I find this amazing, how animals seem to have this inherent understanding of natural remedies. Humans have this ability too, though we've become so out of tune with Nature that few are really connected with that part of themselves.

Stuffing cigarette butts into the lining of nests may seem unwholesome. But a team of ecologists says that far from being unnatural, the use of smoked cigarettes by city birds may be an urban variation of an ancient adaptation.

Birds have long been known to line their nests with vegetation rich in compounds that drive away parasites. Chemicals in tobacco leaves are known to repel arthropods such as parasitic mites, so Monserrat Suárez-Rodríguez, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, and her colleagues wondered whether city birds were using cigarette butts in the same way.

Zen Gardner, Guest
Waking Times

How many times have we been faced with the decision to move on to the next level of commitment to truth? How often has a new level of personal sacrifice been standing at our door, beckoning? How did we respond? Were we willing to go further, no matter the cost?

That’s pretty much what it takes in the pursuit of truth. A constant shedding of the old, no matter how attached we’ve become to our self image and familiar surroundings; to be relentlessly following the signal from this esoteric siren of love and a greater reality that we know awaits. Much like mountain climbing, the decision comes first, then the climbing. But each step of the way presents more decisions. Will we go on in spite of fatigue, doubts, discouragement and obstacles? Which path will I take at each upcoming juncture?

Beloveds, I have heard you say to Me:

“God, when I look back on my life, it is, as You say, like something I read about or made up. The place where I was born and where I have traveled and even where I am now seem imagined and very far away in time and space, as if they were no more than thoughts. I have a sense of not having been anywhere ever, or knowing where I am now even as I sit in my chair. It’s as if there is nowhere to be. In one sense, this farawayness seems like progress while, at the same time, I feel lost at sea. Is it boundaries I cry for?”

Beloveds, most certainly you are missing the comfort of boundaries. You are, in a sense, dislocated. It’s like memories are all so far away in the distance that you are no longer attached to them. It’s like memories are thoughts you pluck out of nowhere and have nothing to do with the present-day so-called you.

You suppose this means you are not attached, yet it seems you are attached to the attachment. It is as if your memories are not really connected to you, and yet they are the memories you have, and when you think of your mother and father and brothers and sisters all gone, you are so sad. You know what you want is impossible on this level, and yet you still wish you could have everything back on Earth again as it used to be even for a few minutes.