![]() We can be aware of the conditions for actions we eventually regret through attentiveness. What if we took the awareness of a baseline and noticed changes, and mapped the same awareness onto our emotional and mental landscape? Meaning we’d know our baseline and any departures from the baseline. So, in a way, even bird silence can speak volumes. In their playlist of sounds, birds have alarm calls that signal to one another that a predator, a threat, or a potential one is nearing. The predator species also listen to the birds.” So much so that Young makes the point that “The prey species listen to the birds. New things or things that are unchanging can be read through their sounds. ![]() Highly attuned to predators and every atmospheric change, birds are like a newswire announcing everything happening. In nature, birds are reliable witnesses to all that is happening. It let me know someone else was there or the atmosphere we shared had changed enough that a different response was needed. Because I was familiar with what Young calls the baseline, adding the bluebird song leaped into my attention. Recently a similar thing happened on an unseasonably warm winter day when an Eastern Bluebird started singing out of nowhere into the stillness of the late morning. The gathered eaters were like a group of session musicians lightly tuning their instruments, and suddenly they were interrupted by a trumpet. The Junco’s metallic trill sounds like a cell phone ring, so it was immediately noticeable. As if to say we won’t eat, but we sing in support.īird song is usually triggered by the longer, warming spring days, so this sudden addition jumped to my ear. These tiny slate-colored cuties weren’t brave enough to try perching on my hand, but one had flown to an upper hemlock limb and started its song. The Dark-eyed Juncos had been foraging through fall’s leftover leaves on the ground. Many people are “ear blind” to this and might not notice a chorus of bird songs, but we all have our interests.ĭuring my little feeding session, a nearby observer started to sing. On this warmer day, the sparse sounds included the nuthatch’s call it’s like an imitation of the Three Stooges’ “nyuk nyuk nyuk.” Also, on repeat, the Chickadee’s namesake call: “chickadee, dee, dee, dee.” It was punctuated by a distant blue jay’s imitation of a hawk’s call-a move they do to chase other birds away from their food stash.Īll the sounds created what Jon Young in What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World calls a baseline of sound.-the background ambiance for birds in a particular place at a given time of day. In winter, birds limit their communication to a small sampling of clicks and chirps, usually free of the more familiar bird song of spring and summer. These familiar, tough birds who stay through Northeastern winters visiting feeders can sometimes bravely venture near humans, especially if these durable little birds have decided that said humans aren’t a threat.įrom my outstretched hand, the nearby gathering of birds created a reliable symphony of bird calls. This week I was hand-feeding a group of wintering birds. (I personally think they should just rename it “bird-noticing.”)" I borrowed the idea of bird noticing from Jenny Odell, who prefers it to “bird-watching.” She explains, "I’ve always found it funny that it’s called bird-watching, because half if not more of bird-watching is actually bird-listening. To see how it might work, the world of “bird noticing” makes for an excellent illustration. ![]() Meditating is simple to explain but less simple to do. It’s simply defined as awareness of what’s happening in the present moment without judgment. So one way to get out in front of our regrets before they become regrets is mindfulness meditation. ![]() If we get to the origin of our regrettable actions, they all start with thoughts. So, between now and then, wouldn’t it be nice to be out in front of regrettable things we do? To sense, at the first clue, the mood or attitude that becomes the soil, out of which regrettable actions arise. ![]() Of course, the long-range goal is to simply not do these things, but between where we are now and that eventual goal is at least a few seasons of work. A towering figure in the Christian faith, the apostle Paul, rambled about it for an entire chapter in Romans, saying, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” He finally chalked it up to his nature. How do we end up doing what we don’t want to do? Even saints struggle with this. Would you like to have fewer regrets? When you do the autopsy on the action, the critical word you’ve said, or the less-than-polite email you fired off, are you ever uncertain how you behaved differently from your values or intention? How did you get away from the plan to love others to not seeming to love others? ![]()
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