Under A Pile of Debris

While pruning the roses last week I uncovered a sweet gift.  It was tucked deep in the center of our overgrown Knockout rose bush.





I was focused on some serious cutting and didn't see it until I reached for what I thought was a dried maple leaf.

What I actually touched was a tiny bird's nest woven within the braids of several thorny stems. How did momma bird build her intricate home in such a prickly niche?


I gingerly put the little nest in an empty flower pot and continued to clean up the rose garden.







While clearing out a pile of dried fallen leaves beneath the newly pruned rose, I found another surprise.... a teeny, tiny, perfectly sound egg.  I wondered if it had fallen out of the nest I had found earlier.  It was so tightly pinched inside the rose bush I don't know how the egg could have fallen from its fortress..... but I guess it did and because I left the pile of leaves for longer than I wanted the egg had a soft landing.








Immediately I took the little egg to meet its nest.  I placed it within and gently carried them both inside our house where they now live on our mantel.  It reminds me of the fragility of life.  I feel honored to have the wonder of mother nature in my home.  The funny thing is I had been trying to make a nest for one of the many ceramic birds that I have collected.  But guess what?  I couldn't create anything that felt right.  Wow! Now I have a nest made by the real thing.... an actual living, flying, singing,  bird.


When I showed my find to Bluebird (grand daughter #1) she wanted me to put it under a blanket.  She said that if I would get the little egg warm then maybe a bird would hatch from it's polka dot shell.  She told me that in her school they had a light hanging over a little pen of eggs and that they hatched into chicks.  I tried to explain that the egg had probably been under the pile of leaves for too long to warm it up again.  But Bluebird desperately wanted to try.  She pleaded, "Yaya, just try.  You never know until you try.  My dad told me never to give up and I don't think you should give up hatching this egg." 

I felt like Dr. Seuss' Horton.  Maybe I should try.  Hmm.. Really?  Should I really try?  I knew the egg had no life in it... but Bluebird had planted her seed of hope in me.  And she seemed to have enough faith for the both of us. 

I didn't cover the egg with a blanket.  I let it be where it was on the mantle.  But every time I look at it I am not only reminded of the glory of nature, I am reminded of Bluebird's innocent trust that all things are possible....most especially when we respond from the deep center within us where our original Child-Nature lives. Long, long ago I read this phrase in Christian scripture, "a child will lead them."   I understand it differently now and I sense its truth in many circumstances.  Could it be that our original created child-nature is what our world needs?  Could this trust-filled, hope-filled, wondered-eyed Being lead us back to the garden of peace?

I hope you uncover an unexpected glory today.  Maybe it is covered by the debris of your schedule... or the debris of regret.... or the debris of lost innocence.  Whatever its hiding place, I hope you find it and hold it gently in your hands, giving it the wonder it deserves.

Most of all, I wish you joy and a child like sense of possibility.