Lovingly Tended
Lessons from a backyard robin
There’s a robin I’ve been watching for months now. She perches on a rod iron fence in my parents’ backyard. She’s brought twig after twig, bits of fabric and leaves. Weaving together a home. Nesting. The last time I looked, there were two blue eggs.
Have you ever peered into a nest out of wonder and delight only to be accosted by the fierce chirps of a mama bird, swooping in to protect her eggs?
“Lovingly tended”, our invitation for the month of May, sounds soft and fragile at first. And yet, as I’ve watched this robin, carrying twigs larger than her body, keeping guard over her nest, and now on the hunt for food to feed the gaping mouths of her young, I know to lovingly tend is to love with ferocity, persistence, and resilience. Paying attention to and enacting the details of what brings life. To lovingly tend (and be lovingly tended) is a precious gift.
I wonder if the softness and fragility comes from what being lovingly tended to provides. A place of protection, safety, and care in which one can be vulnerable and new. To be in a place of beginning knowing that there is someone preparing, protecting, and providing for this start. Weaving together a space for it to be birthed and grow strong enough to take flight.
What would it look like for us to be lovingly tended to by ourselves?
What in you is beginning— fragile and soft? What does it look like for you to weave together a space of safety and home for this new birth? To fiercely protect it long enough to be born and grow strong? What does it look like to lovingly tend this place in yourself? What would it feel like to say with confidence, I am lovingly tended?
Breathe In: Lovingly
Breathe Out: Tended
We started this year in January with the phrase: beloved. Here’s an almost midyear invitation to revisit this intention. A year to embrace your belovedness. And now, an invitation to let it take root, sprout new life, and bloom.
A Blessing to Lovingly Tend
May you lovingly tend to your belovedness.
May your beginnings be fiercely protected as they develop the strength to take flight.
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What a poignant reflection and invitation for spring time, eloquently expressed, as always. I love seeing life through your eyes. This topic of tending resonates for me in a season where, yet again, I am learning to tend to myself not just in what I do, but in what I choose not to do. Enter the fierceness of your Mama Robin protecting the nest; I must also tend to myself by saying no, even to seemingly "good" things, in an effort to protect my belovedness - my precious life energy. Maybe I need to simply rest. Maybe that work relationship isn't the best fit. Maybe I need to hang back from that gathering because what I really need is some solitude and reflection. Maybe I don't like how I feel in that particular situation. In saying no, I also make room for yes's that take into full account, my beloved me, the preciousness of my "nest" - my soul. We are meant for abundance. I like the invitation to tend to ourselves accordingly - and even fiercely.