Murmuration of Starlings
As I searched the internet for a picture of a murmuration of starlings (coordinated flight--scroll to the bottom to see more) I wondered why I had not taken a picture of a group I saw a couple of mornings ago as I sat beside an open field drinking a cup of hot mocha.
I watched, not thousands, as sometimes happens, but hundreds of starlings swirling in the sky, weaving in and out, dancing in harmony, and wondered how in the world they could do it. How could they fly so fast and precisely without running into each other? They must have been wearing little radio headsets.
They would do their dance, then drop all together into the field and disappear into the grasses where I couldn't see them, then, as though on cue, swoop up and dance again, only to drop again a few moments later. I hear this is a predator escape behavior, but from my vantage point, they seemed to be having a happy time.
Could we escape predators with such joy?
Jen Scenario wrote:
"Have you ever had an aha moment that completely blew yer mind? "Don't worry, be happy! Yes! I can choose to place my attention on the joyous instead of the heinous!... I'm gonna hug the shit out of everyone I see!"
Jen, you are masterful in reminding me to live in the now and find a happy place. Yes, I'm a spiritual being here to have a physical experience, although perhaps that physical part tells us to do something.
Be happy and get the job done. That's the challenge.
We were born into a physical body with hands to clean up messes and a voice to tell the young ones to be vigilant.
Many of us have felt in bondage for many years. First, the COVID-19 lockdown separated us from our social group, which helped solidify our belief systems without a conversation with the other side. Many of us lost jobs, thus threatening our security; our kids weren't going to school, graduation from high school wasn't the joyous event it was for us, and newly birthed babies were sometimes removed from their mothers as a health precaution. And the possibility of death was staring us in the face.
It’s no wonder we went a little crazy.
Prolonged stress does that to people.
And then came the arguing, name-calling, lies, and innuendoes that have been a normal part of the media. And we listened—after all, our brains were already fried.
I, for one, felt beaten down. And I questioned the teachings I have endeavored to incorporate into my being for years.
That teaching is that we are masterful creators here to create our lives, not to be victims of circumstances.
Didn't we all come here as exuberant little spark plugs ready for an adventure?
We know the earth will go on without us—it has done so for 4 billion years, but the plants, animals, and people living right now are important to me. Future generations are vital to me. Native Americans believed in planning for seven generations ahead. I've heard that post-menopausal women, while no longer reproducing (what dear old biologists and misogynists told us was our purpose), now we are seeing that the older women, specifically, are here to see that their progeny continues.
For women who think broadly, progeny extends to all life.
Ancient mythology told us that males and females once
rolled about in ecstasy, but the controllers, seeing how powerful they were
together, split them apart. (People who are talking about soulmates are talking
about that phenomenon. They are seeking their other half.) Because we are
separated, we have had a war of the sexes ever since, making both male and female weaker and the
controllers more powerful. (Why do controllers try to keep women down?)
Richard Bach, one of my favorite authors, wrote," If you wonder if your mission in life is over, and you're alive, it isn't."
I'm alive.
And I wonder where I fit into this scenario. The famed Naturalist Jane Goodall said that we all affect the earth each day we walk on it. With Douglas Abrams as her interviewer, Jane Goodall wrote a book titled HOPE. In reading it, I wonder how to spread hope.
Jane Goodall calls herself a naturalist. A naturalist, Jane says, "looks for the wonder of nature—she listens to the voice of nature and learns from nature as she tries to understand it. Meanwhile, scientists are more focused on facts and the desire to qualify. How is it adaptive? How does it contribute to the survival of the species? As a naturalist, you need empathy, intuition, and love. You've got to be prepared to look at the murmuration* of starlings and be filled with awe at the amazing agility of these birds. How do they fly in a flock of thousands without touching at all?"
I do not have the notoriety of Jane Goodall nor the interviewer's skill of Douglas Abrams. However, I am persistent in this struggle for survival. And Goodall emphasizes that HOPE is a survival mechanism.
HOPE has kept us alive for 300,000 years. "HOPE," says Goodall, "is like a bright star at the end of a dark tunnel. We should not wait for it to come to us. We have to go get it."
It is spring, or almost so. Peaceful spring. I see buds on the trees, and the Cameo flowering quince bush shows its coral-colored buds; if HOPE is withering, we can water it if that's what it needs. Yet HOPE is something that lives inside of us. It's a belief, an emotion—even animals have hope. For example, when your dog sits expectantly for you to get the leash, hope is paired with the belief that you will take him for a walk. The cat hopes you will open the door to let him out. HOPE is also like our heart or brain, organs that will die without the necessary chemicals.
HOPE needs to know we care for it. HOPE needs to know that we will keep it alive. Nelson Mandela couldn't take any action when he was in prison, but he kept hope in his heart. He knew he had a support system out in the world helping him. If we have our hands tired, we need others who don't.
When we have our voices silenced, such as reprisals for speaking out, when we have books banned, when we have the media owned and controlled, we need the free ones to speak. We need those with a voice to rise and proclaim loudly, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."
Almost every citizen has good reason for suing the highest leaders in the land for constitutional abuse, emotional abuse, possibly voter fraud, overstepping Presidential privilege, changing laws to benefit the leaders personally (like threatening to abolish the two-term Presidential law) for rounding up our people who came here seeking a better life, for frightening children that they might be separated from their parents, for voting refusal without proof of any wrongdoing, possibly for buying an election, for interfering with physician-patient confidentiality. I'm sure you can think of many others.
Geesh, look at how that would help the people if they pulled wealth from the billionaires and gave it to the people—we could pay off our mortgages, we could afford a larger apartment, we could pay for our kids’ education, we could care for our elders if they need special care. We could afford eggs.
Power and Money are at the bottom of the jar, like a banana a little monkey will grab and won't let go of, even when it means he will get caught.
We are the people. Let's get our act together.
*Murmuration: (Named because often you can hear the murmurs of wings before you see the birds.) The magic number is seven: Each bird keeps tabs on its seven closest neighbors and ignores all else. Considering all these little groups of seven touch on other individuals and groups of seven, twists and turns quickly spread. And from that, a whole murmuration moves. From the journal PLOS Computational Biology, January 2013.
The Three Things in Control
- An attraction zone: "You will move toward the next guy."
- A repulsion zone: "You don't fly into his lane. Otherwise, you both fall."
- Angular alignment: "You need to follow your neighbor's direction."
(And these birds can process information faster than we can.)
