Observing Nature with Openness and Receptivity

During one of my 90 or so nature trips to Toronto, Ontario's vast Tommy Thompson Park, I was stopped by one of two women who said "We have come to look at the monarch butterflies. Have they all gone south?" She added that it was wonderful that the park had developed totally spontaneously, that nothing was planted and that it just grew.

I replied that I had not seen many monarchs that day, but that I had just seen two red-tailed hawks. She did not seem interested in the hawks; it had to be butterflies. I later thought that if she had been spontaneous, she would have been glad to see any species which was there - that it did not have to be a particular kind at a particular time. I did not get a chance to tell her that if you go with what is, you end up seeing a lot. Each visit is a different experience, with new birds or butterflies to see or new flowers in bloom.

The hawks had been fascinating. The pair of them flew over me and circled around, with one of them in particular taking in every detail about me. They impressed me as being very aware. I had had a similar experience at the Vancouver Aquarium,when I was looking through a window at a killer whale swimming around and it came over and sized me up. It seemed to know everything about me!

Any creature which gets its food by being a predator has to be very alert and know what its prey is going to do. Another time I saw a coyote at Tommy Thompson Park and, even though it was a hot, summer day and the coyote was not moving very fast, it was looking in all directions and taking everything in. It had a sharpness about it which was far superior to any domestic dog. I realized that I had probably been observed by coyotes many times, without even knowing it, while I was looking at the birds, butterflies and flowers. They have certainly mastered the ability to observe with openness and receptivity whatever comes along, and we could learn much from them about how to enhance the richness of our own experience.

As for the monarch butterflies, there were plenty of times that I watched them too. One time, on what is called Peninsula A, I saw 14 monarchs on one Canada goldenrod plant, and lots of them on other plants too. They looked very beautiful, and they were filling up on nectar for their long trip south.