Using Gratitude & The Bluebirds of Happiness: Why not fly with them?

When I first met my wife I didn't know very much about bluebirds. Actually, 8 years later, I still don't know very much about Bluebirds, but I have seen them nest, lay eggs, hatch, learn to fly and come back the next season. And I mean to tell you, even if you knew nothing about them it's well worth the effort, just to observe these beautiful creatures.

As heartwarming as the experience is, it isn't what this hub is about...totally. Perhaps this quote explains my motive more succinctly; As long as there are bluebirds, there will be miracles and a way to find happiness. - Shirl Brunnel, I Hear Bluebirds, 1984

Long the mythological symbol of happiness, in this hub they are also the symbols of gratitude. With much humility I offer a short pictorial account of how gratitude and happiness are connected! I hope you enjoy!

Isn't life wonderful? To have the opportunity to be a part of it is reward enough. To experience it and to see it in its physical manifestation is, indeed, even more reason to be grateful for what we have been given.

The two eggs shown here were laid in a bluebird house in our backyard. We watched the parents come and go, building the nest one twig at a time. The parents also had to fend off other suitors for the house. They worked hard for the home. Once complete, the bluebirds nested, singing, flying in and out, and lo and behold before we knew it, two very beautifully blue eggs lay nestled in the warmth of pine straw beaming with an appreciation for being, anticipating the day of celebration.

Gratitude too, often takes some effort to achieve, even though it is as natural to our being as birth. The materials necessary to accomplish gratitude are all around us and available just like the twigs, the wood, the food and the mate required to build a bluebird's family. We are part of a world full of experience, full of living, loving moments, all of which are created to provide happiness and joy and just waiting to be noticed by a grateful heart. An new bluebird egg is easy to miss. How many have you seen in your lifetime? So too, are the moments which provide opportunity for gratefulness; they are all around us, in our homes, in our hearts and in our minds, waiting for our attention to be born. Look into the eyes of the people near you; look into your community and your world and you will begin to see the eggs of gratitude.

It didn't take long and before we knew it, the eggs became fledglings, chirping the songs of joy, panting with the hope of flight to a bright new world. Gratefulness also takes flight, seeking a song and a singer of joy. When we express gratitude for what we have, see, experience and do, we help the feeling associated with it perpetuate itself, preparing to burst into song just as the immature does as it prepares to wing its way for the first time through the hole which once acted as its protector from a predatory world.

How could we not appreciate this beauty in its most natural and raw form? The bluebirds are so graceful, so pure, so enthusiastic and so open about being. The art of being grateful reflects a truth just as graceful, pure, enthusiastic and open as the blend of misty blue, white and rust colored feathers of a young bird ready to share its happiness with an unsuspecting world.

It seems to me that there are only two responsibilities when it comes to sowing the seeds of a grateful heart. One, being aware that it does exist within each of us and two, nourishing and nurturing it to the fullest. No simple task, unless we understand that gratitude is as natural to our existence as air and perhaps twice as profitable.

Gratitude, like the freedom of the adult bluebird traveling anywhere to feed and nest, very often returns to the place it originated, seeking to fulfill it's own destiny in a friendly and hospitable environment. Incidentally, there was no greater joy for my wife and I than to see the return of the bluebirds to the prior years nesting site in our back yard. So too, the reward when the effect of gratitude makes its way home to your heart. The bluebirds not only returned but, it seems, so too did the offspring. Ah, the power of nature and the grateful heart, building its own community within each of us. It's beauty is indescribable, its sense of inspiration - awesome, and the product of its application awe-inspiring.

If this piece was too abstract, I apologize. As writers we act as wordsmiths crafting a visualization, touching one or all of the senses and pricking the imagination to experience its own outlet. For me, however, gratitude and its impact as well as its fruit is often undefinable, it simply is a part of the miracle that cannot be explained, the mystery only to be appreciated and enjoyed!

Thank you, for stopping by and sharing this moment in time with me! I am truly grateful and...Happy! I hope you are toooooo!