look forward to.

Beauty, beauty, beauty! Birds bring beauty into my life, no matter if it is sunny or cloudy, but seeing such striking colors on such a dull-colored day plus hearing them sing brings me both happiness and hope, which I feel as a lift to my heart.

I am reminded of Emily Dickinson's famous poem Hope. Usually I see it on a card or a plaque in a shortened format. Here it is in its entirety.

    Hope     
 
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
I believe that those who have experienced deep fear, pain, or loss from cancer (or other ways) can truly understand and feel hope as far more than just a word used casually in a sentence (i.e., I hope the sun comes out today).  I also think such people look for and feel beauty in ways that others don't. I had that experience today, with both this rose-breasted grosbeak this morning and unexpectedly hearing a violin being played this afternoon. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course, and what is beautiful to each of us is certainly very different and should be unique and special.

I hope (and I use this word with deep feeling) that each of my readers has beauty and hope in your life on a daily basis, beauty of such exquisite character that it also brings you to tears with no explanation really needed. Such an experience is certainly evidence of being alive, whether you are 'in the chillest land' or high on a mountain top.

What I will experience tomorrow? I wonder what you will experience tomorrow, too. Good night!

"Cultivate your life - you are what you grow - inch by inch, row by row"

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

1 comment:

Yenta Mary said...

That was a beautiful post, Diana! Truly touching. I have been struck this Spring, in particular, by the beauty of the flowers -- the pinks, the yellows, the blooming trees as well as the tiny little purple creepers ... maybe it's this dreary weather that either nurtures them or makes them more striking by contrast, but they seem much more extraordinary these days ... :)