Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Power of ZOOM or The Luxury of Fearlessness

A hummingbird came to investigate me on the deck this morning, where I sat with my first cup of coffee, still and silent, reading Physics for Future Presidents. (Don't ask. It's for book club, in the interests of being neighborly---the Good Neighbors Bookclub, to be precise.)

But how is it that so often two things converge coincidentally in one's awareness so as to give an extra punch to one's understanding? In this case it was the hummingird's behavior against the backdrop of my reading.

The sun was up. I was aware of the activity at the red-globed feeding station but chose to ignore it, engrossed as I was in Muller's explanation of the relationship between energy and power.
Engrossed and ignoring, that is, until a female hummer came to a full hovering stop in front of me---close enough that I could hear the hum of her wings, which is what arrested my attention---and close enough to be within the short range focus of my reading glasses, about eighteen inches from my face.

We looked directly into each other's eyes, in sharp focus, she and I.

It was a spectacular moment, full of fearless curiosity---a luxury afforded a hummingbird only by its remarkable ability to go from the proverbial zero to sixty in an instant---that is, to rapidly transform and multiply its energy into power. The power of sudden speed. A hummingbird could not thus check me out had it not the ability to ZOOM if I moved. It all lends an interesting perspective on the powerful vs. the powerless relative to size---and to world peace. dkm

3 comments:

hannahmiller said...

FABULOUS! it must be those red glasses!

dkm said...

aha! do you think? could be! they came to the new red globe within the hour---

but no---I was wearing the old brown ones---

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