One day in September 2009, we cleaned out our bird bath and the dogs’ pool. I was watering some plants and turned to see a sparrow sort of crumpled up in my bird bath. I went over and was surprised to see he was soaking wet from head to tail but still alive. I’m not sure what happened that led to his condition in my bird bath but he was clearly in trouble.
I used a small flower pot to scoop him out of the bird bath and got him into a dish towel. At no point did he struggle to get away. I don’t think he was capable of struggle. I held him for a few minutes, unsure what to do. He seemed to be in a deep sleep, unbothered by my holding him.
Photo by Eric Hosking/Britannica Encyclopedia Online
Then it occurred to me to do Reiki on him.
When I finished the Reiki, I placed him in the towel in my recycle bin on my front porch. I thought that all I could really do for him at that point was protect him from the feral cats on our street and let him die in peace. Imagine my surprise when I saw him walking around on my porch a couple hours later! I kept an eye on him until he felt well enough to fly away about 30 minutes after that.