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murmuration
in the world

The Murmuration In You

The video at the bottom of this post has well over 25 million visits.

It shows a close up view of a murmuration, an immense flock of starlings rippling through the sky in a series of complex swoops and turns.

Murmurations usually occur just before dusk sets in, and the shadowy movements of the starlings look striking against the dark sky. While the sight of a murmuration is impressive, the word itself comes  from the sounds made by the birds.

The Old Latin root for murmuration means: ‘humming, muttering, roaring, rustling’–and in Old Greek: “to roar, to boil”. (How great is the word–‘boil’? It really captures that rolling sense of movement.)

Watching the video, where the sounds are mostly blocked out by overlaid music, you get a sense of what it must be like to be close to the bustling and swooping movements of the birds, how thick the air is with their sound.

An elegant response

The movement of the starlings is an elegant group response to either a danger, say a peregrine falcon, or an opportunity, like a food source.

The patterns of flight emerge from each bird’s reaction to its neighbors.

If one bird sees a predator and shifts away, or another sees a food source and shifts towards it, that movement influences the whole flock.

While a murmuration is hauntingly beautiful there’s a sense of brute physicality to it as well.

One lone bird confronted by a falcon would also shift away, but when that movement is mirrored by thousands of other starlings it must be daunting to the predator, as this great shadowy beast rears up and away in the sky.

What are we responding to?

We’ve all seen variations on this movement before in schools of baitfish, blood cells under a microscope, the swirl of galaxies.

Something about those repeated patterns of motion strike a chord with us, and we find them mesmerizing. Maybe we see our own communal movements echoed in the flocking of starlings.
People are social animals, our range of responses may have more complexity but the similarities are there.

This is echoed in the complex movements of traffic through a city at peak hour, guests at a wedding shifting this way and that, an audience at a concert responding to the performers and the people around them, maybe the best human example is the way we interact on the internet.

The Murmuration In You

As well as the interactions we have outside of ourselves, there is also a rich unfolding taking place within us as sensations, emotions, and thoughts weave together, mingling, influencing each other as they meet.

These inner swirlings can be hard to perceive, occurring at the edge of our own dusky subconscious. And we have to settle in and really pay attention to recognize them. I think one reason murmurations are so compelling is that they mirror the unfolding movements of our inner life. We see a deep and hidden aspect of ourselves mirrored against the sky.

The Murmuration Exercise

When I run medium sized workshops I have a favorite exercise I often include that brings the participants together and, with a few simple rules,  mimics a murmuration.

It’s great fun and people are always fascinated by the experience of being inside a living system as it twists and turns through the room in seemingly random movements.

And when we do the murmuration exercise in a workshop and allow our own bodies to be moved in these patterns, we get to experience a small taste of something essential to the universe as it’s projected in us. We are making contact with the seeds of murmuration stirring in our own bodies. It never fails to generate intense discussions afterwards.

6 or 7 starlings

Each starling in a murmuration moves in response to 6 or 7 neighboring birds. These partners remain the same even though other birds may, at times, come closer to the individual bird. This ‘system’ is partly what allows the murmuration to create such elaborate movements and patterns.

Each bird instinctively attunes to to the birds around it, and through this becomes part of a larger ‘being’, a trade-off that gives the birds more safety and opportunity.

While people aren’t starlings, a murmuration is an interesting metaphor for looking at how we interact with the people around us. We certainly shape each others lives in some way as we interact with the people around us.

Thinking about the 6 or 7 people around me in any life situation–family, jobs I’ve worked in, friendship circles–is something I’ve been thinking about while writing this post. I can see how being part of any group influences my behavior as I try to balance my own needs to the needs of the group.

There are times when I’ve partially, or fully, switched out some of these half dozen relationships–through taking a new job, or moving, or entering new relationships–and each time I can clearly see the shifts that have occurred as a result.

So, here is the video. I’d love to see your comments on it: How does watching this video affect you? What did you feel in your body as you watched? Can you feel the movements mirrored in your own body?

October 30, 2015 by
blue pools awareness
in the world

Blue Pools Of Awareness

I was leafing through a book by Thomas Leonard the other morning and a simple sentence leapt out at me:

“Own your awareness.”

There was something about those 3 words that grabbed my attention. The idea of ownership, when applied to awareness, is very powerful. Examine how most of your days play out, you might be surprised to see how much of each day is driven by unconscious, habitual responses.

To get a taste of what that looks like, think of a time where you have been driving and allowed your attention to wander, then realizing that you’d just driven a mile or two down the road and were unaware of that part of the trip.

Or being in conversation with someone and getting lost in a train of thought, then returning and realizing you’ve missed nearly everything they said. (Usually, right at the point where they look at you and say, “So, what do you think about that?”)

So, the call to ‘own’ your attention is striking. Sometimes when we try to be more present, or mindfully aware, it can seem like a struggle. But it’s useful to remember that we have that capacity to choose.

Awareness Is The Core Of Who We Are

I was employed as a youth worker for a number of years, and one year we took a group of young people on a caving trip. We were at a place called Jenolan Caves, an amazing series of underground caves carved out of limestone by the water flowing below ground.

Most of the underground trails leading through the caves were located beside the streams and pools of water that were still steadily carving out the limestone. I remember the beauty of those turquoise pools and how amazing it was to to explore these extensive waterways, so completely hidden underground

I think of awareness in the same way, as if it’s a beautiful body of water streaming underneath our life, constantly moving and shaping everything it touches.

These blue pools of awareness are often hidden from view by the busy-ness that we allow to invade us, by the ceaseless chatter in our minds, the deep habitual ruts we rely on to navigate our days. but they are always available for us to access.

Awareness Can’t Really Be Owned

While I like the urgency of Thomas’ direction: ‘Own your awareness’, the idea that awareness can be owned is not completely accurate.

Awareness is not an object we can take possession of, or control.

Awareness naturally springs out of us. (Or maybe we spring from it.)

Rather than owning our awareness, it might be useful to think in terms of aligning with it, of tuning into it.

This is a gentler approach, and one that sees awareness, not as an object we have to chase down and grab a hold of but, as a quality, a part of us that is always present, patiently waiting for our return.

How Do We Align With Awareness?

We become so used to being detached from our awareness that it becomes an almost novel experience to remain aware of ordinary experiences.

We live in a time where movies need multiple explosions and plot twists to hold our attention, where food has to be chemically altered so taste becomes extreme enough to register, where lives are crammed so full we don’t even notice the coffee or energy drink we’re chugging on our way to the next meeting.

It can feel like external events have the power to hijack our capacity for presence by continually placing us on high alert.

But we have a choice.

We sell our lives short when we buy into the idea that everything has to be extraordinary in order to earn our attention. The fact of being simply alive is miraculous enough that, when we choose to pay attention, we can never use up all the mystery and majesty of experiencing even the simplest things.

Like drinking a glass of water.

Or feeling your feet on the floor.

To explore that second example for a moment:

Stand up and give your attention to your own standing. What do you notice in your feet? What, if anything is happening in your knees? Do you feel any effects of your standing rippling out to even further parts of your body?

Even in the ordinary act of standing there is no limit to the depths we can explore.

So, while we can’t actually ‘own’ our awareness, we can claim the boldness of that statement, and make a choice to be more aware, and more consciously engaged with our awareness.

We can offer this awareness to ourselves, and to other people. We can lovingly guide it in ways that nourish and sustain us, and those around us. We can make regular contact with our awareness and watch as it moves through our lives, like a blue pool silently flowing, shaping us as it goes.

October 19, 2015 by
welcome presence.com history of trees
heart mind writing

A Brief History Of Trees

When we moved in, the back yard was empty except for newly laid lawn and an old gum tree in the back right hand corner. Stripped bark circled the base of the tree like discarded snake skins.

Holidays at Budgewoi. I always woke first and walked along the lake, in and out through the paperbark trees, their upper branches filled with morning sky and magpie songs.

First grade. On my way to the bus stop I’d walk under the jacaranda trees on a carpet of discarded purple flowers, they looked like a trail of delicate, miniature trumpets.

I got stuck stuck halfway up while climbing the fig tree, and sat there calling for my dad to help me down.

In the rainforest at Cedar Creek, the water was icy cold and I let eels slide through my fingers while dad took photos for painting. The trees rose up, blocking out the sky. We arrived home during a wild storm. The next day the whole city was underwater.

At school assembly the Principal informed us that a fellow student had been playing in the school on the weekend and had fallen from the tree at the edge of the playground, onto the asphalt. He was in a coma.

Funeral. Walking back to class from church. Looking at the tree, trying not to look at the tree.

Every year. First day of school. My mum takes a photo of me and my brothers in front of the maple tree in our front yard.

Most weekends there was a barbecue, swimming in the pool (a thousand bloody kids!), backyard cricket games under the myrtle tree.

The sky was blue and bright and burning. We climbed up into the plum tree. We ate plums in the breezy shade.

Canoe trip on the Murrimbidgee river. After a hard day of paddling the first night is freezing and we drag the base of a giant fallen tree over to the fire, we barely got it on there, thick roots flew out in all directions like tentacles. We named it ‘The octopus fire’.

Parked by the norfolk pines at Manly beach. Checking out the Winter surf from the car while listening to Midnight Oil.

The only thing I liked about this house was the bathroom window. Every time I took a shower I could look into the upper branches of the tree outside the window, and imagine I was somewhere else. Somewhere wild.

Old friends: Three turpentine trees beside the creek along the valley track at the back of my house. The angophoras guarding the top of the track just before our yard. The ‘reading tree’ in the garden with leaves that reached all the way down to the ground.

Aboriginal meeting place, Mt Wilson.  The trees curved up from the ground, spaced apart, they looked like dancers waiting for their cue. I rested by a small creek. A rotting log had jammed in there and been hollowed out by the force of the water, now the creek flowed through it. Blue dragonflies hovered.

Arriving at the Social Ecology retreat, we walked down the track through fine rain. The trunks of the yellow gums were wet and shining.

Flying into Seattle. Everything is green.

The whole crowd moved from point to point in the garden. There were poems. Friends sang from the balcony. For our wedding vows we stood in a circle of birch trees.

My son running for the first time, through the apple trees, chasing his cousins.

When we visit the zoo, I always fill my pockets with eucalyptus leaves from the ‘Australasia’ section.

Conducting my first labyrinth workshop surrounded by cedar trees and madronas. We do our final walk singing, our voices trail off, one by one, as we leave the labyrinth. You could hear the waves falling on the beach below.

July 24, 2015 by