I used to love peacocks—so majestic and colorful, gracefully strolling along, dragging that elaborate elegant tail behind them like the coattails of a royal robe. Yes, I was completely mesmerized by them. Until they moved into our neighborhood.

Peacocks are astonishingly prolific little buggers. All it takes is one male and one female, and soon these walking, honking kaleidoscopes will overrun a neighborhood in no time. They roam our town in colorful, noisy gangs. They sleep on our porches and car rooftops (and also poop on them), and make their presence known with their raucous honks and howls, shattering the quiet stillness during the wee-est hours of the morning. Mother Nature dumped all the wonderfulness into their appearance, and left none for vocal beauty. Nothing like the screech of kwaaaa-kwaaaa-kwaaaaa at 3 a.m., at full volume. And, in a whole chorus. Once one screams, they all scream. Are they being murdered? Or did a leaf fall? The reaction is the same.

Peacocks aren’t just annoying when you’re trying to sleep. They’re quite busy during the day too. When they aren’t busy making more little peacocks, they shred your newly planted garden with their sharp claws, roll around in the nicely groomed dirt, and whatever of your little sproutlings they don’t gobble down, they toss this way and that. Vandals, I tell you. Vandals.

Just as Mother Nature left no beauty for their voices, she left none for their brains either. The males pick fights with their own reflection on your shiny just-washed car, and attack it with their beaks and claws and scratch the paint. Beauty, 100. Brains, zero.

Peacocks don’t belong in North America, let alone my town, but here they are nonetheless, California dreamin’ for all they’re worth. Because they’re considered “exotic,” it’s illegal to harm or relocate them. You can’t touch a feather on their pea-pickin’ heads. So, we’re stuck with them.

As a hard-core seeker of finding the bright side to anything and everything, I discovered one for peacocks while researching Kuan Yin, one of my most beloved deities and a daily presence in my life. My massage practice is devoted to her, and I have several altars to honor her.

Turns out, peacocks are scared to Kuan Yin, a bodhisattva who turned her back on heavenly Nirvana because she could hear the weeping of humanity and saw their tears, and returned to Earth, devoting herself to providing comfort and compassion until every last tear is dry. I suspect she hasn’t made it back to Nirvana just yet.

The many “eyes” on peacock feathers represent Kuan Yin watching over us, even when she can’t be present. When they appear, she is gazing at you in loving kindness and compassion. That changed everything for me. Now, instead of growling, “Get the hell out of here you fat, feathered little bastard” and chasing them from my yard, I say, “Thank you, Kuan Yin, for watching over me.” Peacocks remind me that Kuan Yin is with me.

You’ve heard about life giving you lemons and making lemonade. Well, life gave me nuisances and I made namastes. It’s all about perspective, baby.