Everywhere Your Delight

I’ve been living in a beautiful place outside the city for about a year now. My schedule permits me to spend time outside in the garden. But I have been pretty conscious of the fact that I haven’t really been able to connect with the beauty around me! Probably like most people, I start my day and get sucked into a rhythm of sorts and try to keep moving energy. But why do this so intensely? Isn’t a big part of life being able to just be in the moment and take in everything around us? And then a friend sent an article about feeding the birds. My dad has been suggesting this for years.

I thought why not give it a try and I got some seeds and began to go to the roof every morning. It didn’t take long before the birds came along filling their little bellies. The weather was good enough to actually sit there for a while enjoying the scene, and some days I did so with a book.  For the first time ever I was watching the behavior of birds and noticed how some of them were so trusting while the crows, for instance, took a while to warm up. What excited me was in a few weeks, one crow, who had now become a regular, began to come close to the ledge when I was breaking the bread for the birds! And finally, he/ she even took the piece that I reached out to offer him! Yipeee!

I know this is not much of a story, but somehow to me this meant so much. I was finally able to reach out and form a connection with something beyond my limited reality. As I was painting this, the words of a song by Swami Kriyananda came to mind where he says: “Teach my heart to impart everywhere your delight”. Living in such a pretty place, I look around standing on the grass, at the beautiful bright flowers, the freshly moved lawn, the light summer breeze, the butterflies, squirrels, the gorgeous trees and now, to my great joy, some little guys who I can call my friends! Everywhere Your delight, indeed!