I cannot promise you how interesting this blog will be, but the least thing I would do is to bore you. So yes, I just said, this blog would be interesting. Stay tuned.

All pictures will be taken by iPhone 4 or Fuji XF1 (my newest pretentious hipster toy).

Please feel free to leave comments or questions or anything that you want to know. Bizarre and quirky questions are welcomed. Okay,  I just used two synonyms.

I’ve been asked 100 times whether I’m excited about going home. So this questions is officially banned. Please think about another one.

Murmuration Short

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I took this video the other day in western Utah. This flock of European Starlings- Sturnus vulgaris, termed a murmuration, never quit moving as they travelled around the alfalfa field. As I passed the scene, I thought that I should document their movements. Of course many have seen the recent viral video of thousands of starlings moving through the sky in unison. My flock is less remarkable, but still extraordinary.

I am so fascinated with the flocking of birds such as these. Little is known of how these birds move as one organism, and what cues drive the direction and cohesiveness of the flock. I found an article that attempts to explain some facets of the phenomenon. You can read it here. It is rather interesting.

I plan to watch every murmuration I come upon for the rest of my life, and contemplate the questions raised from such a striking phenomenon.

This video I found in my email from a friend was very uplifting. There are a lot of videos of murmurations (a flock of starlings) out there but this is by far the most jaw-dropping as these girls happened to be right under the display and in the thick of the action.

Enjoy:

For lack of a suitable adjective, I’ll just say that this is CRAY.

]]> http://davidkanigan.com/2012/12/02/sunday-morning-murmuration-the-rustle-of-thousands-of-pairs-of-wings/ Sun, 02 Dec 2012 09:05:41 +0000 David Kanigan http://davidkanigan.com/2012/12/02/sunday-morning-murmuration-the-rustle-of-thousands-of-pairs-of-wings/

Murmuration from Islands & Rivers on Vimeo.

“Winter must must be coming… because the starlings are flocking. Here are many thousands of the birds wheeling together in the afternoon sky near Gretna Green yesterday, as they prepare to roost together for the night. A starling flock like this is called a murmuration, a word that perfectly describes the rustle of thousands of pairs of wings. Starling murmurations are one of the most dazzling displays in the natural world, as the flock changes shape, one minute like a colossal wisp of smoke, the next a tornado, the next a thundercloud blocking the light.  The huge gatherings, biggest in winter, are boosted by thousands of birds that come to Britain’s milder Atlantic climate to escape the harsh cold of the European continent, especially in Scandinavia. There are several reasons to get together in the way they do – safety in numbers, information exchange (if some come back from a good feeding area others may learn of it) and warmth at night through roosting together. The birds may feed up to 20 miles from their winter roost but return each evening.”

Good Sunday Morning…

Sources: Quote: ~ The Independent;  Image: Huffington Post

Emmanuel Lubezki is a master cinematographer. Allow me to do the hipster thing and say: I liked him before The Tree of Life (more on that later). The underrated reason is called A Little Princess (1995). I’m probably biased in this. The film made a huge impression on me when I was a child, and I discovered at the ripe age of 20 that it had a similar effect on many of my friends– it’s pure magic. So we re-watched it and realized that, beyond a great story, the movie is visually stunning.

“…takes your breath away with its mystery, emotion, color, life, and intensity.” –IMDB

Best online example, I could think of–

[If you don't know Pogo yet, there's your introduction!]

A Little Princess is my example of the perfect mix of content (story) and aesthetic quality in a film. Emanual Lubezki is the controlled variable in this analysis.

My next example from his archive of award-winning work is Y Tu Mamá También (2001). It’s a unique kind of story, told on a “micro”-budget.  The whole film is on YouTube and streaming on Netflix, and I highly recommend it.

The audio cuts awkwardly throughout the movie, nearly everything is handheld, and the film looks decdedly ungraded and bland. At first, all of this made me want to turn off the movie. It looked like home video. I stuck with it only because it was recommended by a good friend, and I’m glad I did. The story Y Tu Mamá También tells lives up to the hype (it went on to win numerous awards).

By the end I realized the “homevideo” feel I had (though to Lubezki’s credit, it is not quite that bad) was absolutely appropriate. It functioned the way visuals should. Instead of feeling like the window-observer of a world not my own, as I did in A Little Princess, the camera provided a very intimate connection to the story. It felt authentic, as in Murmuration (see Part I). Watch the movie and see if you agree.

The Tree of Life(2011): One of the most difficult narratives to follow in recent years. It’s been compared to classics such as 2001: A Space Odessey, and The Seventh Seal. Everyone seems to have a different opinion on whether it is “good” or “bad,” but it’s hard to deny it is masterfully crafted– that includes aesthetics and content. Consider this film my example of aesthetics over content. The value in Tree of Life‘s story is its narrative structure. Not to say the story is lacking, but, due to the way it’s structured, the content relies heavily on the visuals to tell the story and elicit emotion. Beautiful visuals they were, too.

The same cinematographer created the lush visuals of A Little Princess, the bland Y Tu Mamá También, and the gorgeous Tree of Life. Each film tells a completely different story; Lubezki therefore created the appropriately unique look required to communicate the content. Just because Y Tu Mamá También looks like it was shot on an iPhone, doesn’t mean it lacks visual potency. I’d argue just the opposite– entertainment value aside, I much preferred it to The Tree of Life.

I saw this video when it was Vimeo’s staff pick a while ago, and my jaw dropped. What struck me most, after the beauty of the starlings, was the fact that this pixelated, blurry, shaky video could have such a profound emotional pull on me. (Yes, profound– maybe I overreacted, but I can’t be the only one.)

I’m still in film school (barf). Aesthetic quality and story structure are supreme concerns around here. Then this? Would this moment really be better had it been (miraculously) captured on a RED, color graded, and ADR’d? In the case of Murmuration in particular, I would say No. It’s beauty is serendipity and authenticity. The wind blowing out the audio, gasps of surprise, the waves of starlings escaping the small frame– too big to take in all at once. If this were a scene in a narrative feature or another Planet Earth, I might think “pretty” rather than “profound.” So, I propose that handheld, “low quality” video is just as capable of eliciting emotion from an audience as something that has been staged and shot in a studio or set– if it is capturing high quality content.

Maybe this is obvious to you. For instance, documentaries frequently transcend quality standards. It’s true; however, they typically still maintain a documentary standard of sorts. For example The Cove isn’t exactly 4K, but hidden HD handicams best the murmuration video (which also falls under the doc category) for sure. It was a successful doc because of the story it told as a whole.

Did Murmation have a story structure? Yes. First they are trying to just get out to the island. Characters are established. Suddenly a swarm of starlings create an amazing site. In the end, we see the look on the rower’s face and know we have shared a beautiful moment with her and everyone else who has seen the video. Connections are made. A story has been told. Even if it encompasses just a single moment, there is a beginning, middle, and end.

Part II will be a deeper analysis of the aesthetic ingredient in film and the importance it plays in storytelling. Film is a visual medium, but perhaps we spend too much time stressing over resolution when we should be worried about showing the appropriate visual for the particular story.

One thing that I have been here long enough to realize is that if I discover something awesome, I will share it with anyone willing to listen. I feel like I’m tired of hearing myself talk about Glastonbury but I also can’t get over the fact that a place like it exists, so I just keep telling everyone that asks me where I’ve been about it. When I got to Joey’s university ( or uni, as they say here ), all of his friends that I had just met wanted to hear about where I had been so far. I spent 2 hours that night telling them about Glastonbury; granted, it was the only place that I had visited at that point besides my one night in London. Instead of deciding I was crazy and exaggerating, a lot of his friends wanted to visit after that. I, of course, offered to go with them. In the end, Joey and two of our girl friends went to Glastonbury with me.

Although I soaked up tons of information while I was there, I did not feel like my fellow travelers would get the best possible experience if I just took them around and showed them what I saw. I felt like they needed to talk to a local and have the tour and hike that I was so lucky to get when visiting Colette. It felt rude to ask her to take us on a tour that most people would usually pay quite a bit of money for, but Colette, being the natural lovely host she is, offered us a cup of tea, a few crazy traveling stories, and to drive us and host a tour for us on the Gemini hike ( Glastonbury has a landscape zodiac and one of the best hikes falls on the body of Gemini, if I failed to mention that in the first post about it ). Meeting Colette and John at the house and soon to be B&B ( which is coming along beautifully – look into staying at St. Anne’s B&B if you’re going to Glastonbury after the new year for some great food and exciting people to meet ), was one of the highlights of this trip for my friends.

After we departed from Colette, we went to visit as many of the shops on the High Street as we could, which was an experience for my friends. The magic and crystal shops are always fun to walk around in. The next day, I took the rest to see the view from the Tor and back through the shops some more. Sadly, the girls had to leave early, but after they left, Joey and I went to the Abbey, which was new for me to see this time as well. It was so awesome. The ruins were huge! Apparently, it was founded by Jesus’s uncle, Joseph of Avalon. The Abbey held King Arthur’s tomb. Seriously, every kind of spirituality you can imagine, every myth and legend, just runs freely and flows together in Glastonbury. It’s like a place out of a fairy tale itself.

Every night we were there, we enjoyed our hostel/pub enough to stay in. There aren’t too many other bars around anyway, and they always had a great DJ and plenty of fun characters to meet and dance with. In Glastonbury, if you see a man dressed like a fairy dancing, go dance with him. Mostly because that kind of dress is normal there and you will look like an outsider if you don’t.

One of the girls we went with, Jessi, really wanted to see a murmuration while we were there, since Glastonbury is one of the few places that actually has them. Mostly they are known for being in Scotland. In case you have no idea what that is (I though Jessi was making up a word), it’s when a flock of starlings make really beautiful designs while they fly together in the sky. It’s really rare. But we didn’t have time to wait around to see one there. Here’s an awesome video of some people who did though! This is not my video, but it’s a great one that I found: Murmuration.

More soon! Next I will tell you about Scotland! Then Paris! Then Ireland, where I am about to go!

After the dreary weather of the last two days, today was a welcome change.  It was dry, warm and pretty well windless.  Dropscone was on a visit to the dentist so I went out for a gentle saunter on the new bike.  I left myself a little time to look at the birds before I went.

A greenfinch was in no mood to trifle with a goldfinch in its way.

Down below, a dove tut tutted at such behaviour.

I chose a familiar circuit by Falford, Gair, Chapelknowe, Canonbie and home and enjoyed the silent pedalling experience of the belt drive.  It is sometimes so quiet that it leaves you alone with nothing but your thoughts for company, an unnerving situation.  I stopped for a couple of bridges, one an old favourite at Between the Waters….

I am going to sneak down and clip that dangling cable one of these days.

…and the other an unfamiliar one, one of a multitude of small stone bridges that carry the country roads across little burns.  This one is between Springkell and Chapelknowe.

Well made and very durable.

I took my time going round, averaging just over 12 mph for the 27 miles and it was lunchtime when I got home.  I was about to have a shower and a good sit down when Sandy rang up from the Moorland Feeders suggesting that I joined him.  This speeded up the ablutionary and alimentary proceedings and I was soon up at the feeders enjoying a positive whirlwind of birds flying in every direction.

Though I did have time to sneak a look out of the kitchen window while I was shovelling down the stilton and celery soup.

A blue tit in a hurry, ‘I’m late, I’m late..’

A theatrical jackdaw.  ‘Darlings!’

Sandy had been there for a couple of hours before I arrived and was in the middle of a combination of still and movie photography.  I concentrated on getting my camera as close to a feeder as I could without disturbing the birds.  They are obviously getting used to our tripods because there was no shortage of visitors to my chosen targets.

I looked at both seed and peanut feeders.

A coal tit pauses for a moment, a very rare occurrence.

Great tits enjoy a slower pace of life.

An accidentally captured woodpecker emphasised the difference in stature between it and a coal tit.

I turned my attention towards woodpeckers on purpose next.

These are the sharpest shots of a woodpecker that I have taken so far.

As we left the site, a bright glow of light could be seen to the west.

We could see the lake district hills with their heads in the clouds across the Solway.

The strip of bright weather made Sandy think of starlings and he suggested another run down to Gretna.  This looked like a good idea so after a cup of tea, off we went,  The drive down would have been a treat in itself without any need to watch starlings so brilliant was the view of the setting sun across the estuary.  We stopped for a quick picture…

…or two.

I wish that we had had more time as there were splendid pictures to be had but the call of the starlings was loud.

There was still a last sunset shot when we arrived at Gretna.

There were plenty of starlings too.

As they assembled, we watched a hawk trying to get in among them.

Once they became more densely packed, it made off and left the starlings to do their thing.

All this takes place above a busy retail village and a main road.

It is quite surreal to see people going about their business without even giving the aerial ballet above a single glance.  Of course, they have been aware of it every day for some time so it is no novelty to them.  We waited until the birds had gone to roost and then I went back to the car.  When we came out of the car park earlier, a lady carrying her shopping home had said to us rather sourly, “They may be a pretty sight to you but they are a filthy nuisance to us.  I have to clean my windows every day.”  I could see what she meant when  I got back to the car which had been parked under their flight path.

Not a pretty sight.

If you want to hear what several thousand starlings sound like when they have gone to bed, listen to this.  If you of a nervous disposition, give it a miss.

Roosting starlings

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I had to wait for Sandy to join me and he explained that he had been waylaid by a reporter from The Scotland on Sunday newspaper and had been interviewed about his starling experience.  We shall see if it makes it into the paper this weekend.

We returned from the starlings and went our separate ways for long enough to have our evening meal (potato, feta cheese, tomato and red pepper bake in my case) and then joined forces once again with Jean and went to the Archive Centre to do our weekly stint.  I enjoyed my half pint in the Douglas afterwards.  I only allow myself one unit of alcohol a week so it helps if it is good stuff.

No flying birds today as the starlings have already filled that role.

In a pleasing moment that shows that I am not the only idiot in the world, I was rung up during the day by a man who some months ago had booked a B&B in Langholm in December and had subsequently managed to lose the details. The poor fellow was having to ring up every B&B in Langholm to ask if perhaps he had booked with them.  I felt great sympathy for him but it wasn’t us so he had to try again elsewhere.   Such is life for the elderly.

I had no sooner sat down with my fluffy pink afghan to admire the still reflection of the water across the thorough-way from me, when I saw something that looked like the head beams of a car moving on the land bridge above the water.  I watched the shape morph into something that seemed first like a shadow over the water and then began to shine and reflect the light of the sun: a murmuration of swallows.

I felt my face melt into a gasp and then a smile.  I’ve never seen a murmuration like that, so tightly knit and moving like one mass, one hand or heartbeat, with one purpose.  All this from a balcony on the East Bay.

Seemingly unconnected tangent as follows:

I’ve been thinking a lot about the essence of retreat since coming back from Ojai last weekend.  I wasn’t on retreat, necessarily, but I’ve found it to be the most accurate way to describe my time there to new people who just won’t understand me when I say, “I just got back from Crib.”  Ojai Yoga Crib.  When I first saw those words I knew I’d be in good hands.  Yoga + a crib?  Yes.  The safest possible space to come and practice yoga.  Stay a while, sleep, nurse or do whatever it is that comforts you, and do it in Ojai.

What I found after a few days in Ojai is the same thing that I always find in Ojai: that at some point, the rest of the world can fall away — even I fall away — and the magic of the valley holds me, holds space for me, and invites me into a place in myself that isn’t really my “self”; it’s more like tapping into well, if you can catch my drift.  Like, you’re standing above ground on arid land, and suddenly become aware that you are actually standing above an underground lake of the coolest, freshest most perfect water.  And that water is You.  Your highest Self.  Your most perfect teacher.

I could bust out a ton of analogies about what I think about prana and the renewal of the Life Force through things like meditation, pranayama and asana, but I’ll stick to my point.  Even if my point is more like a stubby roundish thing.

It’s easy, is my point, to go to a place like Ojai and be renewed.  I believe one of the reasons I love it there is that I am absolutely and gloriously unbound by any responsibilities other than to simply show up as myself.  And when I come home from Ojai, I am light, buoyant and so peaceful that all I want to do is hug and kiss everyone (which is what we do a lot of in Ojai).  But what about a week later when I’ve returned to my real life?  I have bills, dogs and a job that don’t come with me to Ojai.  Sure, I can stick a bindi between my eyebrows and try my best to harness my memory of Ojai Morgan, but especially after my last pilgrimage there, I’m moved to understand what it means to establish a space in my daily life that is Ojai-esque.  Not the place itself or its looming groves of oak trees, but the feeling of it.

Is it spaciousness?  Safety?  Freedom?  Yes, and also: the thing I feel most powerfully after a return from Ojai is that I am available.  Every pore on my skin is open and receptive, I am sensitive and blissed out by the simplest things.  It feels like nothing and no one threatens to steal my peace or the space I have for myself — because I am understanding that I/we are always sharing space, and I gratefully take my place and share in what we all create.  I am so effervescent after a stint in Ojai that my strongest urge is to GIVE, which is so opposite to the constant holding-onto that we do in normal life.  Or least that’s true for me.

I’m struck by how constantly we are always fighting for our space: our rights, our beliefs, to be seen or for our love to be valued.  Our validation seems to always need to come from another source, and I believe the biggest obstacle to our ability to give is our fear that we will lose something in the process.  And because we rarely have developed the practice of replenishing our Give Tank — or our love — we stand stalwart to our position (either physically, emotionally or spiritually) and do not budge.

Before I ramble on too much longer, I think I need to say that I see the value — and necessity — in not remaining as raw as we do when we come back from retreat.  I think of it now as counter-posing: the forward bend after the back bend.  Twisting to the right after twisting to the left.  So I hold no illusion that I will always be able to be blissed-out Ojai Morgan.  What I do think is necessary, though, is a way to create safety and solace so that I can show up to my life: and in refilling the Give Tank, the pores open, the crinkles in the forehead relax, the palms soften and the heart is held.  We go on retreat so that we can come home; we show up for ourselves so that we can show up for another.

There was an interesting series of questions that got asked while we were all preparing for the Crib to kick off last week.  It started with a simple service question that we all get asked often:  “How can I help you?”  And then it evolved.  “How can I help you?” turned into “How may I serve you?” and then “How may I love you?”

How can I help you?
How may I serve you?
How may I love you?

I find myself asking this last question silently to myself a lot the last few days when I’m face to face with someone, be it my partner, my boss or a stranger.  What I notice then is a feeling that my teacher calls “being in your belly”; there is a deep rootedness, a grounded feeling that arises.  I become aware of my toes, the contact my skin has with the table I’m sitting at, or the skin of the person next to me.  The temperature of the air.  True love requires true awareness, Self-Consciousness in its purest form, connection with the High Self.  Capital S. We have to show up if we are going to experience anything at all.

So, this morning I’m on my balcony.  I’m there to show up for whatever is present:  a murmuration, which by definition is a building roost of birds, each bird attempting to mimic the bird next to it exactly, which results in the rippling effect you see.  I’m sure there’s a deep yoga analogy in there somewhere, and if you’ve ever seen a yoga class in progress from the outside (of Yoga to the People, perhaps) you might draw some parallels: each person is mimicking the person next to them.  We are all in this together.

I sat after the murmuration had dispersed, still and silent, eyes closed.  Knees touching the arms of the chair, a sweet salty breeze wafting along the skin of my eyelids, forehead, nose, the fine baby hairs on the skin on the tops of my hands.  Can I show up?  I asked myself.

How may I serve you?
How may I love you?

birds fly into place of fallen leaves

So I recently spent a morning with a few friends at the RSPB reserve in Snettisham. I brought the wrong lenses, so made a film about bird watchers, instead of watching the birds. Here are a few shots that my friend Jamie took last year. It’s an astonishing experience and well worth checking the RSPB’s information on high tides and getting over there if you’re based in the South East.

Come next February, it will be four years since I learned who my birth family is.  From the beginning, we recognized we were in unchartered territory, and we said as much to one another.  That’s where the title of this blog comes from, and the book that I am writing.  I morphed the word blueprint–a model, a prototype, a guide–into twinprint.  More than being adopted, or being from the Midwest, or being this or that early defining thing, I have been guided in so much of my life by being a twin.  I don’t feel lost in that part of myself.

Even though the story of adoption search and reunion was new to all of us, and that newness created a honeymoon of excitement and possibility in the beginning, our story is not unusual.  Many other people have been in our position, tracking down birth parents or birth children, reuniting with them, trying to make a go at a relationship with one another.  It may be uncommon that our birth parents are still together, having married less than a year after my sister and I were born, but it’s not unheard of.  And other people who were adopted have also found, as my sister and I did, a full biological sibling (or two or three) that they never knew about, or even imagined.  There are twins out there, too, adopted together as infants, some who have embarked on a search for birth families, others who have not.

Along the way, I have heard, and read, stories from people involved in adoption reunions who say how hard it is after the initial excitement wanes.  So many Hollywood-esque reunions fizzle as time goes on.  I recently met someone who hadn’t seen or talked to her birth mother in the fifteen years since they happily found one another, for no other reason than, well, they just hadn’t.  One after another, those years disappeared in a blink.

I don’t like being ordinary, not in that way, in any case.  I wanted my birth family and my adopted family to come together in some kind of extraordinary manner–though I had no idea what this new kind of family would look like or what its role would be in relation to the families we already had.  Unchartered territory.  No blueprint.  Still, I believed that if we remained open to the process, if we let love and good will and kindness and patience guide us, we all had it in us to be more than a statistic.

Nearly four years in, I’m not so sure anymore that we can avoid the reality of the statistic.  This business of adoption reunion is just that hard.  The honeymoon is officially over, and we’ve settled into an uneasy quiet, caught in the busyness of our separate lives, focused on the people in front of us (old family) who need us more (than new family).  We have no plans to meet up again any time soon.  That’s not a terrible thing; it just is as it is.

As someone who has been married well over a decade, I knew the starry-eyed bliss wasn’t going to last forever, at least not at its initial intensity.  I didn’t necessarily mourn the end, though, because I also knew from experience that something else would take over, something unimaginable in the beginning but just as good, even better.  We’d grow into something deeper, more profound, based on love and shared experiences, both good and bad, and based on security.

We have love, we have a handful of shared experiences, but we don’t have one of the crucial ingredients that keep most families going no matter what.  We don’t have security.  We don’t have: “No matter what happens, I’m not going anywhere”–maybe because we came into this world already leaving one another.  Moreover, I think we’ve all realized that we do have a choice after all: to go or to come, to be present or to disappear.  Those choices make a statement about where we are in the process, about what we are willing, or not willing, to do.  Sometimes the reasons for silence are absolutely legitimate, necessary, healthy.  But if one person is going while the other is coming, if one person is present while the other disappears, then the imbalance  inevitably wounds.  And once you get stuck in such a cycle, it’s hard to get out of it, to build trust, to feel secure, to be a family.

In mid-June, my birth father sent around a video that had gone viral on the internet.  The video, titled “Murmuration,” was shot by two young British filmmakers who late last fall took a canoe out on the River Shannon in Ireland.  While the women were on the boat, they witnessed a murmuration, thousands of starlings turning and twisting in a unified dance that is breathtaking to watch.

In mid-June, my birth family and my adoptive family were not in unison.  Unlike the starlings, our dance was more mosh than ballet.  Shortly after we received the video, our birth mother sent an e-mail to my sister that my sister shared with me.  Our birth mother wrote, “for ‘heaven’s sake’ if the birds can fly so well together in unison, certainly [we] can merge, separate and remerge from time to time also, without damage to anyone.”  My sister and I both nodded.  We smiled at her determined spirit–one of the characteristics that we love in her.  Yes.  Yes.  But how?

Scientists understand why starling flocks move as they do, but they don’t yet know how the birds are physiologically wired to do so.  Like many of the most beautiful and complex phenomena in nature, it remains a mystery.

As fall takes hold here in Pennsylvania, the birds gather in chattering clumps in the tops of glowing trees.  I watch and wait for them to guide us, to show us how it’s done.  But in a blink they are in motion, swooping, dipping, drawing giant black commas against the blue-gray sky.  In a blink, they are gone.

And I had more dreams than I could ever possibly remember– but the very worst part is I knew I was probably dreaming, so I brought a CAMERA with me for a lot of this. … where’s my camera footage? Where is that beautiful camera footage– somebody tell me where fake camera footage goes! It made perfect sense in my dream that I would still have it. I was thinking, “Man, it’s too bad this is a dream– this would be amazing to replay some day. Oh, wait, my old camcorder from 1st Grade just materialized in my hand, and it’s working perfectly instead of just devouring every tape in my collection! Perfect– I can’t believe I thought of such a perfect plan!”

I went to a convention where they were playing the first twenty minutes of something that was kind of like the live-action equivalent of a combination plot of Wreck-it Ralph and… Chronicle. I was leading Nova around, carrying him from one place to the other while the rest of my family was taking a bathroom break, I belieb’. And we walked past the small screening exhibition, just as it was starting, and I was just standing outside it– because I knew it cost to get in. But one of the security guards immediately shoved me in saying “we’re about to close the doors, get in!” And even when I tried to protest, she wouldn’t listen to anything I said. So. We got to watch it, and suddenly, Rey’ and Sara were behind me, too. I pulled out my laptop near the ending, and I realized it was hooked up — SOMEHOW — to the computer they were playing the file off of. And it opened up my DVD playing program– and it started playing the main menu for this Wreck-it Ralph-Chronicle amalgam. And the thought to rip it (Ralph) onto my computer immediately came to my entire family’s mind. As it would any other family of devious magicians.

But then I accidentally quit out of the DVD playing program, and ruined it for everyone. *sighs dreamily* As I tried to open it up again, some man stood up on the platform and said that the twenty minutes were up, and thanked everyone for showing up and supporting the film, then walked away. And my family spread the love to me by screaming in agony (Nova and Sara) and making wise-cracks about how well I’d done. (… Rey’)

Then I dreamt I was in Into the Woods again– but this time, it went a lot more like my job directing, writing, acting in, and composing/recording everything for my original 20 minute play. I was playing multiple small characters and was constantly in and out of costume behind stage. And I was on stage right, pulling off everything I had on before– a suit and pants, when I heard Jonah– the Baker, say the line that would prompt me to come out. And I’d only just put on my rags, and I didn’t have on my boots– I only had on socks, and my beard was nowhere to be found. I found one that looks like the one I have on in THIS picture– and I was JUST about to come out with that one when Jonah looked up to the heavens and saw my real beard descending. As it came in through the shaft of dusty light, he caught it in his hands and looked at it, in awe. A couple of thoughts came into my mind: Was this some practical joke being played by the stagehands? Did Jonah decide to do improv in the scene instead of me? Mostly, I thought – this is the greatest entrance I could’ve ever hoped for. So I came in, my rags pulled up over my face, and I snatched the beard out of his hands and pulled it onto my face, then turned to him.

I was so completely overwhelmed by that that I had to fill in the blanks in my lines I’d temporarily forgotten, but they ended up being the funniest parts of the scenes. I remember saying something like, “Oh, you shouldn’t have!” and nudging the cow with my elbow.

I made my way backstage, putting on the boots I’d had to leave behind for the scene, feeling all the stress of these past two months bubbling up on the inside of me, even though what was going on right now didn’t even correlate in chronological order with the present actual events. But I just felt all the self-same stress there, and the anxiety, and the fear… and I looked at everyone backstage, and I clenched my teeth and groaned and screamed, “Iiii have no idea how I am going to make this work, I’mmmm pretty sure in theory, I will not make it passst this one insanely difficult niiaaigght aLIIIIVEE!!–” And then I started singing, while clapping in rhythm, “IIIIIII AM GOING TO DIIIIIIE I’M GOING TO DIIIIIE. I’M GONNA DIE TODAY IIIIIII AM GOING TO DIIIIIIE I’M GOING TO DIIIIIE. I’M GONNA DIE TODAY.”

And yes, it continued. Oh, did it continue. I sang those exact lines, while parading from one end of the stage to the other, running out the door, down the hallways, into a convenience store cosmetics aisle (apparently, it was connected?) and to the check-out line, and I got an impressive 50% to join me in my rousing round.

I stopped when I made it to a bag of pretzels.

Then my family and I ended up in the parking lot, and I was holding the camcorder that I’d apparently recorded that whole “I am going to die” musical epiphany on. I was continuing to record, looking through the viewfinder, as my mom and dad dragged me on either side of me, like they were my bodyguard-escorts. Or maybe they really were trying to help me to film me walking! Which they most certainly were. (Seriously, it was gorgeous footage. It was raining, and the ambience of the parking lot was so open and echoey and airy. It makes me reminisce over memories that never existed. Ma cherie. Le sigh.) And we drove, and we ended up in one of those hole-in-the-wall family-owned restaurants that rock everyone’s tastebuds like it’s a night at the disco-tech. And there were hilarious local advertisements plastered all over the walls, and I began to film them. As well as this man out in the distance with a neck twice as tall as anyone else’s that I had no idea was out there in the distance giving my dad some directions on how to get back onto the Interstate or something. (My mom told me to stop filming him, because I was totally getting all up in his privacy-grill.)

And as I turned around and began to start filming the signs, there suddenly was a huge congregation of white and black starling-like birds on one of the huge printed faces on the advertisements. At first, I thought it was just mindless graffiti, but then it started moving in my camera viewfinder, so I followed it as they began to make huge murmurations in the sherbet-purple-coloured sky. Back and forth across, closer to us, and back away, in these huge beautiful arrays that really outrivaled the grandeur of firework shows– blasting and compacting in these organic, perfect patterns. The blank ones even began to branch over, left and right, over the white ones, creating these gorgeous, awe-inspiring wings that looked like something between an eagle’s and a monarch butterfly’s wings. I remember asking, “How are they doing that? Why would they imitate any of this–” Then suddenly, I was interrupted as they swooped all the way down and caught me in a corner and landed in my lap. The whole lot of them. They were so small, to the point where soon, I couldn’t tell the difference between one and the other, and they made a design on my lap that was like an abacus or some kind of old-fashioned (hovering in midair above my legs) computational machine for numbers.

I handed the camera over to one of my siblings as Mom, Dad and I tried to solve what the birds wanted us to do. We pressed, like, a number 2 at the top, and a 6 at the bottom, and we were about to try something else. And then the birds broke formation, spelt racially hurtful phrases, and flew away.

…

Well, I dunno, I suppose we deserved it a bit for not understanding their mystical ways?

Then again, they were white AND black. Shouldn’t they know better?

Then we ate dinner– it suddenly became a dinner between Amanda and I– and we went home, laid back on our couch, hand placed on-top of the other, and watched old Looney Tunes cartoons, discussing old memories about watching this stuff, and grinning at each other, then we watched something more serious– I forgot what it was, and then we turned off the TV, which was the only light in the house, and in the subtle, softly shining, afternoon light, we held each other close. I told her I was really grateful to be there with her. And it lasted forever, as I breathed in and out, wondering if she could feel my heart beating with an ever-rising crescendo, of unfading awe that completely transcended the concept of a mere spectacle. And I knew I would never forget how it felt, and I didn’t need anything to remind me of that except for my heart and her heart, and her breath and my breath.

©Ianthe Butt 2012

Two ladies were out for a late afternoon canoe ride, and, fortunately, one of them remembered to bring her video camera. What they saw was a wonderful murmurations display, caught in the short video embeded above. Islands & Rivers on Vimeo.

Can Murmurations Suggest Group Consciousness?

Before you get my thought on this statement here’s another amazing video showing murmurations during the sardine run. Next time you have a tin of sardines this clip will certainly make you think twice as to what a sardine might go through to get into that tin!

Actually, I have changed my mind today and I’m going to let these murmurations videos do the talking.

At a later date I’ll do a more in-depth artiticle on murmurations, the hundred monkeys effect and maybe Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic fields. I might even venture into remote viewing.

This last murmurations video I found very inspiring and I kind of drifted off into a sort of impromptu meditation. The idea I got was that if human consciousness could pull together symbolically in the way the starlings do in the murmurations shown in this video, what we could achieve would be mind boggling.  Idealistic. Sure, but it was a great space to be in.

Love, Light, Grace and Gratitude,

mike

this fall, sheers are showing up in not-so-expected places:  pants [or leggings], unusual placement on tops and blouses, cutouts with sheer and lace backing, inserts in funky spots…  try adding in a few pieces to your fall wardrobe and experiment with hard and soft, transparent and solid, textured and slick surfaces, and be revealing without being overly revealing!  and have fun with it!  sheers instantly dress up any look, so play around with mixing your old with new.

xo

this blouse by murmuration has a whole lot of sheer!  the front features stunning printed silk panels [hand printed by the designer from a photograph she took!] and rest is a sheer mesh.  i am OBSESSED with every listing in is shop!  modern, simple, sheer, tailored…

ovate‘s extra long sheer mesh leggins are HOT.  wear with a tunic or a drapy dress and instantly transform your look.

a sheer dress can be worn so many ways and this sexified “little red riding hood” number by miri miri fashion is no exception!  the hood adds an interesting element, as they tend to dress-down a look.  not in this case!

listening to:

faith by george michael

marry the night by lady gaga

“We were a murmuration in a past life,” you said.
The moment you murmured, I recalled.
The feel of a wild wind whipping through my feathers,
a downward view of apricots and almendras,
as we raced westward toward a setting sun.
You and I drew an invisible line
they still call Santiago.