'Hummingbird Hymn' - second place in the Wild Muse Prize

Writing as a sacred act

Kristy A. Belton: winning second place in the 2024 Wild Muse Nature Writing Prize

Over the next several months, I’ll be publishing some of the longlisted essays to the Wild Muse Nature Writing Prize for you to enjoy, as well as a short Q&A with the author.

My hope is that you’ll be inspired as we gear up to launching the prize for 2025.

Make sure you’re subscribed to be the first to know about our judge for this year and when we open for entries.

This week, I’m sharing this beautifully written essay, Hummingbird Hymn, by

Kristy Belton

, which took second place in the Wild Muse Nature Writing Prize for its lyrical voice and deep exploration of trust, intuition, and connection with nature. I particularly love how Kristy takes us on a journey, both physical and internal, as she follows the unexpected guidance of a hummingbird into the unknown. With rich imagery and poetic rhythm, the piece captures the tension between doubt and surrender, reminding us how the land itself can speak if we’re willing to listen. Hummingbird Hymn is a perfect example of the wisdom we can receive from the wild and the power of trust.

Kristy will be joining me on the Wild Muse Podcast in April.

Now, I invite you to dive into this heartfelt piece and enjoy the Q&A!

Hummingbird Hymn

By Kristy A. Belton

I have been walking nearly an hour. The cool of the morning is slipping into midday’s heavy heat. I carry two jugs of water, a camping stool, and my backpack.

It is what I am not carrying that weighs the most.

This is the fourth day of my silent retreat in the Rocky Mountains. I have been tasked with finding a place to set up for my solo camp tomorrow. The trouble is, I do not know where to go.

On previous days, I walked different trails to get a sense of the land, choosing the easy and intermediate hikes. I avoided the “backcountry” passage, which is the hardest to navigate in terms of distance and height above sea level. It is also the only trail without access to water. I did not want my first solo camping experience to be a difficult one.

Anyway, I was sure I would find the right spot to set up the tent along one of the easier trails. The land was filled with beautiful spaces: tree groves, foothills, wildflower meadows and the riverbank itself.

Yet, earlier this morning, when I scanned the inventory of images and sensations from the prior walks, none of these wildscapes called out to say, “Know me! Spend time with me!”

I needed help. So I decided to ask the Spirit of the place for guidance. I greeted the directions and closed my eyes.

Show me which way to go.

Take me to the place that I am to know.

Chitter. Whirring. Breeze on my face. I opened my eyes and a hummingbird hovered in front of me a thousand wing beats before soaring off. I was ecstatic!

I love hummingbirds and was surprised and delighted to find so many of them this high up at the retreat center. Dancing. Singing. Communing.

For years I have filled my summer feeder with sugar water for these migratory wonders. I have watched their Houdini-like flight in awe, listened to their chitter, and felt comforted by their annual appearance.

One hummingbird in particular arrives at our garden feeder every year between May 8^th and 10^th. She knows I will have fresh sugar water waiting for her and I know she will show up.

This was it! The hummingbird had appeared to show me the way! I followed her flight path and looked at my compass. My elation turned to dismay. The hummingbird had flown northeast – the direction of the backcountry passage.

The one place I had evaded is the exact place I must go.

So here I am now on the backcountry trail, arms aching, backpack weighing down my shoulders, doubt pooling on my skin like sweat. I am searching for the hummingbird. I have not seen her since she flew away from the retreat center.

Stands of trees have given way to singular, hardier types that dot the landscape.

Trust. Trust. Trust, sings my soul.

Open glades have ceded to momentous rock formations.

Too much. Too much. Too much, murmurs my mind.

The sun, which had earlier played hide and seek in the canopy at the lower levels, now blasts:

I am too immense to hide.

It brands me with uncertainty and heats up the brain chatter: I can’t do this. This is foolish. Don’t follow a bird. Follow a map. Return to base camp. Start over. Pick a place you’ve seen already. Set up there. Turn around. Turn around!

My feet follow a higher guidance.

I round a switchback and hear it – hummingbird hymn! In front of me, two hummingbirds beat breeze to bless my beleaguered body. One zips from the path into the vegetation, while the other lingers, chittering.

Yes! Yes! I see you! Thank you! Thank you!

The waiting one flies the way of its partner, taking all my doubt with it. I lumber after them with a lightened load. The weight of my once unanswered question gone.

About 100’ off the trail, the land reveals its gifts. A flat place to set up my tent. Two trees to offer shade. Stone pillars that open into what appears to be the doors to a temple. Or the majestic vulva of a rock deity.

This.

This is where I find myself. This is where I allow beauty and silence and knowing and trust to breathe me into the earth. This is where stone sings and wild ones wander.

I, too, want to be wild and wander.

My heart fissures, revealing the path into the temple. I sing. I sing my thanks, my longings, my remembrances. I am where I am supposed to be. I am held by the earth everywhere I go.

I sing my soul, rest and feed my body, then prepare to depart. I will be back tomorrow with my tent and food. For now, I place the camping stool and water jugs within the crevice of the temple door.

Thank you.

I also decide to leave behind the questions that do not serve me: How could I have believed this was not the way? How could I have wondered if hummingbird would lead me astray? How could I have forgotten that seeking guidance from nature is my way to pray?

Chitter. Whirr. Dance. Commune. Even now I hear her hymn:

Trust.

I must trust.

We must trust.

Trust that we can find our way.

Trust that everything arrives in its time.

Trust that the more than human world holds both our questions and our answers.

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‘Nature, Storytelling, and Soul’: A Short Q&A with Kristy A. Belton

‘To be alive, to co-create with life, and to tell a story throbbing with vitality, you must evaporate.’

What inspired you to write your piece, and how did you approach capturing the interplay between the human experience and the natural world in your narrative?

I was unable to go camping this year, and I ached (still ache) for it. So my imagination was already roving the terrain of what I had experienced on my last camping trip when I came across the Wild Muse Prize. Hummy (my hummingbird sister who visits our garden every year) was also about to begin her migratory journey southward. Writing Hummingbird Hymn, then, was both an answer to longing and a way of honoring Hummy’s presence.

In approaching this piece, I decided to allow. I wasn’t interested in crafting a compelling narrative arc (as I am with my novels) or persuading people to a particular position (as I am in my scholarly work). Instead, I wrote as Kristy—the one who knows the earth as her temple, other animals and plants as her kin, and who senses the sacred everywhere she goes.

“If I have learned anything from my relationships with my nonhuman kin, it is the power of trust.”

What challenges did you face in crafting your entry, and how did you overcome them to create such a vivid and evocative piece?

Writing Hummingbird Hymn was a sacred act. As I mention in the piece, I have an intimate relationship with hummingbirds, and I felt this deep knowing that this was the story I should write.

So, I put myself back into the fullness of that day and sensed in until I returned. It happened very quickly. It wasn’t like I was watching a film of a memory—I was transported to the backcountry trail, and I wrote from there.

Now, the hard part was uploading Hummingbird Hymn and hitting "send." I’ve published all sorts of writing, but I had never shared my relationship with the more-than-human world—and hummingbirds specifically—in this way.

If I have learned anything from my relationships with my nonhuman kin, however, it is the power of trust. And I am so very glad I did!

“Sit with a tree, put your fingers in the dirt, lick a stone—lose yourself. Become yourself.”

What role does nature play in your life and creative process, and how do you think immersing oneself in nature can influence storytelling?

I believe that if you immerse yourself in your self at a deep-rooted, soul level—not in a superficial, How am I perceived? or How do I get what I want? sort of way—then you know that nature is not external to us. It’s not that we’re animals and, hence, part of nature—it’s that we cannot be our fullest selves without becoming and harnessing our greater Earth/ecological self.

To be alive, to co-create with life, and to tell a story throbbing with vitality that weaves words into soul, you must evaporate. You must also make space to become everything.

Sit with a tree, put your fingers in the dirt, lick a stone, smell flowers, suck in the wind, add your note to birdsong. Lose yourself. Become yourself. Whatever story you want to tell, understand that its fullness lies within the embrace of your greater Earth self.

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What speaks to you?

Does anything in Hummingbird Hymn resonate with you? Have you ever received a sign that led you somewhere you didn’t expect to go? Kristy and I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Please share your thoughts below.