Offerings

I recently read a book by Amy Tan called Saving Fish from Drowning.  The book is set primarily in Burma and she often mentions nats, spirits commonly worshipped by the Burmese people.  According to the lore nats are guardians of villages, homes, trees, forests, etc.  Believers or otherwise superstitious people erect shrines to nats and leave them offerings such as food to appease them and keep them happy.  An unhappy nat can wreak havoc and cause undue mischief and misery.  A happy nat can bring good fortune to those who make generous offerings.

There has been a proliferation of wildlife on my piece of dirt this spring and summer.  Looking out any window facing my back yard I am likely to see squirrels, rabbits, birds of several feathers, raccoons, opossum, a turkey and deer.  I have to be honest and mention that the sunflower seeds and hummingbird feeders we supply are probably the reason we are seeing so much activity lately, not to mention the additional treats I leave for the raccoons when I clean out the refrigerator and freezer.  Tonight I watched a crow fly away with an entire slice of bread in its mouth, maybe even two slices.

I can’t really compare wildlife to nats other than to say that sometimes now when I go out to the feeding stations with a bucket of seeds or a bowl of cracked eggs or rotting potatoes it is beginning to feel like I am leaving an offering to appease the spirits of the Feathered Ones.  This feeling came over me strongly one day as I was draping cut sections of gold and silver Mardi Gras beads over low pine boughs in hopes that a curious crow would steal them away and I would get to witness the crime.

I am not Burmese or otherwise superstitious so the food I leave at the foot of trees is not an offering to a mischievous spirit, but simply food to attract wildlife for my own selfish observations.  Nor do I practice ancestor worship as do many of the characters in books by Tan, one of my favorite authors.  However, it would be hypocritical of me to say that I do not have offerings of sorts for my beloved ones who have gone before me; the portrait of my grandfather, the photo of the Hungarian garden party that sits on my piano, my grandfather’s wooden chair that first sat watch in my son’s nursery and now is a fixture in my breakfast room, the cobalt blue bottle in my kitchen windowsill that collects all the coins my mother tosses from heaven, the postcard my nephew dictated to me.  And soon to join the collection is a lamp that I’m almost certain once belonged to my sweet Granny.  These trinkets are only bits and pieces leftover from lives that once touched mine in a profound way.  I keep them where I can see them to remind me of the love I have for the souls they represent and to remember that I was not the first, and I will not be the last.  What of me will sit on someone’s piano 100 years from now?

I may not worship my ancestors, nats or even animals for that matter, but I do have a loyal regard to my family, my history.  My devotion is solely to the One Most High, and I try to please Him in everything I do, even hanging Mardi Gras beads on pine boughs. Though I am nowhere near perfect I think the closest thing to earthly perfection would be a crow adorning itself with plastic gold.  I think even God would be amused.