signs, patterns and synchronicities: what are they telling you?

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Lots of seemingly insignificant things happen during during our busy days—especially when we spend our time caring for others. But those unusual, repeated and timely happenings may have important messages for us. I experienced a string of noteworthy little events recently and turned them into useful daily self-care tools.

As I usually do when I return from my walk, one warm and sunny early June day I headed for the paddock to visit our pet cows, Blossom and LouLou. A few days prior I had hung our buffet bird feeder—a combination holder for an orange half, sweet nectar and jelly for those fruit-lovers—and I could see a hummingbird perched there as I approached the tree it was hung in near the paddock gate. As I walked toward the tree I wondered how long the little bird would stay still—it’s rare for a hummer to remain on a feeder for more than a minute. When I was close enough to touch it and it still hadn’t departed, I knew something was wrong. He was stuck in one of the shallow pools of jelly.

My heart sank, and I knew I had to do something. The jelly couldn’t have been more than a quarter of an inch deep, but it was enough to prevent his tail feathers from giving him his all-important lift off. I cradled him in my hands as I washed him off in our birdbath with my husband’s help, marveling at his iridescent coloring. We could see that he had also lost some tiny feathers around his wings, and I was afraid that wouldn’t help his situation.

I called the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, and a wildlife rehabilitation specialist said I could bring him right over. We lined a small box with some soft cloth for him, and I was buoyed to feel him getting more and more active inside it as I held it on my lap during the 45-minute drive. After we dropped him off I waited nearly 48 hours before calling to check in on him and learning that he had lived about 36 hours before taking his last little breath. “Hummingbirds are very fragile, so it’s hard for them to survive injury,” a VINS staffer explianed. “You did the right thing.”

For the next several days I watched the hummingbirds at my homemade mason-jar nectar feeders (I threw the fruit buffet in the trash as soon as we returned from Hartford), wondering if it seemed like there were fewer visitors. One is about 20 feet from my fair-weather workspace on the front porch, next to the hanging flowers our kids gave me for Mother’s Day, so I can hear them approach and sip. I’ve always loved seeing these birds buzz about, and now it seemed even more important to watch over our neighborhood flock.

This event was unusual enough to give me pause and consider what messages it might have for me. I usually research spirit animal meanings when I have a noteworthy meetup with a creature, but I held some sadness in my heart for several days about the bird’s passing, and wasn’t ready to dig deeper until about a week later.

My friend Tawnia Converse from A Soulful Space was guiding our Wednesday Wellness practice-and-conversation meetup on the audio-only Clubhouse app, and the weather was so nice that I decided to try participating from my porch workspace. Because I wouldn’t be leading that day I knew I could stay muted and the others in the room wouldn’t hear the occasional passing trucks or barks from our dog. It was a warm morning—too hot for Zoey to be sitting in the direct sun—and as I headed back to my chair after settling her inside something shiny in the grass caught my eye. It was a hummingbird, lying still near the porch steps, unblinking.

I took my seat to join in on Tawnia’s powerful guided meditation (she has a gift for descriptive language), but I was eager to get her take on my discovery. When she opened up the room for conversation I recounted my stories.

Clubhouse is a lovely way to connect with other like-minded souls openly in real time, and the room that hosts our Wednesday Wellness meetup at 11 a.m. Eastern Time—A Place for Wellness—has allowed me to receive some beautiful and timely teachings, as well as to share the practices I love. Tawnia and I started Wednesday Wellness with our colleague Colleen Jorgensen from Stillness in Motion as a way to incorporate our own self care into our business (as well as personal) goals, and it has more than delivered.

Talking about what had happened that day in this space felt right, and brought some interesting insights, too. .“A hummingbird can’t walk on its legs—it can only hop or perch, with no in-between speed,” Tawnia pointed out. “Both of the birds you found were finally still,” her husband Lee added.

I buried this hummingbird in my newly seeded wildflower garden. So once again I found myself with a tiny creature in my palm, remembering the conversation my dad and I had a few weeks prior about how neither of us had ever held a hummingbird. This one had most likely accidentally struck a post on our porch—when multiple birds show up to feed things can get a little tense as the hummers zig and zag for dominant position. I took my time to lay his little body down, memorializing the moment for both of us.

Hummingbird’s are almost constantely in motion—the two I touched this year had been stilled by an external force. With a nod to my 2021 word of the year, I’ve rituatized Hummingbirds’ visits to my nearby feeder by stopping whatever I might be doing when I hear the bee-like buzz of their wings. Each time, I pause to watch as Hummingbird drinks, taking a mindful breath or two for myself as I observe the little creature’s own version of stillness. It’s a regular reminder of the in-between—the place between activity and quiet, the spaces between inhales and exhales.

Although my Hummingbird meetings were noteworthy, they weren’t the only pattern of events I noticed in recent months. I’ll share another interesting series of happenings in my next blog post. In the meantime, consider similar events in your own life—maybe there’s a teachable moment there for you, too.

Consider joining us in A Place for Wellness on Clubhouse. The mobile app is now available on both iPhones and Androids, but as of this writing participation is still invite-only. I always have invitations to share, so reach out to let me know if you’d like to tune in to our free weekly sessions.