labels

I do so enjoy watching my birds in the morning with a good cup of coffee. It is truly rather meditative, and sets a good feel for the rest of my day (although, mind you, that can and does change and my grr often emerges). This morning I had a teeny little woodpecker hopping around the branches of one of the trees and drumming his little beak into the wood looking for yummies. The finches and sparrows were fighting over the last few morsels left in the bird feeder (which buy the way I just filled day before yesterday…hungry little guys). I have enjoyed getting to know their names – the titles that we humans have given them. My bird-identification enthusiasm was somewhat quelled a few weeks ago as I was reading in Eckert Tolle’s “A New Earth” as he was talking about the need we have as humans to name and label things and how that separates us from connection and from understanding (my words, and interpretation). I have been thinking about this, and it is true…my putting a label on that little red-headed dainty bird doesn’t help me to understand that individual presence any better than before I had a name. But reading about what is known about that little guy does help me to understand broadly the species and helps me to talk about him, even in my own mind, with distinction. The title “house finch” does not define that bird by any means, and I do not have to get caught up in the label, as if my understanding of a label completes my understanindg of that animal. The bird doesn’t identify himself as a “house-finch”; and while I do, I also understand that it is not a complete definition and that I do not have to have a complete definition or understanding in order to enjoy his presence at my feeder.

Ah, and on another note, the bald cardinal that I wrote about last year is back in my yard. I do ennjoy him so.