Spring must surely be one of the best times to witness instinct in the animal kingdom. It is a crazy time indeed, a time of preparation and a time of struggle.
Personally, I’ve been captivated by a couple of web cams that are focused on nesting birds.
First, there is Molly the Barn Owl. Her first egg is hatching today. She has been sitting for 35 days now. Likely a first time mother, she knows exactly what she needs to do, as does her partner that brings her food. Without him, either the eggs wouldn’t survive, or she wouldn’t survive without sustenance. When she laid the first egg, her owl box was just a bare box. Today she has a very comfy and warm nest made up of all of the fur and bone from her meals over the month. Today, the first owlet is starting to peek through its egg. She’s going to be a busy Mom; they will both be busy caring for their young. They will mate for life, if they’re lucky enough to survive another year.
The second is this bald eagle pair who are on their second year of nesting in Pelican Harbor. They have a slightly different system of taking turns on the nest. They both have patches on their breasts that contain a higher concentration of blood vessels in order to warm the eggs. These two are so interdependent on each other and so ‘there for each other’; it is heart warming to watch.
This got me thinking about instinct in general and how far human beings have come from hearing and knowing our own instinct. How lacking in trust we are about our own knowing.
Instinctually, we must know it’s not good to be polluting the air. We must know a local diet is what we’re supposed to be eating. We must know to only take what we need to survive and fill ourselves up not with stuff, but the pure challenge and joy of living, of partnerships, of challenge. We must know how to raise children to be successful at being human, yet we’re failing these simple tests of life. When something goes wrong in our lives we put our hands out and ask who is going to pay for this? We join unions so our employers are forced to be on the other side, we are lacking in community and we are lacking in the fundamentals of living – that creative process that nature knows and we sadly forgot.
Personally, I’ve been captivated by a couple of web cams that are focused on nesting birds.
First, there is Molly the Barn Owl. Her first egg is hatching today. She has been sitting for 35 days now. Likely a first time mother, she knows exactly what she needs to do, as does her partner that brings her food. Without him, either the eggs wouldn’t survive, or she wouldn’t survive without sustenance. When she laid the first egg, her owl box was just a bare box. Today she has a very comfy and warm nest made up of all of the fur and bone from her meals over the month. Today, the first owlet is starting to peek through its egg. She’s going to be a busy Mom; they will both be busy caring for their young. They will mate for life, if they’re lucky enough to survive another year.
The second is this bald eagle pair who are on their second year of nesting in Pelican Harbor. They have a slightly different system of taking turns on the nest. They both have patches on their breasts that contain a higher concentration of blood vessels in order to warm the eggs. These two are so interdependent on each other and so ‘there for each other’; it is heart warming to watch.
This got me thinking about instinct in general and how far human beings have come from hearing and knowing our own instinct. How lacking in trust we are about our own knowing.
Instinctually, we must know it’s not good to be polluting the air. We must know a local diet is what we’re supposed to be eating. We must know to only take what we need to survive and fill ourselves up not with stuff, but the pure challenge and joy of living, of partnerships, of challenge. We must know how to raise children to be successful at being human, yet we’re failing these simple tests of life. When something goes wrong in our lives we put our hands out and ask who is going to pay for this? We join unions so our employers are forced to be on the other side, we are lacking in community and we are lacking in the fundamentals of living – that creative process that nature knows and we sadly forgot.
More graces amongst us.
Less fences among us.
An end to greed.
Time to reconnect with our instinct, before the human race destroys our very own eco system, taking with us life on earth as we know it.
Instinctually, it just makes sense.
Less fences among us.
An end to greed.
Time to reconnect with our instinct, before the human race destroys our very own eco system, taking with us life on earth as we know it.
Instinctually, it just makes sense.