Birds Seem Drawn To Quiet Souls

A Golden-crowned Kinglet doesn't care if you're rich or good looking.

People who have grown used to the perks of being treated better than others don’t always love a leveling landscape (any scenario or system that treats everyone more or less, equally). They like being treated ‘better,’ and ‘special,’ and over time, many come to see that ‘better’ treatment as something they deserve. It becomes a part of the fabric of them, essential to their sense of self-esteem.

Yesterday morning’s walk: a busy little, Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa), flew in close and then searched every little crevice for something tasty and nutritious. My presence seemed of miniscule concern. That I was ‘ignorable’ was easily the gift of the day.

One of the beauties of the company of birds is that they simply do not care about a hundred things we humans unthinkingly use to measure ourselves and others on a daily basis: the scars that make us flinch just a little each time we see ourselves in a mirror, the speech impediments that we’ve never quite gotten past, our receding hairlines, our net worth and/or annual salary, that angry pimple on the side of our nose, the painful, arthritic limp, that extra ten pounds we picked up while grazing those ubiquitous treat tables over the holiday season, the honors cords or lack of them hanging on the wall with our advanced-degree diplomas, or lack of either.

I have never yet met a chickadee that would be more impressed if I drove a new, top of the line, Tesla than a twenty-year-old Toyota. Or that cared if my puffy jacket was this year’s Patagonia.

What they do seem to notice (and I humbly offer this with a lifetime of closely noted encounters coaching me), is the energy cloud that surrounds me, the swirl of unspoken anger, resentment, jealousy, fear. The sense of superiority. The energetic incense of calm, of ‘I mean you no harm’ curiosity, the willingness to stop whatever important or self-important thing I might be doing, to say hello, to appreciate their brave approach, to simply stop moving, or to respectfully grant them a wider space in passing.

Birds seem drawn to quiet souls. They seem to understand respect.

And when they are not all tied up in the many chores necessary to their own survival, they seem unerringly able to ferret out the energetic signatures of others.

Want to know more about yourself? Watch how birds react toward you. Look beyond their natural, overall caution toward humans and into the subtleties. See how it changes, if only slightly from day to day, depending on you, your state of mind, your presence in the moment, your decided willingness to quiet yourself and listen. Birds are quite nuanced judges of character. They can be the candle flame to help you see, either the faint breeze or harried wind your presence in their world stirs up.

Someone has just scared up a small, flying nibble. More often than not, at least for me, Golden-crowned Kinglets are faint, disembodied and high-pitched little voices moving invisibly in the high canopy of the forest. It is such a treat when one comes close enough to observe and for whatever reason decides it does not need to be a flitting, zipping blur of hurried energy. Some days our realities manage to hover near one another, absent any compulsion to run away. Yesterday was one of those days. Birds seem drawn to quiet souls.