The importance of present moment awareness — lessons from a Willy Wagtail
That little fellow riding the kangaroo is the Willy Wagtail. The picture describes the little creature well — brave, curious, tiny and very intelligent. Found largely in Australia and Polynesia, this intrepid bird has a tendency to wander into where people congregate and just hang around. Thus the Aboriginal term for this bird that means “stealer of secrets”.
Recently, I observed a Willy Wagtail in action. This time, though, she was in trouble. She had flown into a mesh of almost invisible streamers at a local fair in the neighbourhood.
She panicked initially at the shock. But she did something very different to possibly another bird species in this situation. She stayed relatively still unlike other birds who would flutter ferociously and further get entangled.
This made the process of helping her out significantly easier.
Did she unknowingly practice present-moment awareness? Did she accept that specific moment completely and chose not to fight it?
Humans are equally culpable, if not worse than a tiny Stealer of Secrets. We live in the would-have been, could-have-been or what-if moments, than accepting the current moment completely as is.
What happens when one surrenders to the current moment as is?
There is liberation for the current moment from what it could have been. There is better alertness and increased focus on making this second better than the next moment, and the moment. Just like the Willy Wagtail, one isnt fighting and getting further entangled, making the process of getting out of it difficult and more arduous.
There is much to learn from an intelligent, little bird.
