The Ukraine…..Hawfinch!!!......The Earth….From ‘Emergence’ Magazine….
by Bernie Bell - 09:22 on 09 April 2024
The Ukraine…
https://earthlogs.org/2024/04/06/the-first-europeans-at-the-ukraine-hungary-border/
‘We be of one blood, ye and I‘ – Rudyard Kipling.
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We Saw A Hawfinch!
Yesterday evening I looked out the front window, admiring the fine evening. There was an odd bird perched on the cross-bar of the bird feeder – one I’d never seen before. So I called Mike to look. He thought it was a Hawfinch - though he’d never actually seen one either.
It flew off across the garden, and we got out our ‘Readers Digest Field Guide to the Birds of Britain’ and there it is on page 286 - the bird that had been perched on the cross-bar. The description fits perfectly….. “Adult male appears heavy-headed, and has a mainly chestnut body, with black and white wings.” There is also mention of its extra-ordinary beak. Not easily mistaken - we are dead chuffed!
This prompted a lot of discussion about whether ‘our’ Hawfinch was blown off course by the recent storms – or if they are moving North, as many creatures are doing as the climate changes. They’d have to adapt – there aren’t many nut trees in Orkney, so they might go more for seeds. Also – talking of how some of Darwin’s research was prompted by observing finches and their beaks.
A few years ago it would have been unimaginable to see an Egret in Orkney – but now there are quite a few.
Mike has added this to his list to send to Steve Dudley, the Orkney Bird Recorder. If anyone reading this would like to contribute to the Orkney Bird records, you can email Steve at orkneybirdrecorder (at) gmail (dot) com.
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The Earth…
…is being lively….
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-68752290
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From ‘Emergence’ Magazine….
An Interview with Susan Murphy Roshi
“The fundamental koan is the Earth, which is also inseparable from the fundamental human koan of what is this self? They are the same koan in a way. They heal into each other, like medicine and sickness do.”
“The precarity of our world is forcing us to relinquish certainty and embrace what lies beyond the edges of our understanding. When there is no solid ground to stand on, we can be opened to the wholeness of reality in which all things are interconnected. “When the wind blows, the downy willow seed floats away” is a Zen koan that points towards a way of being where we are not separate from, but completely seamless with the flow of the universe. Receptive to the wind, the seed moves, teaching us to be in poised readiness to the changing forces of which we are ultimately a part.
Immersing us in the ancient tradition of koan, Australian writer and Zen teacher Susan Murphy Roshi shares the power of the not-knowing mind to open a treasury of resources for shifting our consciousness amid the climate crisis. A koan, she says, has the power to unfold us in much the same way crisis unfolds us; to bring us into greater intimacy with a reality in which we are seamless with all of creation. Speaking to the fact that the Earth Herself is a koan waiting to be known, Susan beckons us to say yes to uncertainty and reclaim an understanding of ourselves as part of the Earth’s mystery.”
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I was thinking – humans used to adapt to the land – and that worked. Then they started to try to make the land, and the waters, adapt to them – and that doesn’t work.
It’s now catching up with us – big time.
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