Messages from Hummingbird

My fruit trees are busting out with apples and pears, and the squirrels, magpies and deer are feasting on what I don’t gather. Days are still hot, but nights are cooler. The elementary school is alive once again with the laughter and shouts of kids;

the bell rings regularly. I bought a 4-foot ceramic colored fountain for the little side yard under my kitchen window – the window that faces the school. The fountain graces the raised flower box that is blooming fuscia bougainvillea, rosemary, columbines and bluish-white hydrangea – it’s my little corner of Italy.

I hung a hummingbird feeder the other day, but I noticed it wasn’t getting use. Online I read to tie a red ribbon on the feeder to call attention to it – and it’s true the elegant feeder did not have enough red, but as soon as I tied the ribbon and walked back into my house, a hummingbird appeared to drink! After he drank his fill, he flew towards me and hovered by the window long enough for me to say: “You’re welcome. Come back any time!”

Who says Dr. John Dolittle is fictional? Speaking with animals requires nothing more than changing the frequency. If there is someone in my family who currently does not have animals as part of their circle, it is because they are in transition in some way. Animals are important to our tribe. My grandmother Mutti occasionally put my ailing parakeets under a spell and operate out their tumors. I stood by to hand her

what she needed, or to hold the tumor that she would later dissect. My other grandmother, Nonnie, rescued her one-eyed cat, Taffy, from a dumpster – it had been shot, but she nursed it back to life and he lived many years. Aunt Helena (pictured here to the right) spent years caring for dogs, cats and rehabilitating a wide array of wild birds - a bathroom was converted into an aviary.

But it was my childhood mentor, Elizabeth Lukather, (a Karate Kid sort of mentor) who taught me that animals really do talk to and listen to us. They might not know our language, but they still understand the intention. She once opened her front door and found a huge snake curled on the steps. She told it that she was going to close the door and give it half an hour to go find another resting place. When she opened the door again, it was gone. It helps to show the animal a picture of what you would like it to do. When I can’t handle a bigger issue between my animals, I call in JoLee Wingerson, an official animal communicator and owner of Spirit Whispering (www.spirit-whispering.com) and she’s taught me some tricks of the trade.

Granted screaming “SIT!” at a dog doesn’t count as communication and will only make him think you are trying to bark louder than he can. Training, like the kind Cesar Millan or the book Raising Your Dog with the Monks of New Skete promotes, is the greatest gift we can give a dog. To become his leader diminishes a dog’s anxiety and

will extend his life by a few years. Similarly, my daughter, Bella, studied with Buck Branaman (left), featured in the documentary BUCK, now appearing in theaters. These great teachers are able to convey, without aggression, to the dogs or horses that we are on their side and there is nothing to fear. As a result, the animals relax and respond to our requests.

This morning as I watched the tiniest hummingbird I have ever seen take a poop bigger than a raven’s, I was using the end of a lime to watch the sides of my sink. I was thinking how weird the germ fanatic culture was when I was growing up – people were slaves to the media and Clorox as though nature is dirty or being clean and using chemicals meant everything else would fall into place. I remember how amazing I thought my Aunt Judy was for having a couple of her babies under a tree. (At least that's what I remember - if it wasn't under a tree then it was something close.)

Unfortunately, I was still chained to the cultural norm when I had my kids. I want to do it all over and have my babies on a blanket on the grass, under the hummingbirds and pine trees and bougainvillea who would instruct me because the more I listen to the plants and animals, the more I hear and the less the culture has the ability to lull me into its clinical spell.