MAKE LIKE A HUMMINGBIRD

The above painting is by Roderick MacIver. For more info visit http://www.herondance.org/

My mom just found out that her cancer is back. Over this past year she has had surgery (most of her colon removed) and five months of chemo. In January the cancer was supposedly all taken care of, but now in March, she has a "bellyful of tumors," as her doctor told her. She has an appointment with a well-respected oncologist at UNC next week. It all seems too big to think about, too overwhelming. The usual tendency is to wait until we get the doctor's opinion and treatment plan. My personal tendency is to learn all about whatever it is that's ailing me and find things that I can do to promote my own healing. That's how I learned about the concept of Chi to begin with. Over the years I've collected dozens of things I can do to promote healing and wholeness. In the face of recurring cancer, however, all of my ideas seem small and insignificant. But then I came across the following story in the magazine, Spirituality and Health. So I emailed Mom the story and offered to send her some of my small ideas for healing, little hummingbird-sized things she can do each day to say to herself, "I choose healing and wholeness."

The story comes from Wangari Maathai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. For more information about how Wangari is bringing healing to Africa, one tree at a time, visit http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/. The following version of the story comes from the commencement speech she gave at Connecticut College:

I want to tell you a story because it is a story of "never give up." It is a story of a forest that went on fire, a huge forest that suddenly was on fire. There was a big fire raging. All the animals came out of the forest. As they came to the edge of the forest and they started watching the fire, feeling very discouraged, feeling very disempowered. Every one of them did not think there was anything they could do about the fire except a little hummingbird. The little hummingbird said, "I can do something about this fire. I'm not going on the side to watch the forest burn."
So the little hummingbird ran toward the nearest stream. (This is not my story. I got it from somebody else. It is a story from a professor who got it from America, so it has made a full circle!) The little hummingbird took a drop of water, and put it on the raging fire. Then back again and brought another drop and kept running up and down. In the meantime, the other animals are discouraging [the hummingbird]. They are telling it, "Don't bother, it is too much, you are too little, your wings will burn, your beak is too little, you can't do much about this fire." Some of these animals that were discouraging it had big beak that could have brought more water than the hummingbird. But they weren't. They were very busy discouraging.
The hummingbird decided not to be discouraged. It kept going up and down to get the water and put it on the burning forest. And as the animals were discouraging it, without wasting its time, the bird looked back to these other animals and saw how desperate, discouraged and persuaded they were to stay on the sidelines and not get involved. One animal said, "What do you think you are doing?" And the hummingbird, without wasting time, looked back and said, "I'm doing the best I can."