In all of my life I have never seen a real live dove. Early this morning I saw 2 on a rooftop opposite my house. And I hope as time passes I will always remember how blessed I felt.
While going out of my house yesterday, I saw a plant near my gate next to the road which had blossomed with yellow flowers. The yellowness was so intense and impressive, that I just stood for some time nearby and enjoyed the sight. And I observed a tangible fullness in my heart after watching the flowers. Recently a thought just went through my mind that flowers are the artwork of the Divine , and trees are the sculptures. And animals , birds and fish are the living clay models or statues. There is a very wise American native proverb that goes thus, ' When a man moves away from nature his heart becomes hard. ' So nature coming to us directly in the form of birds and flowers and so on, may be the Divine's way of filling up our hearts dried by so-called civilization.
I think they're ugly and too reminiscent of a pigeon in which I wouldn't at all be surprised if it belonged to the same family. Nothing beats the look of a good old hawk.
There was a Sikh Guru called Guru Gobind Singh who lived in the seventeenth century, and who used to hold hawks in his arm. But he still had a soft corner for the doves and sparrows. The Guru stated then , "Only then shall I be called Guru Gobind Singh, when I make the sparrows hunt down the hawks and a single Sikh (Singh) fight a legion.". The Guru is noted in history for fighting against tyrant rulers who persecuted the common people . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Gobind_Singh
We get quite a few Eurasian Collared Doves around here. Bit like a pigeon, but smaller and more graceful. Not that I have anything against pigeons.
Lot's Of Doves Here Too.....Along With Dozens Of Australian Native Birds...... Birdseed....Mince....Bread....All Add Up To Quite A Few Dollars A Month.........But When It Gets To The Point Where They Land On Your Arm Methinks It's All Worth It....... Cheers Glen.
seen em. always cool to see something other then humans. especially if its some kind of living thing you haven't seen before. oddly enough of all the living things i've seen in the wild, the one thing, other then those who are only on other continents seperated by oceans, i haven't seen in its natural habitat, is a fox. which just seems to me so completely odd that i haven't. i'd like to see them, on their own, seeing me, from however far away it took for them to feel safe from me. doves are ok, but i don't have the same kind of special feeling for them that i would for foxes. i don't dislike birds, but i'm not really big on them either. i think its wonderful when something wild on its own chooses to trust you, as long as people don't abuse that trust.
Went through an article by Swami Sukhabodhananda, a spiritual master today. Here is an excerpt... I feel this sentence by Sukhabodhananda is highly relevant , ' The whole of nature is alive and not seeing this magical presence is being dead. Take it as a discipline to see the miracle of life and you will feel connected and live a natural life. ' We should thus take it as a day to day discipline and part of daily routine to spend some time with nature, and not just wait for chance events. But the fact is that we are often engrossed in intellectual and sensory pleasures, and hence miss the connection and commitment to be with nature.
We only know nature through the senses, and seeing a beautiful tree, bird or animal is a sensory experience. I agree though that it's good to spend time in a natural setting. The problem is that isn't always easy for people living in busy cities. City parks aren't really 'nature' although they may get closer to it than the streets. Having one's own garden is good, but again far removed from nature in the wild. Seems that the closest a lot of people nowadays get to nature is watching Attenborough or other wildlife documentaries.
I live in the woods, of course I have a real house and a long driveway to connect to the "outside world" when I need to... but i'd rather not. While I agree that we know nature only through the senses, there can be a deeper sense of nature, more like our ancestors had if we can just slow down and accept it. There in lay spirituality... Most people never let themselves do this...
I know what you mean about a deeper sense of nature. Living in town. it can be hard to connect, but I find I do get that sense when I go out into the countryside sometimes. The trouble with England is that there isn't much wild country. Mostly farm land near where I live. Even when I lived in a small country village it was the same. Unless I wanted to walk on roads, I had to drive at least 5 miles to get to where I could walk actually on the land. And guess what? Others have the same idea, everyman and his dog - so really it's only if I drive right up into the Welsh hills I can actually be alone in nature. But I think that once you've felt that connectedness it never entirely leaves you.
That sense is there in the city as well though, it's a very different experience to that of natural serenity - I find it's similar to riding a bigass wave. The intensity found in urban environments is raw and primally exhilarating. Kinda like really dirty sex.
Viewing nature can be a superficial sensory experience (as one sees a cinema) and even an intellectual experience as one starts dissecting a beautiful rose into petal, stamen, anther and so on.... There are some who listen to loud music of radios in the midst of nature as well. What is emphasized here is the state of connectedness with the natural essence of things found in nature. Here's an excerpt from Eckhart Tolle's book Stillness Speaks, where he describes the necessity and importance of perceiving nature with a still mind instead of a mind lost in thought.
Used all my likes. Lovely posts all of them. My doves were white which I don't think I mentioned. Thought it was a large CCTV camera, till the other one came. I live in a town and I have seen a few foxes on a night time themnax.
that's cute - if they had black rings on their necks they were african doves - very common in south usa they love shiny gold things and they also return during season to the same spots and mate for life i used to be insomniac so i would smoke on my steps 24/7 in theory and two doves for a number of years would sit on the lines across the street one year i was burning incense as i smoked and stuck the package with a gold sun on the pkg front in the ground and the sun shone and the doves swooped down and were mesmerized at my feet (by the gold packaging in the morning sun) while i smoked i gave smoking up
Wow. Well done to stopping smoking. No, no rings around their necks. I live in England. The twitchers would be camping out on my street!
Accepting the beauty of things is necessary as is the acceptance of the ugly. So often we see only one or the other. A dove is beauty, ugly, clumsiness and elegance, and so many other things. A hawk is the silence of the kill and the pounding heat of life in the death. Naming is needed. Yet it shouldn't be all
