It was a glorious November morning in Hamilton, New Zealand. I headed off to meet my friend Carole to walk around the Hamilton Lake. The blue sky was enchanting wispy clouds decorated it as though someone had been testing a white spray can out on a blue canvas. Many other people had decided that after the long winter to also enjoy the summer feeling in the air and had taken themselves to the lake too.
I was on a continuing personal development mission, to stay present, and come from my heart space, and my friend who I was meeting at the lake is great company, requires little conversation, but someone to be with that is enjoyable.
I had decided not to bring my dog “Puppy” along (which I normally do when I go walking) but he had just taken up a weird behaviour of wanting to be picked up when he and I were out walking. It is a frustrating dilemma when you are out ‘walking your dog’ and he sits down and refuses to walk! So free to my own devices I soon located my friend at our agreed meeting spot, and we chose to walk anti-clockwise around the lake. I always feel a peaked interest in that moment of decision as to clockwise or anticlockwise. Does it really matter? It is such a simple thing, yet matters each time I choose (my guess is that it’s the little things in life, that we feel we have choice over).
Our conversation was light hearted and centred around the present surroundings, I was feeling delight in the little things, the smell of the air, the flutter of feathers, ducks, pukeko, dogs, kids, runners, walkers. The occasional person had their head held high, others seemed to be carrying the world around on their shoulders, the normal crowd movement.
A Pigeon flew incredibly close to me as I looked up and to my left, a moment felt like a long time. The Pigeon turned in mid air, the wingspan from the inside was beautiful, I was mesmerized and inside me I heard myself say “Pigeon”.
The water was sparkling and the variety of lily pads had pink, white and yellow flowers all blooming. Nature continued to enthral us as a Pukeko, a very Jurassic creature lunged its way across our path towards the lake edge.
We passed many people who had chosen to walk clockwise whether consciously or unconsciously and then a worm on the pavement caught my attention. I picked it up and put it back into the garden. My friend Carole commented that “It may have just come from that side”. We did laugh at that.
The loop complete, a coffee call was made. I realised I had left my purse in the car and began heading off in that direction. Carole called out saying she would shout the coffee. I went into a moment of indecision.
Then all I could see was a bird. Looking fearful, but quiet at the base of one of the big oak trees. The tree made the wee bird very small, and as I took in the circumstance it was in I saw that it had a very damaged left wing. My heart jumped as a dog barked behind me and the little bird stood up straight and strong, once the immediate noise of the dog had passed it shuffled its feet and looked at me, looking at it.
I’m a healer, I have a clinic in Hamilton, I couldn’t not help! I was drawn to this little fella, my heart pumping like crazy, feeling the fear and pain. I quickly grounded myself and came into a space of softness and gently, slowly lowered myself down to the ground as close as I dared without scaring it away. It shuffled again on its feet and turned away from me. Then it wobbled a little, turned around in my direction and stood still. Slowly I reached my hands towards it, having no intention of touching it at all, just to simply embrace it energetically and to assist in the only way I knew how to help it heal. My world became the injured bird and me, there was white noise in the background which would have been the people around, but nothing else mattered in this moment.
Before long, I was touching the injured bird, and I was off balance from the angle I had sat down in. One of the key things when I’m in the clinic, is to ensure I’m comfortable, then miracles can happen. This was not the case I needed to change my position. Then I realised, surprisingly I found that I had both hands securely around it and I gingerly picked it up. Bringing it closer to me, I could feel I was hot and sweaty, I had the bird in my hands. Now what?
That was when I began to re-orientate to the world around me. There were a large family group sitting about a metre behind me having a picnic, behind the tree was another group of people sitting on the grass. I was just off the path and I realised that I didn’t know where Carole was. Scanning around I saw her sitting on a bench chair about 10 metres away looking my way.
With the injured bird in my sweaty palms I somehow got off the ground and walked rather slowly and uncomfortably up to join her.
“What is it?” she asked
“A Pigeon” was my response
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know!”
