Tag Archives: BALTIMORE ORIOLES

PARENTAL LOVE ON DISPLAY

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Beloved,

We all know that our world is having a severe weather problem. Where
I live we have had the 2nd wettest June in History. The heat waves
not only last a couple of days but 5 and 6 days long and it rains
every day. I have never EVER said this before but I actually said I
wish summer would go away because it was so HOT and MUGGY and hard
to breathe. The fact that I don’t have an air conditioner (my choice)
made it even more difficult. I even went shopping for an air
conditioner but there were no more left. I would jump in the lake
2 & 3 times a day just to get my body temperature down.

It was quite difficult on the animals, my birds in particular. You
know I feed grape jelly to the Baltimore Orioles which they love.
I left my step stool outside because I had to fill the feeders twice
a day because I only gave them two tablespoons of jelly at a time as
the rain would wash the jelly away and I could never tell when it
was going to rain because the rain came suddenly like a thunderstorm
does. I need the stool to feed both the orioles and the hummingbirds.
Even my son mentioned to me questioning why I kept my step stool
outside, I had never done that before. I only need to clean and
do the hummingbird feeders every 5-6 days so I usually keep the stool
in the garage. In order for the Orioles to feed and have food for
their babies, I was out there at least twice a day putting jelly out.

I am mentioning this because it has been such an unusual summer and
even the birds at my feeders have changed. I could not believe my
eyes when a “young” Flicker woodpecker came and ate the jelly. He or
she was there every day and suddenly the Father of the youngster was
eating the jelly also. He was saying:”Son, I never knew this was
here and it is so good”. He usually eats at the feeder that has the
sunflower seeds. We seniors can always learn something from our
younguns. Because of the grape jelly I have Catbirds coming to my
feeders also and they also feed their young the jelly. Yesterday as
I was doing dishes, I noticed a large orange shaded butterfly at the
jelly also????? I get the hornets every year but this year I am
inundated with honey bees. I wonder if their honey will taste like
grapes? The bees and the hornets are a signal to me that the birds
will be migrating soon. The baby Orioles are coming to the feeders
and I even saw a parent give a young one an insect?, it looked like
it had a tan wing in its mouth before giving it to the young one. I
had never seen that before either. The young Orioles are growing
quickly so I know their time with me is limited now. Sigh.

Feeding birds really gives me an insight into family life. Both
parents pitch in to help and no adult bird will pick on a young
one at the feeder. The young ones are allowed freedom to be curious
and feed when they want regardless of any other bird at the feeder.
They know no fear so they do not react when another bird comes close.
In this vein of thought, I give you a link that emphasizes the love
of parents for their children.

http://www.wimp.com/beatingcancer/

Why not love yourself as you love your child or any beloved?
Can we oldsters learn from this youngster?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Have you ever wondered why we act the way we do? Are we responsible
for someone else feeling good? Would you like to know how you can
and just how easy it is? Check this out.

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_zak_trust_morality_and_oxytocin.html

I hope you enjoyed these videos? LOVE does make the world go round.
SOOOO LOVE yourself and others shamelessly.

Guess where I am going now? Blueberry picking! Just up the street
from me is a small farm run by young parents of two children. They
have blueberry bushes that NEVER get sprayed so they are organic.
It was just last year that I decided to buy some from them and they
are the sweetest and biggest blueberries I have ever had. I have
not been blueberry picking since I was around 10 years old so I
am going to give it a try. I’ll think of you as I eat them right
from the bush. Have a wonderful day and week.

Love and Light

Mary Grace
www.IAmMaryGrace.com
www.TheWoundedChalice.com
http://www.waleson5.com/marygrace.html

PO Box 403
Wales, MA 01081, USA
413-245-3977

BALTIMORE ORIOLES / SPECIAL MOMENT OF REVELATION

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Beloved,

Happy Memorial Day weekend. This is truly a weekend of freedom and
although the weather here is not as warm or dry as I would like, it
is the getting together of family or celebrating or even having
an extra day off. I have been focusing so much on the powers of the
eclipses and all the possibilities that they are gifting us with that
I wanted to share a special moment that happened to me this morning.

I am not sure that I have mentioned the Baltimore Orioles that are
here for only three months. They are my favorite bird of all and
perhaps it is because they are scarce. Scarcity makes the heart
grow fonder. They usually arrive 2 weeks after the hummingbirds but
this year they arrived first and the hummingbird showed up a half
hour later. They have a special song that they only sing for about
two weeks as a mating ritual I would guess. It lifts my spirits and
stops me in my tracks when I hear it. Have you ever heard something
that does that for you. I even put in two screens so I could open
my windows to hear them. Again the weather did not cooperate as
much as I would have liked because of the cool temperatures and
the rain. The weather definitely made me stop more often to listen
to them when I did hear them.

Two weeks ago when they were installing both exterior doors in my
home, I had no choice in closing the house so I just hung around and
listened to them all day long. That was such a treasure because I
would ordinarily not take the time to do this. This construction
project gave me the perfect excuse. The following day, it was like a
symphony of them singing. In fact, I was wondering just how long
could they sing like that before going hoarse. I was in bliss.

Even bliss does not last long enough and that was the last day they
sang that special song. Baltimore Orioles usually feed on oranges,
sugar water or grape jelly that we can provide. Of course, they eat
bugs also but humans do not provide that. My birds (I call them that)
did not do well with oranges and with the sugar water, the feeders
would spill over each time a bird landed because it rocked the
feeder back and forth and then the feeders would leak and the
sugar water would kill my grass. The birds also thought that the
sugar water was coming from the bottom of the feeder because they
discovered it when it was dripping but had no idea how to access it.
I usually chuckled at them as they gyrated to try and get it.

This was all a process of elimination so I finally settled on grape
jelly. After some trials with different feeders or hanging dishes,
I finally bought some new ones that give a place to put oranges,
sugar water and grape jelly. Of course, my birds only want grape
jelly so I quickly stopped the other foods.

What happens to grape jelly when you have pouring rain beating on it?
It goes away quite quickly. Usually I can put less jelly and fill
more often in between the rain but this weather was not allowing
me to do this. The feeders have four indentations to put the jelly
in and four holes where they can access the sugar water underneath.
Well, guess what? I put the sugar water in but they couldn’t find
it? Once in a while their beak would miss and go in the hole but
they still did not realize they could access food that way. They
kept coming back to the feeders and then leaving disappointed.
I even put a small dot of jelly near the holes so they would miss and
put their beak in the hole. No such thing!!!

Please don’t laugh but I was even praying to God and the angels to
show them how to find the holes. It was a reminder to me that
I feed on the love energy when I see it but perhaps, there is
love energy just below what is visual. Am I like the birds? Do I
look further for spiritual food, can’t find it and all the time it
is just underneath what I can see. I then included myself in the
prayer that I be shown all the openings to love and to be loved.

Yesterday was a day of constant rain, no let up. The sugar water
in the hummingbird feeders needed to be changed so I went out in
the pouring rain, emptied them, washed them and refilled them with
fresh sugar water. I decided to wash the oriole feeders also
because their sugar water was not good any longer either. While I
was doing the hummingbird feeders I noticed an Oriole drinking from
its feeder so I decided to give it one more try. At least I would
feel like I had done everything possible to give them sustenance.
It didn’t work. I put my dripping jacket into the dryer.

This morning dawned dry so I went out even before I did my meditation
and prayers to put jelly in the Oriole feeders. During my prayers,
I could hear an Oriole doing a 5 note song and he did that several
times. I do not usually interrupt my prayers but I wanted to see
what the noise was about. Here I was standing at my bow window when
an Oriole flew to the window and landed on the hummingbird feeder.
I did not dare to even move a feather or he would have flown off. He
chirped a one note song a couple of times and then tried the hole
but his beak was just too big to get any sustenance. Mentally, I
kept telling him to go to the feeder I had just filled. He went to
it and tried twice to eat the jelly and then flew to a couple of
branches and kept trying to rub his beak as if he was trying to get
the jelly off.

It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the storm had blown him in
to my yard and he was only used to getting sugar water so he was
unfamiliar with the texture of grape jelly. He chirped a couple of
times as he went from branch to branch and suddenly flew off. He
was not familiar with the feeder so he had no idea that what he
was seeking was just below the jelly and the opening was right
next to where he was.

I thanked him for allowing himself to be the instrument of a message
from the Divine and hoped he found sustenance elsewhere. Or even
perhaps he was one of “my” birds that offered his services to me.

How many times do we look for what we need but just follow our
usual pattern instead of being brave enough to investigate other
methods or openings to our good? My Beloved Orioles certainly gave
me a lot of food for thought. A side note: I have been hearing a lot
of the 5 note songs this morning and I believe they are thanking me
for trying so hard to give them what they needed.

May your Memorial Day weekend be as thought provoking and happy
as mine is.

Love and Light

Mary Grace
www.IAmMaryGrace.com
 www.TheWoundedChalice.com
 http://www.waleson5.com/marygrace.html

PO Box 403
Wales, MA 01081, USA
413-245-3977