This is the hummingbird meditation.
It's a little different.
It's like a story.
So I'd like you to just relax.
Sit in your chair or on your pillow or lie down.
Just relax and as you listen to the story,
Try to place yourself into the story as if it's you telling the story to your dearest friend.
So as we begin,
Just let your body slowly relax.
Feel the ease and the calm coming from your breathing.
Take a few nice easy breaths and allow your body to relax both on the inhale and on the exhale.
Allow your body to relax.
Allow this meditation to pull you in and become part of the story.
This is the hummingbird meditation.
I start to notice things around me sitting in the sun with my coffee.
The sounds,
The sun,
The warmth and the coolness.
And I settle into my chair smelling and tasting my morning coffee in the New Mexico sun.
It's 30 degrees outside,
Which is about minus one centigrade.
But the sun makes it feel very warm and I'm perfectly comfortable sitting in this temperature.
I can feel the meditative state surfacing,
Settling,
Calming.
And the stillness allows me to hear the birds,
The crows,
The peepers.
And as I'm calming down even more,
I notice in the small bush in front of me,
The hummingbird on its perch.
I calm down a few steps more while I watch the hummingbird.
And he's watching me here on my porch.
Because we both know that the hummingbird feeder is closer to me here on my porch than it is to where he's sitting on that branch at the top of the bush.
I soften my predator eyes even more.
I allow my shoulders to relax even more.
I feel myself settling in one more stop,
One more level as the hummingbird watches me and I watch him.
And as I reach a certain point of stillness that I can actually feel,
The hummingbird takes off,
Swings to my right,
And then like a rocket comes zooming right to the feeder that is hanging in front of my face about five feet away.
I can feel inside of me the thrill,
The excitement I've always felt when I managed to be close to an animal in the wild.
I remember memories of sneaking up as close as possible to the deer in the forest.
I remember coming up behind birds before they could see me.
And there's a little bit of a thrill again here today because I can remember doing this and enjoying being close to wild animals.
The hummingbird is at the feeder.
He's tripping and sipping and drinking and sipping and drinking and chirping in between each sip.
And every time he raises his head,
He looks directly at me to make sure I haven't moved,
That I'm still no threat to him.
I stay calm and centered,
Watching him,
And he looks at me.
He takes one more sip of the sweet nectar,
And then he flies away again,
Back to his little perch on top of the bush,
And watches me,
And I watch him.
And then I hear the fluttering of another set of wings off to my right in the juniper tree.
And the wings come with a sound to a branch that's on the ground.
And I look out of the corner of my eye calmly,
Quietly.
There's a sparrow with a black hood,
And he hops closer to a branch that's right on the porch.
He hops closer,
So he's sitting in front of me,
Just three feet away,
Looking at me.
I want to stay calm,
Still,
Connected,
But there's an urge I've felt since I was a child,
And it comes on me again.
I want to communicate with this bird,
And that urge to stirs my calm just a little bit.
I purse my lips together,
And I make a chirping sound.
And as I make that sound,
A black hooded sparrow quickly flies away.
I guess it was too much.
And I think sometimes I go too far,
And I feel some sadness about that in my life.
I let the sadness roll through me.
As out of the corner of my eye,
A third bird shows up,
A small tanager,
Grayish with some purple,
And he's hopping from my left directly at my chair.
I calm down again,
Let go of that sadness.
And I watch him get closer,
Five feet,
Four feet,
Three feet away.
He hops closer as I'm calming down still,
Slowing myself,
Feeling the stillness.
And the tanager scoots directly underneath my chair,
Sitting in the sun with my coffee.
He scoots out the other side and looks up at me and flies quickly away,
Landing on a nearby tree.
The sun is still so warm.
And I look back,
And there's the hummingbird,
Sitting on his perch,
Watching me,
And I'm once again watching him.
It's quiet all around me.
The sun,
The stillness.
I take my last sip of coffee,
Take a slow and easy breath,
And I know that it's time to begin my day,
My work day.
And my secret wish is to keep the hummingbird with me all day long.
So I look back at him one final time as I stand up,
And he's watching me,
And I'm watching him.
I Thank You.
