I shared it with a friend who said I should post it, that it moved something in him. I hope it gives you something as well.

•

On June 8th, a pigeon found a home inside a pot in my balcony and laid two eggs. I put a small jar with water near her and fed her some nuts or grains every day.

Two weeks later on June 22nd, I saw the eggs had hatched! I started giving them more food, while making sure I always kept my distance to avoid scaring them.

As the days went by the babies got bigger and started growing their first set of feathers. I decided they were brother and sister.

•

Now I'd like to mention two things:

• my sleep schedule has been messed up lately due to new medication

• the last few days I had been pondering about the value of attention, like what you focus on grows, what you ignore withers away

•

Anyway. The day before yesterday, I suddenly realized I hadn't checked on the birb family for a while, a whole day, and so far I was checking on them every day, more than once. But this day was so tired from the meds that I thought "nevermind" and just went to my room. The next morning I heard some unusual bird noises just outside my window, oddly loud and close. I thought nothing of this.

When I got up a few hours later and went to check on them, I found the baby brother alone and ravaged. His skull was visible, the flesh on his back was exposed, he was panting and shaking. Mother wasn't there and sister seemed missing as well, but then I noticed her little body in another pot, turned inside out, she was clearly fed upon. I knew then that those morning sounds were from predator birds.

This shook me. I'm not talking about the pain or the anger that arose. This was on a personal level, it was relevant to my life's context. I felt confronted.

You see, just before this happened, I posted on many subreddits looking for help with life, very private stuff. I hadn't done that kind of posting in a while. Just the day before, I was thinking about how does attention actually matter. I was being low-key questioning, like I didn't really believe or care about it's power, dismissing the effects that our attention (or it's lack) has in life. As you know, the day before I made the decision to not pay attention to the birds that day. Mind you, I knew that my mom was also looking after them, I didn't worry them starving .But the decision to ignore them at that time still felt wrong though. Those days I was also willingly sinking further down into a pornography addiction, embracing perversion and degeneration, enjoying it. I mention this as another situation where I was defying the universe's law, because the concept of attention was present in my mind around that time and yet I dismissed and even questioned it's power by falling as deep as I could into porn addiction.

And the very next day I find that this beautiful and peculiar event, a glimpse into an animal's life... Was almost destroyed. Now that you know the context you can imagine how I felt when I found the poor little guy all bloody and panting, barely alive. I was shocked and humbled. I knew that I couldn't let myself slowly power off and get weaker without it affecting those outside of me. I knew that eventually I'd see my thoughts and actions reflected back to me but... I didn't expect it to happen in such an intense and immediate way.

The Power of Attention

•

Some extra details keeping baby bird alive part

When the veterinarian was creating our little patient's medical file, she asked me what were we naming it. I said "this guy's a fighter, a warrior... Hm... Phoenix". It went through so much and came out alive so it deserves that name. This brings me to something else I wanted to mention about the timing of these events.

I mentioned earlier I was willingly letting sexual perversion/degeneracy take over just for the pleasure pornography and masturbation gave me. Btw this was just one symptom of my overall mindset at moment, not my main or only problem. Anyway,I knew I couldn't live like this and in the middle of it all wrote a lengthy post asking for help and posted in several subreddits. Then this happened and I got the message: this bird is you. This is the fruit of your attention. When I recognized this I started talking to him/her as if it was me, encouraging it, comforting it, showing my understanding, and not just talking but it's getting me emotional and I'm not hiding it, so it's an emotional communication as well. It's good... I didn't even know I needed a bird to take care of as if it were myself. This reminds me of a part from my post where I mentioned deeply desiring compassion and care from others and asking myself if what I was seeking from others "externally" was a projection of the desire to love and understand myself. I look at this bird and feel like we're in the same situation: both of us need to embrace the temporary pain of healing, for him that is being force-fed medicine, for me it's meditation, therapy and exercise; both of us can either give up and let our current, wounded state consume us OR we resist the self destructive degeneration and heal and grow. The first step of exiting inertia is the hardest.

Now to the rescuing part. I estimate the magpies attacked closer to early morning than noon, so the little guy spent around 6 hours all messed up, alone and in a state of shock. Yesterday was a Sunday, and the nearest veterinary was closed for two more hours. I had no experience with birds and didn't want to increase his suffering unnecessarily or sever the thin string that kept him tethered to this plane. He drank a bit of water from a spoon but that was it. I stayed with him until it was time to go and then took him to the doctor. It seemed cruel to grab him and put him in a box or smt so I transported the whole pot.

The vet did their thing, bandaged the birb and gave me the meds & food it needed. I made him/her a nest-shaped thing which Phoenix seems to like (update: looks like it doesn't suit it so I'll make it from a towel now. Way softer). He/she is quite used to me by now. I saw some new feathers, wounds are healing and it's actively crying for food now, I guess I'm officially his momdad.

Btw the bandage cloth had lucky clovers on it and this Sunday was the last Sunday the vet clinic was open before changing schedule. Like I said: humbled

I'm grateful to life for blessing me with this responsibility. I haven't indulged in my addiction since then, the craving can arise again but I will remember not to fall this time. May this writing be a reminder, I hope you enjoyed it.