MAY - THE MONTH OF WISHES

 by Judy Ann Davis

 "May is the month or expectation, 

the month of wishes, 

 the month of hope.”—Emily Bronte

It’s the merry month of May. The flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and the warmth of the sun beckons us outside to smell the newly mowed grass. It’s the dig-in-the-dirt month, too. Everyone is scouring the nurseries for flowers and plants to decorate their porches and flowerbeds and for their gardens.                                                      

Most nights, we can hear our resident owl hooting away, often beyond midnight. He’s taken up a nightly position nearby our bedroom window, possibly on the roof of the house. It’s a comforting, if not slightly eerie sound to lull you to sleep.

  I always have too many projects in half-started  states when spring arrives. The birdhouses have to be cleaned, refurbished, and set out. My hummingbird feeder is now suspended along our patio for early arrivals. The robins are nesting under our deck and in the rhododendrons. The aggravating grackles have returned, chasing away the small birds at the feeders. The sparrows have taken over the bluebird house. The chaos has begun for our springtime feathered friends.

Central Pennsylvania is in the migrating path of orioles heading north, and I was lucky to catch an orange flash of one clinging to the hummingbird feeder the other morning.

Our weather has also been erratic during the entire month with more rain than usual.  Rainy days teaches us to slow down. It’s nature’s way of telling us to shift to a more unhurried pace, interrupting our rush to get things done, but allowing us to experience the joy of spring. If we are lucky, we may even be rewarded with a rainbow stretching from horizon to horizon above budding and blooming trees in hues of green, white, lavender, and pink. 

Do you have a favorite month...or even months?

Oh, how I love the colorful month of May with warmer temperatures and beautiful landscapes here in Pennsylvania!                  

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Dream Work

by Rain Trueax

 at the entrance to the Native American section at Arizona State Museum

Some keep dream journals. It seems a good idea. I don't and mostly it's because when I wake at night I want to go right back to sleep. Sometimes I remember a dream long enough to tell my husband. I count on that to hold the dream for a while. It doesn't always work. I've wondered many times why certain characters show up in my dreams, often nobody I know in real life at all and nobody I had been thinking about. Dreams are really the brain having fun with us. Maybe the energy of the dream stays with us even when we forgot the details.

When I've remembered a particularly interesting dream with some surprising elements, in the morning, I will head for an online Dream Dictionary to see if it has a message from the muse or my subconscious. 

With full moons, my dreams are often particularly vibrant, colorful and unique. With the world outside so troubled, having a dream that promises something good, is of great value. I had this one some years ago.

The hummingbirds were all around. When my cat caught one, I got it away, assessed it was unharmed, and freed it. It flew to land on my shoulder. 

Since hummingbirds flit around our house all the time, to dream of them isn’t unexpected. The unique part was its landing on my shoulder. Surely, that would have a message-- not that I found. I even went so far as to look for birds landing on your shoulder. Apparently, that doesn’t happen often enough in a dream for a meaning. They did though have one, which if this ever happens to me I’ll be sure and remember-- if you dream a bird got its beak stuck in your neck, it means you have been gossiping too much! 

In books, when it fits, I have used my own dreams as dreams for a character. Some of my dreams are like watching a movie with characters and plots. One gave me an opening scene, and I saw what the hero looked like, for a contemporary romance that became Her Dark Angel. Another led to my paranormal, Diablo Canyon. If a movie dream interests me enough, they don’t all, I spend the usual time figuring out the flesh of the story as they are very much bare bones. Logic is not required for a dream but definitely is needed in a book.

Some years back in a dream, I was told I had been a Yaqui in an earlier life. The people in the dream (none of whom did I know) told me that they were my family and in the next room was my Yaqui soul mate. The dream ended before I went through that door. I did a digital painting though of what I had felt in the dream. It was peaceful, beautiful and very connected to community and the land.

My interest in the Yaqui culture has led to collecting books, like the two below, on their view of their place in the cosmos: 

Yaqui Deer Songs Maso Bwikam, a Native American Poetry 

by Larry Evers & Felipe S. Molina 

Yaqui Myths and Legends by Ruth Warner Giddings

The Yaqui concept of the five enchanted worlds and their teaching regarding seatakaa (more on it in Yaqui Deer Songs) are at the heart of their culture even today when many of them practice Catholicism but have not left behind rituals like the Deer Dance. 

from the Yaqui section in the Arizona State Museum 

Yaqui characters and their beliefs have been in some of my Arizona historicals and the paranormals. Learning about a people connected to spirituality and nature seems particularly beneficial to think on right now for our own troubled times. 

Some years back, for our desert home, we found several what I see as deer dancer figures that had been created in Mexico. One is at our front door here. One is where we feed the birds. They offer comfort to me as giving me a little of what the creator perhaps imagined when putting the metal together.

In two of my historicals, Yaqui culture plays a part-- [The Marshal's Lady] where the heroine is very interested in spirituality and what might be. In [Forbidden Love], the hero is Yaqui in a time where that's causing some to be suspicious of him for an earlier Yaqui uprising in Mexico.  In the contemporary, witch family, the Hemstreets, they are descendants of that earlier Yaqui hero. Mysticism is in many Native American cultures.

Dangerous Match

Vislogus

Complicated Bargain

Unfinished Business

Ever as Before

FEBRUARY - National Bird Feeding Month

 by Judy Ann Davis

 For me, feeding the birds is a natural stress-free and entertaining activity. There is nothing more exciting then to see a new species of bird appear at your feeder or to see the colorful finches, cardinals, and blue jays mingle with the common song sparrow that sings a cheery tune in the bushes outside the windows. Often, when I write my books, I insert the song of a bird or a specific bird call in the story to make the setting seem more real.

Finches and Woodpecker 

It is estimated that one-third of the U.S. adult population feeds wild birds in their backyards. For many, it’s a fun activity that can be enjoyed by children and adults alike and encourages bird watching as a hobby. It also allows wild birds a supplement to their natural diet of weed seeds and insects while offering entertainment and relaxation for the human population.

In 1994, Congressman John Porter, of  Illinois, introduced a resolution to recognize February as National Bird Feeding Month. This is the time, in cold climates, when many birds need the most help with their food supplies as well as a place to find available water.

Cardinal

For young children, bird feeding and watching, is an excellent educational experience. They can identify the different species of birds, use a field guide, learn the feeding and living habits of birds, do research projects and reports, and most of all—have a pleasant interaction with adults.  With the use of a digital camera, they can chronicle the various types of birds with pictures, learning the skill of photography as well.

Song Sparrow

If you’ve not tried bird feeding as a hobby, give it a whirl. It’s like having your own wildlife reality show where the characters change every few minutes and their antics and songs keep you entertained.

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