Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE => Topic started by: BjornBee on January 19, 2009, 03:51:27 pm

Title: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: BjornBee on January 19, 2009, 03:51:27 pm
Every so often, something happens that is totally unexpected. The more I spend outside, observing, creating, helping, and just listening, something happens that I wish everyone could enjoy.

Two memories I have that come to mind is....

I was out watering the garden a few years ago with a hand held hose sprayer. Had it on a fine mist as I was just kinda standing there, no doubt trying to decide what kind of hive to build next. Or just scratching my butt, I can not remember. Anyways, as I stood there.....yeah, OK I admit...I was scratching my butt. But back to the story. I was standing there with the water spraying and out of nowhere a hummingbird comes along and decides to take a bath two feet from me in the stream of fine water being sprayed. You could almost feel the excitement that the hummingbird was displaying as he swooped in and out of the water. I actually remember telling myself that everyone should experience such a thing. I stood motionless for what seemed many minutes, but I know it was probably no more than 30 seconds.

The second thing that happened along these lines was something that happened while filling the bird feeder in the backyard. It was a cold day, and upon seeing the birdfeeder about empty, I proceeded to fill up the white mixing bowl I keep in the big bucket of bird seed. As I walked out in a good 6 inches of snow towards the feeder, I could see the birds in the background chirping away in the bushes, almost as if they were telling each other of the coming food. A small chickadee or some sort of bird, came flying towards me, and hovered momentarily in midair. I froze with the bowl in front of me. The bird then proceded to fly right up and land on the bowl's edge. I thought it would grab a quick sunflower and head on its way. But it stayed, eating several small seeds as I remained motionless.

I know some take time to train hummingbirds to feed from their mouths, and many have animals such as squirrels feed from their shoulders. But these were just random events. Not staged, not trained for. Just nature at it's best.

Anyone got an event that just happened?
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: RayMarler on January 20, 2009, 03:07:46 am
Hi Bjorn,
Nothing so nice as your experience, but this past fall I was just looking over my yard while watering the garden when a hummingbird hovered a foot from my face just looking at me as if to say hi.

Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: Irwin on January 20, 2009, 11:01:21 am
I was fishing in my boat under a bridge and there was a guy fishing off the bridge. And all the sudden a bird got caught in his line I untangled it and it stood in my hand and just looked at me for 30 seconds like it was saying thank you.
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: BjornBee on January 20, 2009, 11:12:24 am
I was fishing in my boat under a bridge and there was a guy fishing off the bridge. And all the sudden a bird got caught in his line I untangled it and it stood in my hand and just looked at me for 30 seconds like it was saying thank you.

Are you sure it wasn't waiting to find out if you had any worms..... :-D

Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: Irwin on January 20, 2009, 11:29:14 am
I was fishing in my boat under a bridge and there was a guy fishing off the bridge. And all the sudden a bird got caught in his line I untangled it and it stood in my hand and just looked at me for 30 seconds like it was saying thank you.

Are you sure it wasn't waiting to find out if you had any worms..... :-D


Maybe it was :-\
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: Frantz on January 20, 2009, 11:32:14 am
Bjorn,
Sounds like you need to read Tom Brown Jr's books. Start with the "Tracker", and move on the  "Search" etc. You and he have a few things in common.
F
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: Kathyp on January 20, 2009, 01:04:00 pm
haven't had the experience with birds.  once i was riding and took a wrong turn.  followed a deer trail and popped out on a bluff that overlooked the whole valley.  it was like i was the only person on earth.  it  must have been the same feeling that early explorers had.  of course, the poor mare had to slide back down the hill on her butt....but we lived to tell the tale !

Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: poka-bee on January 20, 2009, 03:08:02 pm
Kathy, I have had more of those moments riding my mare than anywhere else. One was a clearing in the woods & coming face to face w/elk.  Haley stared, I stared & they stared! Haley was more upset than they were, she did the orca snort & fidgeted. They are so majestic & beautiful.  Have come face to face w/deer, watched a beaver fiddle around & once at the river saw salmon trying to get up a small stream on the other side, no one else around, so quiet except for our breathing, the sound of the river & splashing of the fish.  J
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: KONASDAD on January 20, 2009, 05:39:42 pm
Love those moments. I once watched a leatherback turtle in Costa Rica lay eggs for hours. I was spellbound. The effort she used to lay those eggs was astounding. I also watched a snake eat a fish for hours. I got in so much trouble for being late for dinner, but it was worth it.
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: HAB on January 20, 2009, 06:14:41 pm
About fifteen years ago had a Bobcat bring her cubs out and play on a sandbank about two-hundred-fifty feet from where I was fishing in the beaver pond behind the house.  She clearly saw me and kept an eye on me while they played and I fished.  Saw her do that on at least five other occasions.
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: reinbeau on January 21, 2009, 04:07:40 pm
I call those events Cathedral Moments.  I've had a few, I'm a nature lover and hold each one of those memories dear!
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: johnnybigfish on March 08, 2009, 06:08:33 pm
I call 'em "Miracles"! I know Ive had similar stuff happen to me before, but I cant write at the  moment. These kindsa moments are like being in the shoes of St Francis, I suppose! :)
yourt friend,
john
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: Brian D. Bray on March 10, 2009, 06:30:08 pm
I once tracted a large black ant across the pasture for over 3 hours.  I never did find out where the ant hill was, the calves milk got cold, I was not only late for dinner but in trouble to boot.
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: Cindi on March 10, 2009, 11:19:24 pm
I once tracted a large black ant across the pasture for over 3 hours.  I never did find out where the ant hill was, the calves milk got cold, I was not only late for dinner but in trouble to boot.

Wow, Brian, I can bet my bottom dollar that was when you were a young boy, boys have a habit of getting "lost".  Bet your Mamma was pretty ding dang annoyed with you for sure!!!  Beautiful day in this great life.  Cindi
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: reinbeau on March 12, 2009, 05:55:23 pm
I once tracted a large black ant across the pasture for over 3 hours.  I never did find out where the ant hill was, the calves milk got cold, I was not only late for dinner but in trouble to boot.
Brian, that brought a smile to my face, I would have done the same thing had the moment struck me.  I definitely have ADHD, but for me it isn't an attention deficiency, it's attention overload, hyperfocusing on something for hours on end, when I was younger, it really had a hold on me!  :)
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: beemaster on March 12, 2009, 06:59:44 pm
I'll share two, both so very different - the latter you'll call LOVE I assume, and it probably was, but it was a single moment I will never forget and doubt I'll ever experience. But first.

In Lakehurst, my old home town of 48 years, I kept a canoe parked up on land at a friends house. I loved going out late at night (which was 10pm to me as a teen then) and fish for bullhead catfish.

One very starry night, I sat there, nothing happening - not even a cricket or a frog to fill the nightscape - I laid back so that I was perfectly looking straight up and I focused softly at a spot directly above.

I could see everything across the water in 360 degrees view at all 190+ peripherial angle we humans have (we can and do see beyond 180 because our eyes fish outwards just enough) I could see not only all the distant trees, but right to the roads and trails, it was like the greatest IMAX screen in the world.

I just laid there, I bet over 5 minutes, I don't know if I even blinked until a meteor flashed across the sky off to one side - it snapped me back, but I know that was one of those Colorado Rocky Mountain High moments John Denver spoke about - where you just get absorbed about the magnificent of all there is out there, the endless beauty we see on Earth and in the sky.

Then my love story. My wife Tracey and I met through an old girlfriend of mine, this was around the time my brother died in 1984, things got rough after that with the XGF, so we went our separate ways, but Tracey was the kindest person I had ever met, I didn't want to lose her friendship because of this split up. She promised to stay friends.

Over the next 6 months we'd go see movies together, stop at Friendly's for a burger and fries, not too much else and we never as much as held hands, maybe a buddy hug or two (that's me, she's not the overly huggy type - at least not then) and then "that" night happened.

Our County fair had opened, we decided to go and it was getting toward evening and the lights came on throughout the entire fair, nearly all at once. We were just to board the swing ride, but couldn't get two seats next to each other, so Tracey sat directly in a seat a head of me.

The music on the swing ride started to kaliopy away, the swing raised up and started to turn, tossing us outwards and I just sat there looking at Tracey's long wavy blond hair, and looking at her sitting there was the only thing I could see, everything else was a blurry of lights from the ride moving so fast as she was froze in my sight.

I just watched her, and as if she felt me looking, she swung her head back in a innocent and beautiful smile that melted my heart. For just those few minutes on that swing, I knew destiny had changed for me. I said nothing unusual until as we walked toward the car and I saw in front of us, formed from the shadows from two streetlights shining behind us, casting our shadows which formed a broken heart shape on the asphalt - I got up my nerve then, as if it were my cue and reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her closer to me and the broken space disappeared and a complete heart shadow appeared before us along that dark pavement.

I asked her out that night, she seemed a bit taken back, I wasn't sure what that meant - so she went home, not immediately answering me - I was a bit crushed at not getting any answer, good or bad.

I was pumping gas at that time and a coworker called me to the phone, it was Tracey, she had the same thoughts lastnight that I did, but was shocked that this "all came together" so quickly - she told me on the phone that morning she'd love to go out with me and we have been together 25 years this year. But as clearly as her hair and her smile mesmerized me with that blur of lights at the fair, I still see her in my mind's eye, that young and that beautiful today.

I think we all experience things that give us a reality check that we are part of the natural, not just living day to day, but meant to enjoy this gift - it is a shame so many of us have so few GREAT miraculous moments that blow our minds. I agree, we all have moments which I heard a TV Preacher called "God winking at us!" nothing Earth Shaking, just a reality check that we are bigger than we feel we are at times, and I think headed for greatness once we shed this aging broken down shell we are stuck in for so many decades.
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: johnnybigfish on March 12, 2009, 10:51:47 pm
Oh boy John.....I almost balled reading that!
 If I was you, I'd save that post and give it to Tracey for Easter! And I thought I was the only "Sissy" in here!
 Yeh,....give it to Tracy, right before you run out to the car and get your new puppy for her to see!

your friend,
john
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: poka-bee on March 13, 2009, 01:24:05 am
John, that was beautiful!  You are so blessed to have found Tracey & have both of you open enough to accept your great gift. So many people never find someone like that or don't recognize it when they do!  What a great story! I agree w/JBF, you should print it out for her!  J
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: Cindi on March 15, 2009, 02:30:50 pm
One very starry night, I sat there, nothing happening - not even a cricket or a frog to fill the nightscape - I laid back so that I was perfectly looking straight up and I focused softly at a spot directly above.

I could see everything across the water in 360 degrees view at all 190+ peripherial angle we humans have (we can and do see beyond 180 because our eyes fish outwards just enough) I could see not only all the distant trees, but right to the roads and trails, it was like the greatest IMAX screen in the world.

I just laid there, I bet over 5 minutes, I don't know if I even blinked until a meteor flashed across the sky off to one side - it snapped me back, but I know that was one of those Colorado Rocky Mountain High moments John Denver spoke about - where you just get absorbed about the magnificent of all there is out there, the endless beauty we see on Earth and in the sky.

Then my love story.  I just sat there looking at Tracey's long wavy blond hair, and looking at her sitting there was the only thing I could see, everything else was a blurry of lights from the ride moving so fast as she was froze in my sight.

I just watched her, and as if she felt me looking, she swung her head back in a innocent and beautiful smile that melted my heart. For just those few minutes on that swing, I knew destiny had changed for me.  we have been together 25 years this year. But as clearly as her hair and her smile mesmerized me with that blur of lights at the fair, I still see her in my mind's eye, that young and that beautiful today.

I think we all experience things that give us a reality check that we are part of the natural, not just living day to day, but meant to enjoy this gift

John, I have told you this time and time again, you have that gift, that gift to hold the reader spellbound....this you do to me, over and over.  You are the most beautiful writer -- you take me right there, in my mind's eye, to that moment(s) in your life, your stories are down-to-earth, narry holding back any emotion, nothing short of beautiful, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, that you are you.....have a most wonderfully great and most awesome life, day, health, lovin' and livin' this great life.  Cindi
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: beemaster on March 15, 2009, 03:50:53 pm
Cindi:

I have been waiting for you to get to your computer, something told me this would touch your heart :)

I am thankful for my ability to write, although it has gotten harder, sometimes the story tells itself.

Thank you so much for such kind words, having you and others know me this much better is the only way we may ever meet, but through our posts, I feel as if I have known you much of my life :) and now you know me even a little better!
Title: Re: The feeling as if you are one with nature....
Post by: Cindi on March 15, 2009, 11:09:56 pm
John, I am with my Daughters, at their homes, trying to share myself equally between the two, I have accomplished this, smiling, that secret smile.  We have spent two nights at my youngest gal, last night and tonight at my oldest gal, we are heading back home tomorrow morning, early, with my Grandsons in two, whom will be staying with us for spring break, yay, yay, yay, I 've missed them most terribly.  That is my absence from the forum.  I will be back on Tuesday morning, full fling, smiling.

John, these feelings are there, and what I would say rarely, when two people have connection....I have connection with a bare, small handful of people that I have met through the cyber of space, and it is a special and precious thing.  Have that most wonderful and awesome day, health, live.  Cindi