Individual cells of one brain
January 25, 2012 by Ronn Ives, under Larger Forces at Work.
It was only six weeks after 9-11.
I was standing outside watching a huge flock of Starlings. Chris, a good friend, dropped by for a visit. The flock was so large and the birds so loud he too stopped to watch and listen.
Amazing. As they would lift into the air – thousands per second – it was if they all shared a plan. They moved in organic unison. I said to Chris “It’s like they’re all individual cells of one brain…” Although considered common, I think Starlings are amazing for the way they move as a mass, and beautiful when their deep purple-blue-black iridescent feathers glow in sunlight.
Countless Starlings rose like violent black smoke – spinning, floating, and turning in the air with the coordinated timing of a Chinese Olympic half-time show. Suddenly, I noticed ONE Crow inside the flock of Starlings. It was “dancing” with them – keeping pace, moving to their moves – just him – and thousands of the much smaller black birds. “He must admire them and regret his own kind doesn’t do this,” I joked.
Down the sidewalk and between buildings, dry, fallen leaves were being caught by the winds – lifted and spun through the air in large batches – moving as the Starlings.
“I wonder… if we were high over the city… we would see humans moving in similar patterns… You know, by design, or something…” I said. Chris suspected the same. Later today, after he left, I remembered the film “Koyaanisqatsi”, by Godfrey Reggio, with music by Philip Glass. It’s a non-dialog, almost narrative-free film of images on Earth, including a lot of patterning we humans create.
Poetry in the theater, on the sidewalk, in the sky.
Take your choice.
But choose.
It’d be a shame to miss it all.
