Each day,  the winged beings who grace my gardens, especially in the form of the hummingbird and hummingbird moth, teach me another lesson about joy. I watch humbled and in thrall. I know teachers appear in myriad forms, and I do not take for granted their gifts. Least I forget their daily presence, hummingbirds often appear chirping outside my screen door.

Today was no different, and their lesson on joy brought me to fear, or rather the lack-there-of. Unlike some winged beings, hummingbirds not only drink the nectar of life, they thrive off of it. They do so boldly and fearlessly. Joy, I have learned, does not spring forth from the place of submission. It erupts from the beckoning voice, but also from the beat of wings that refuse to fly away from the nectar of life.

Each day I watch my winged friends dance in the light of their joy. Sometimes they play together, weightless in their airy dance, and sometimes they scold and defend their right to  sustain their lives. The hummingbird will chase away an intruder from a flower of life, be it another hummingbird, a bee or a moth, it defends its territory and source of food.  There is no giving into fear as it thrives in Joy.