Each Wingbeat a Decision
A Process Theology of Hummingbirds
Hummingbirds as Moments of Becoming
In the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, reality is composed not of static substances but of events—occasions of experience. A hummingbird is not a fixed “thing,” but a stream of moment-by-moment acts of becoming:
The bird is a living rhythm of concrescence—a dance of energy becoming form, moment by moment.
Relational Life: Co-Creation with the World
Hummingbirds are relational beings:
They are not self-contained individuals but nodes in a web of interdependence, exemplifying what process thought calls internal relations—the idea that relationships are not external add-ons but part of who a hummingbird is.
Feeling the World
In a Whiteheadian sense, all living beings prehend—they feel and respond to their environment. A hummingbird:
Its life is not merely biological—it is experiential, filled with micro-decisions shaped by feeling.
The Divine Lure in Flight
In process theology, God is not a controller but a lure toward richness of experience.
Its agility and brilliance can be seen as a response to a call toward vivid aliveness—what Whitehead calls the aim toward intensity.
Beauty as Relational Achievement
The beauty of a hummingbird is not just “in” the bird:
Thus, beauty itself is co-created, a moment of harmony arising between multiple participants in the world.
Life, Death, and Enduring Value
From a process perspective, even the death of a hummingbird belongs within the relational fabric of reality:
Its passing carries a kind of tragic beauty: the stilling of something intensely alive, whose value endures precisely because it was so vivid.
Human Kinship: Shared Becoming
We are not strangers to hummingbirds. We are kin in process:
The differences are real—scale, cognition, culture—but beneath them lies a shared structure:
To sense kinship is not sentimentality; it is a metaphysical insight.
In the presence of a hummingbird, something in us recognizes:
In the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, reality is composed not of static substances but of events—occasions of experience. A hummingbird is not a fixed “thing,” but a stream of moment-by-moment acts of becoming:
- Each wingbeat is a decision.
- Each dart toward a flower is a response to the world.
- Each moment integrates past influences into a new expression.
The bird is a living rhythm of concrescence—a dance of energy becoming form, moment by moment.
Relational Life: Co-Creation with the World
Hummingbirds are relational beings:
- They depend on flowers for nectar.
- Flowers depend on them for pollination.
- Air currents, sunlight, predators, and habitats all shape their lives.
They are not self-contained individuals but nodes in a web of interdependence, exemplifying what process thought calls internal relations—the idea that relationships are not external add-ons but part of who a hummingbird is.
Feeling the World
In a Whiteheadian sense, all living beings prehend—they feel and respond to their environment. A hummingbird:
- Feels the lure of sweetness in nectar.
- Responds to color, motion, and spatial patterns.
- Navigates through a world of affective significance, not just mechanical stimuli.
Its life is not merely biological—it is experiential, filled with micro-decisions shaped by feeling.
The Divine Lure in Flight
In process theology, God is not a controller but a lure toward richness of experience.
- The hummingbird being drawn toward intensity, beauty, and vitality in the moment.
- Each moment offering possibilities: where to fly, what to taste, how to move.
Its agility and brilliance can be seen as a response to a call toward vivid aliveness—what Whitehead calls the aim toward intensity.
Beauty as Relational Achievement
The beauty of a hummingbird is not just “in” the bird:
- It emerges in the interaction between bird, light, observer, and environment.
- Its iridescence is relational—color shifts depending on angle and perception.
Thus, beauty itself is co-created, a moment of harmony arising between multiple participants in the world.
Life, Death, and Enduring Value
From a process perspective, even the death of a hummingbird belongs within the relational fabric of reality:
- Its immediate experience ends, but its life is not simply erased
- It lives on in its effects—pollination, ecological contribution, remembered encounters
- In process theology, its lived moments are felt and preserved within the larger life of the universe, the consequent nature of God.
Its passing carries a kind of tragic beauty: the stilling of something intensely alive, whose value endures precisely because it was so vivid.
Human Kinship: Shared Becoming
We are not strangers to hummingbirds. We are kin in process:
- Like them, we are streams of moment-by-moment becoming
- Like them, we feel, respond, and improvise within a web of relations
- Like them, we seek intensity—of love, beauty, meaning
The differences are real—scale, cognition, culture—but beneath them lies a shared structure:
- We prehend the world
- We are shaped by what we feel
- We contribute to the ongoing story of life
To sense kinship is not sentimentality; it is a metaphysical insight.
In the presence of a hummingbird, something in us recognizes:
- another center of experience
- another participant in the dance
The Spiritual Significance
of Hummingbirds
With their diminutive size, iridescent feathers, and astonishing ability to hover and fly backward, hummingbirds stir the human imagination. Across cultures, they have been perceived not only as biological kin, which they are, but as living symbols—messengers of freedom and joy, bravery and vigor, carriers of sacred knowledge, and also signs of resurrection and the afterlife.
From the standpoint of process philosophy, this symbolic richness is not simply imposed by the human mind. It arises from a real relational encounter between two streams of experience: the hummingbird and the human being. The bird’s intensity of life—their speed, precision, and shimmering presence—functions as what Alfred North Whitehead calls a lure for feeling, evoking in us responses of wonder, reverence, and meaning. In this light, hummingbirds can be understood—without sentimentality—as healers and priests: not by intention, but by participation, helping to shape how the world is felt, valued, and imagined.
It is not surprising that some might wonder if hummingbirds come to us from other worlds, other dimensions of existence. Across cultures, they have been received as more than earthly creatures. In many Native American traditions, they are understood as messengers and bringers of good fortune. Some South American legends depict them as the souls of ancestors or fallen warriors, returning in delicate, luminous form. In Aztec culture, they were associated with the sun and the god Huitzilopochtli.
Even today, some experience their sudden appearances as visitations from departed loved ones, offering encouragement.
From the standpoint of process philosophy, we ought not close down these possibilities too quickly, or at all. A hummingbird can be understood, at one and the same time, as a biopsychological subject—a living participant in an ecological web—and as a symbolic presence who carries meanings exceeding its physical form. These are not mutually exclusive interpretations, but different ways of prehending the same reality.
If reality itself is relational, layered, and open-ended—as Whitehead suggests—then it may be that hummingbirds participate in more dimensions of existence than we ordinarily perceive. To say this is not to make a dogmatic claim, but to leave open a metaphysical possibility: that what we encounter in them may include depths we do not fully understand.
From the standpoint of process philosophy, this symbolic richness is not simply imposed by the human mind. It arises from a real relational encounter between two streams of experience: the hummingbird and the human being. The bird’s intensity of life—their speed, precision, and shimmering presence—functions as what Alfred North Whitehead calls a lure for feeling, evoking in us responses of wonder, reverence, and meaning. In this light, hummingbirds can be understood—without sentimentality—as healers and priests: not by intention, but by participation, helping to shape how the world is felt, valued, and imagined.
It is not surprising that some might wonder if hummingbirds come to us from other worlds, other dimensions of existence. Across cultures, they have been received as more than earthly creatures. In many Native American traditions, they are understood as messengers and bringers of good fortune. Some South American legends depict them as the souls of ancestors or fallen warriors, returning in delicate, luminous form. In Aztec culture, they were associated with the sun and the god Huitzilopochtli.
Even today, some experience their sudden appearances as visitations from departed loved ones, offering encouragement.
From the standpoint of process philosophy, we ought not close down these possibilities too quickly, or at all. A hummingbird can be understood, at one and the same time, as a biopsychological subject—a living participant in an ecological web—and as a symbolic presence who carries meanings exceeding its physical form. These are not mutually exclusive interpretations, but different ways of prehending the same reality.
If reality itself is relational, layered, and open-ended—as Whitehead suggests—then it may be that hummingbirds participate in more dimensions of existence than we ordinarily perceive. To say this is not to make a dogmatic claim, but to leave open a metaphysical possibility: that what we encounter in them may include depths we do not fully understand.
Can a Hummingbird be a Buddhist, Too?
Mindful Hovering and Flitting
Can a hummingbird be a Buddhist, too? By this I mean: can a hummingbird be mindful in the present moment, with a capacious hummingbird heart-mind amid her movements? We can well imagine that she is mindful while hovering—poised, centered, gathered into a single place. But the deeper question is this: can she also be mindful while flitting, or while flying backward?
The question is playful, of course—but it opens onto something real. The hummingbird does not divide its life into “stillness” and “activity” the way we often do. Its hovering is not an escape from motion, and its flitting is not a loss of presence. Both belong to a single, seamless responsiveness to the world—an unbroken participation in what is.
And might we as well? Here a further distinction becomes important—not in the hummingbird, but in us. There is a difference between healthy flitting and unhealthy flitting in human life. Healthy flitting is responsive and alive: a natural movement from one moment to another, guided by interest, care, or necessity, without losing touch with presence. Unhealthy flitting is restless and scattered: driven by anxiety, distraction, or compulsion, pulling us away from the very moments we inhabit.
Perhaps mindfulness is not only something we practice when we slow down, but something we can carry into motion itself. Not only in hovering, but in flitting. The invitation is not to stop moving, but to learn how to move well—to let even our flitting be grounded, even our quickness be attentive, so that attention itself can dance—alert, receptive, alive—within the movements of life.
The question is playful, of course—but it opens onto something real. The hummingbird does not divide its life into “stillness” and “activity” the way we often do. Its hovering is not an escape from motion, and its flitting is not a loss of presence. Both belong to a single, seamless responsiveness to the world—an unbroken participation in what is.
And might we as well? Here a further distinction becomes important—not in the hummingbird, but in us. There is a difference between healthy flitting and unhealthy flitting in human life. Healthy flitting is responsive and alive: a natural movement from one moment to another, guided by interest, care, or necessity, without losing touch with presence. Unhealthy flitting is restless and scattered: driven by anxiety, distraction, or compulsion, pulling us away from the very moments we inhabit.
Perhaps mindfulness is not only something we practice when we slow down, but something we can carry into motion itself. Not only in hovering, but in flitting. The invitation is not to stop moving, but to learn how to move well—to let even our flitting be grounded, even our quickness be attentive, so that attention itself can dance—alert, receptive, alive—within the movements of life.
Saving Hummingbirds,
Saving Ourselves
Every Little Thing
Directed by Sally Aitken
Joyful and inspiring portrait of a woman
who rehabilitates hummingbirds.
The lyrics for Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” say it all:
“Don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing is gonna be alright"
Only the birds in this documentary are not Caribbean yellow birds but California hummingbirds. And they are going to be all right because of the dedication, skill, and compassion for the little beings of wildlife rehabilitator Terry Masear. Director Sally Aitken takes us to Terry’s hillside home in Beverly Hills filled with different size cages for rescued hummingbirds and a large outdoor aviary which will be their last home before rerelease into the wild. Close-up and slow-motion photography give us unusual angles on the birds, who can fly vertically, backwards, and upside down.
Many of Terry’s birds are fledglings who have fallen out of a nest and been found by humans. Others, like Cactus, are injured from an accident; he fell into a cactus and has spines stuck in him. One bird, named Sugar Baby, has been abused when children played with him and doused him with sugar water. Terry carefully tries to clean him with a Q-tip. We watch as she encourages a bird to exercise their wings by moving a perch up and down in their cage.
Without anthropomorphizing the hummingbirds, Aitken shows how their healing parallels Terry’s own healing from childhood abuse. Her nonprofit has become a center for love, compassion, and reverence. After watching, you won’t look at hummingbirds the same again.
“Don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing is gonna be alright"
Only the birds in this documentary are not Caribbean yellow birds but California hummingbirds. And they are going to be all right because of the dedication, skill, and compassion for the little beings of wildlife rehabilitator Terry Masear. Director Sally Aitken takes us to Terry’s hillside home in Beverly Hills filled with different size cages for rescued hummingbirds and a large outdoor aviary which will be their last home before rerelease into the wild. Close-up and slow-motion photography give us unusual angles on the birds, who can fly vertically, backwards, and upside down.
Many of Terry’s birds are fledglings who have fallen out of a nest and been found by humans. Others, like Cactus, are injured from an accident; he fell into a cactus and has spines stuck in him. One bird, named Sugar Baby, has been abused when children played with him and doused him with sugar water. Terry carefully tries to clean him with a Q-tip. We watch as she encourages a bird to exercise their wings by moving a perch up and down in their cage.
Without anthropomorphizing the hummingbirds, Aitken shows how their healing parallels Terry’s own healing from childhood abuse. Her nonprofit has become a center for love, compassion, and reverence. After watching, you won’t look at hummingbirds the same again.
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