It’s Christmas Eve and most folks are busy. Over time the spiritual values of the holiday, for religious and non-religious alike, has been taken over by stuff, presents to be given and received. Not that gift-giving is bad, but Christmas is about so much more than that. Even in the atheist home I was raised in we celebrated the Dickens out of Christmas! Fellowship and special lasagna, a decorated tree and, yes, presents.
I try now to have all my shopping done by Thanksgiving to avoid the madness. I remember when I was six months sober and went Xmas shopping – it was like being drunk again! That out-of-control madness – now I do my shopping during the year, and avoid Black Friday and the last-minute shopping rush. And I try to keep in the forefront of my mind that there are gifts, wonderful gifts, to be enjoyed every day that are outside the halls of commerce, that can’t be bought or sold.
For instance, all my life I went out to nature, and now I live in nature. Our Picture Rocks acre we call Wild Heart Ranch is home to three or four species of doves, Gambel’s quail, a second- or third-generation pair of cardinals, little birds I call chirpies whose real name, I recently found out, are verdins. Roadrunners visit on occasion. Anna’s and ruby-throated hummingbirds hit the feeders daily. There are rabbits, snakes, lizards, a family of Harris’s hawks who come around, and at night great horned owls hooting gently as they hunt. Not to mention the Coyote Jamboree when the moon first appears, or the first hint of dawn lightens the eastern sky, waking me in my bed on the back patio where the morning air is just so delicious!. Here are just a few of the gifts I’ve received:
COME TO MAMA: There was an abandoned bird nest in one of our trees and a cactus wren moved in to lay and hatch her eggs. One day I walked by and a fledgling — had feathers and could hop around but could not yet fly — had fallen out of the nest. Mama Wren was beside herself. I easily caught the little bird and replaced it in the nest while Mama watched intently, and quietly. Several days later I happened by and a fledgling, perhaps the same one, was again on the ground, but this time it had more hop-ability and escaped me into some bushes where I lost sight of it. Mama wren flew over and sat on the bush where her baby had hidden. She led me to it! That there was some sort of cross-species understanding and that she trusted me was an amazing gift!
FOR GOSH SNAKES: We’ve had numerous snakes here at Wild Heart, mostly harmless – king, bull, coachwhip – plus a few western diamondback rattlers and a sidewinder. They keep the rodent population down and are generally welcome and left alone. On the occasion where a rattler has entered our back patio and I couldn’t handle it myself we’ve called the Picture Rocks Fire Department. They captured it and took it out in the desert to release. But to the story:
A friend in town’s neighbor was moving and could not take their outdoor finch cage and its pair of occupants with them, so they ended up on our back patio. Eggs were laid and hatched and soon there were six finches. One morning I came out and there were only two finches…and a king snake with four bulges curled up in the nest digesting! I took the snake out – king snakes are pretty gentle if you don’t rile them – and gave him a lecture and turned him loose in the wildest corner of our acre.
We saw him several times over that summer, but meanwhile we had two young male finches, so we bought two female finches to keep them company. I came out one morning and there was our king snake climbing up the finch cage. Again I caught him, gave him The Lecture, and turned him loose. Returning to the patio there was his mate – who knew? – heading for the finch cage. Her markings were very different and she did not take as kindly to being caught, but I did it, and gave her The Lecture, and turned her loose. Raises interesting questions about reptilian learning and communication. A few weeks later one pair of finches were missing but there was no snake in the cage. They learn. We moved the last two inside.
That’s the way of it in the wild, and in civilization. Life, then death. The finches were simply easy prey for the snakes. I could accept that. The following summer we were walking the back half and saw an eight inch baby king snake, the spitting image of his father. So our finches helped bring another generation of king snakes into our world to help control the rodent, and maybe even the rattlesnake, population. That’s a gift.
DON’T CALL THEM BIRD-BRAINS: One morning Kait and I were getting ready to head to town for a movie and some errands and found a great horned owl with a broken wing next to the parking shelter. How she got there over the five-foot chain link fence that encloses the back half of Wild Heart I’ll never know. Kaitlin has a lot of experience with wildlife rehab, so she easily trapped the owl in a box while I called the Desert Museum for help. They referred me to a rehab place “over the hill” about a half-hour away.
We took the owl there and the vet said she had been shot – and there should be a special place in Hell for people who shoot raptors – and that the wing could not be saved. She hoped the owl could end up in an educational institution and live a protected life. We offered to keep her but that is illegal. So we left.
That evening I went to the parking area. There is a dead tree outside the fence, a snag for birds to roost on, and a larger great horned owl was sitting there, hooting gently, staring, it seemed, at the last place his mate had been. Those gentle hoots were the saddest sound I’ve ever heard.
IF YOU CAN’T LIVE IN NATURE: There is much joy to be found in the everyday: the laugh of a child, the taste of a good meal, or better yet, preparing a good meal that others enjoy. A slow walk in the desert to see what you can see, a full moon rising, an often-spectacular sunset. The satisfaction of a job well done. Music, of whatever genre stirs your soul or your body. A visit to the Desert Museum, and especially the stingless sting ray exhibit where you can actually let them touch you. A walk to Rose Lake on Mount Lemmon. Visits to Arizona’s early history at Empire Ranch and Kentucky Camp, or the Sasco ruins. Dancing in the kitchen with your darling. Bacon. It’s all there and available if you are open to it.
Good books and good movies can be a deep source of pleasure, and the Pima County Library can deliver anything in their extensive catalog to a local branch or bookmobile. Some library reads I’ve enjoyed recently include The Way Home, by George Pelecanos, writing as good as it gets about redemption; The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman; A Delicate Truth by John LeCarré; The Marriage Pact by mystery writer Michelle Richmond; Shadowbahn by surrealist Steve Erickson; and Paul Auster’s 4-3-2-1, four parallel stories about one person’s choices and the different life-paths they could set him on. If they don’t have a book you want, you can ask them to order it for you, and they often will.
A gift worth buying for yourself from an independent bookstore like Antigone in Tucson is Nick Hunt’s Where the Wild Winds Are, hikes in Europe to experience and document winds that have influenced history and geography. It’s a blend of experience and research, travelogue and adventure, with some of the best writing around. The author is one of the England-based Dark Mountain writers, and Dark Mountain 12 is out, Sanctum, refreshing looks at the sacred in the format of an ancient illuminated manuscript: http://dark-mountain.net/.
The best films I’ve seen recently are Disney/Pixar’s Coco, much more than a kid’s movie, and Jane, with extraordinary footage of Jane Goodall’s first contacts with chimpanzees – an amazing film about an amazing woman and amazing chgimpanzees. I’m grateful for The Loft Cinema in Tucson which brings in wonderful “little” and foreign films like Jane that are well worth seeing during bust-your-eardrums-blockbuster seasons.
CODA: There are many people who shared parts of their lives and knowledge with me over the years, deepening my connections to the natural world, to the pursuit of happiness, to finding joy in our often-crazy world. Their having been in my life is, perhaps, the greatest gift of all, and I am forever grateful.
Merry Christmas, Everybody. Peace on Earth, Good Will to All.