A flight of birds

Greetings all,

I hope you enjoyed your week.  Mine was full of creativity, so in all it was a good week.  I'm working in my studio again and it is like waking up.  Oddly enough this awakening has also led to deeper dreams while I am asleep.  As I'm making art again I'm paying more attention to the world around me.

Here you see a flight of birds, or what is called a murmuring.  That is the name given to the way that flocks of birds seem to move as one entity in flight.  It is an everyday miracle.  Most of us don't even notice it.  We go about our days filled with to do lists, texts, emails, and Facebook.  We rarely look up whether it is at the moon above or to the flight of birds overhead.  Whether it is by natural inclination, the training I have gone through, or simply Fate (ah yes my old mistress), I look up.  I notice.  I listen.

The winds of the worlds blow whether we are aware of them or not, and with each breath a new story unfolds upon the earth.  The birds mind the wind for it is like the ocean is to a fish.  They navigate it by necessity, and yet I believe they also luxuriate in the freedom of flight.  These past few weeks my attention has continually been drawn to the birds and the winds.  As I left the gym and walked back to my car yesterday I heard their voices in the boughs above, hundreds of tiny voices singing out to each other.  They took off in several groups each a murmuring of movement on the wind.  I knew deep down in that moment that they were speaking as sure as I write these words to you.  They were communicating in their own secret tongue.  What does one bird say to another I wondered?  What are they all so excited about?  What are the crows saying in their cawing?

For some reason in the past few centuries human beings have come under the delusion that we are the only species who talk.  Maybe it is because we feel out done by so many species in physical prowess.  Maybe it is because as we have plundered more of the world we needed an excuse to put us above our animal cousins.  All cultures around the world all have stories where the animals talk. It can't be a coincidence.  There have been times when I have been sure an animal has given me a message clear as day.  I'm not suggesting they are hiding troves of unpublished novels, but I do think we do nature a disservice when we dismiss their vocalizations as just noise.

Part of my thing is to recognize the magic in the world and to reawaken that sense in others.  I used to think it was to bring back magic that had been lost, but I now realize it was never lost just ignored.  We don't pay attention to magic just like we have lost the voice of the birds and the wind.  We live in a cold world of flesh and matter where words are skewered into contracts rather than promises.  Words are pinned down on a page or a screen but not uttered.  How many times have you witnessed a group of people gathered together in silence with their faces lit by the screens of their phones while they ignore the souls around them?  They are deaf to the world and so their heart cannot see the magic in the world. They have forgotten the language of the birds and beasts.  They have forgotten the wind's song.

Why am I telling you this?  Well what I call magic, you might call wonder, or excitement in the tapestry of life.  I'm sure some of my friends who are secular humanists get this sense of awe even if they don't believe in magic.  That sense of pattern and meaning within the world is important.  It shows us the hidden relationships within the web of being.  The world renowned mycologist Paul Stamets has stated that he believes that nature has a language and is speaking to us.  What might it say to us?  The answer to that question or at least the seeking of the answer may have profound impact on not just our own lives but those of all the world's inhabitants and their descendants.

So what about you? Have you seen the flights of birds whirling with the winds of changing seasons?  Have you heard their voices and wondered at the secrets of their songs?  Do you notice the interplay of the limbs of the trees, their dreaming roots, and all who nest between?  Do you read the patterns in the path of their whispered winged ways?  Do they tell of things that are, things that were, or some things that have yet come to be?  It is said by some that the birds can see the wind just as we see the wake and waves of the sea.  Think of what stories it has for them.  Stretch your ears and your heart to the sky and see if any word comes to you.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle