057 Take Without Breaking
Hey Tailorbird, you stitch your whole house from leaves still on the tree, without picking a single one.
Who taught you to take without breaking?
Can you take what you need without breaking what gives it?
In a garden hedge, a tiny olive-green bird with a cocked tail is busy at a large leaf.
It pierces the edges with its beak and pulls threads through, sewing the leaf into a cup.
What really happens
The common tailorbird makes holes along the edges of living leaves and stitches them together with plant fibre or spider silk.
The leaves stay on the plant, alive and green, and become the walls of its nest.
How we know: Tailorbird nest-stitching is described in Indian bird guides and natural history accounts.
The turn
We often take in a way that breaks: we use up people, places and things.
The tailorbird takes the leaf's help and leaves the leaf alive.
Three takeaways
- Take in a way that leaves things whole.
- Use what is living without killing it.
- Gentle skill beats careless force.
Stitch the leaf. Don't pick it.
The Master angled, but did not use a net. He shot, but not at birds perching.