Bluebirds are Back

Bluebirds are here! It's time to clean out your bluebird boxes so that Mama and Papa Bluebird can choose a house to raise their babies in.

If you want to bluebirds of happiness to nest in your mind, then you have to clean out last year's detritus. Replace regrets and resentments with kindness and patience--toward yourself, of course.

Let those old thoughts come. Tell them "Thank you for coming. I don't need you any more. You can go now." Yes, be kind even toward those negative thoughts that traipse around in your mind.

Notice the quiet incubation of calm.

The bluebirds of happiness will be hatching soon.

Buying Birdhouses

I went on a birdhouse buying binge four years ago, and hung birdhouses in the woods around my yard. Now those houses look rather dilapidated. However, my sweetie is making slumlord repairs, trying to re-attach the floor to two of the houses and close up the gap in the roof on another.

What self-respecting bird would choose that lovely birch bark house that is full of cracks? I saw a bluebird pair inspecting it in March. ("It's the wrong location!" i wanted to shout through the window.) Today a chickadee couple is considering it.

Impermanence.

• All birdhouses are impermanent. 
• All nests are impermanent. 
• All fledglings are impermanent. 
• All birds are impermanent.
• All birdsongs are impermanent.

But in the moment, each one is beautiful.

Clean Out Birdhouses Now

It's time to clean out your birdhouses. Yes, it's a bit counter-intuitive. You might think that birds would use nests to keep warm in the winter. No, they don't. Nests are for nesting in the spring. During the winter, birds are looking for places to roost, perhaps with others of their own kind. So clean those old nests out of the birdhouses now.

I'm always surprised to see bluebirds checking out my bluebird houses in March. Wait a minute! It's not even spring yet. I haven't done my spring cleaning and cleaned out the bluebird house. By the time i get around to it, later that day, or the next day, or the next week, Mrs. Bluebird has made her decision. She likes a nice clean house. That's the reason we want to clean out our birdhouses right now, while we are thinking about it and while we don't have much else to do in the garden.

Now is also a good time to clean out our own house. Time to let stuff go. Time to downsize. Time to give away stuff we haven't used in how many years?

Everything we cherish will change and vanish. Sometimes we make it vanish on purpose. Give away the too-small clothes. Pass some of those heirlooms on to the next generation.

Then the bluebirds of happiness will be much more likely to stick around.

It Looks Like Winter

Even though it's five degrees outdoors right now, the sun is shining. It feels like winter, but winter is being eroded by the sun, drop by drop.

Birds are arriving from the south, silently and invisibly. Suddenly, there's a robin despite the dusting of snow last night. Next week, the bluebirds arrive. The week after that, the great blue herons. And the last week of March, the phoebes.

The practice of meditation erodes our bad habits, bit by bit, as we bring mindfulness into our daily lives. We zip our lips instead of zinging off an opinion, and we speak up, truthfully and helpfully in all heartfulness, when we need to.

It looks like winter outdoors, but the heart of spring is arriving drop by drop.



Photo by scubadive67

Blue the Bluebird

My friend Kathryn was sitting in her car in her driveway when she saw a bird fall out of a tree and into a snowdrift. It flapped its wings, but was unable to extricate itself. Kathryn waded through the thigh-high snow to reach it. A bluebird!

She carried Blue into her house to warm it up. Then she called the local vet who specializes in birds. She took Blue over to the vet about 1:00. The vet put Blue into an incubator and fed him some worm meal. Kathryn called back at 4:45 to find out how the bird was doing; she was kept on hold for a while. Finally the vet came on the line and said that Blue had perished while Kathryn was on hold.

Everything we cherish will perish. Even those things we love for just one afternoon. Like a bluebird.

Blue in the veterinarian assistant's hand.

Sumac Tea

My friend Trudy served  sumac tea and stinging nettle soup for lunch the other day. She's a great forager, so her freezer is full of wild things. She sent me home with a staghorn of sumac so i can make my own lemon-y tasting tea.

To make the tart sumac tea hot, take the sumac "berries" off the stem. Otherwise the boiling water will leach tannin from the stem into your tea.

Sumac trees are often considered to be weed trees, but i have come to like their short height (8-12 feet) and lovely shape as a backdrop to the garden. And their fall color is spectacular crimson.

Birders also report seeing robins and bluebirds eating the sumac berries all winter long.

We all have "weedy" thoughts that we'd like to chop down and get rid of. Sometimes they form the on-going backdrop of our mind. "What you resist, persists."

Let's love those weedy thoughts.
Name one or two of yours right now.
Irritation. Impatience. Lust. Frustration. Procrastination.

Then say,
I love myself as i am, irritated.
I love myself as i am, impatient.
I love myself as i am, lustful.
I love myself as i am, _____________. (Fill in the blank with whatever unlovable qualities you think you have.)

Yes. I even love myself as i am, feeling unlovable.

This is one way to make lemonade out of lemons.













Photos from trustedearth.com and teaandfood.com

Bluebird of Happiness

I have installed several bluebird houses out near my vegetable garden because it's the most open area i have here in the woods. You're supposed to put 2 houses within 10 feet of each other, so the swallows can have one and the bluebirds the other. Otherwise, the swallows will take over and defend their territory.

I bolt the bluebird house to an 8-foot long PVC pipe, then slide the pipe down over a fencepost, like a sleeve. Usually chickadees take up residence, or sometimes a mouse family.

Yesterday i saw an actual bluebird on one fencepost and 2 swallows on 2 other fenceposts. What a festival of blue birds :) I was thrilled to see the bluebird of happiness. And i was equally thrilled to have a rare sighting (for me) of sleek swallows.

Thrill. Joy. Happiness. Really, any bird can touch the happiness chord in us. Stop. Feel what happiness feels like. Allow it to permeate your body. Soak in happiness for at least 30 seconds--this "soaking" will retrain your brain so that you'll have easier access to happiness.

Somewhere over the rainbow,
Bluebirds fly.

Our hearts can fly over the rainbow too.

 

Bluebirds of Happiness

I just returned from a retreat in Virginia where bluebirds were flirting with each other. It's time to clean out your bluebird houses because they will be here sooner than you think.

Bluebird houses should be located in an open field or lawn, preferably not on a tree. Place 2 bluebird houses on fence posts (for example) about 15 feet apart. Sparrows will live in one, but due to defending their territory, the bluebirds can live in the other.

Bluebirds like to perch on high (but it doesn't have to be too high) so they can see what's happening below. The ones i saw perched on the backs of Adirondack chairs, then dove to the ground for a worm or insect.

Bluebirds bring happiness when we see them, but if we really look, we will notice that feeding birds, whatever color they are, and hearing birds sing also brings us the happiness of joy.

Cultivating joy is just that easy: Stop and notice the birds in your life. Stop and feel happiness.