If you’ve been keeping up with my posts and or my Instagram account, then you know that I have been pretty giddy about the nice weather that finally hit the Midwest.  If you noted a bit of exaggeration on the word “finally” in the previous sentence, you would be correct.  

It was a long winter, and for those of us who feel connected to that something greater in nature, winter can feel endless.  Why I still live here and haven’t moved to a warmer climate is beyond me.  I think it has something to do with all the self doubt and occasional artistic loathing, but seriously, Midwesterners, why do we hate ourselves so much that we tolerate five months of winter?  Sure the home I live in would cost quadruple somewhere else, but I could live outside… We could find a nice park to serve as the family home… The kids could swing themselves to sleep…It could be great.  

However, as much as I complain, there is something to be said for the way winter melts, spring blooms, summer saves, and fall caramelizes.  Perhaps the scarcity of beautiful weather is what keeps us here, making us appreciate it more than those who are used to it and even seeing the beauty in the frost and the snow. 

I wasn’t going to write about the seasons, but alas, there you go: A Midwesterners Summation on Why We Appreciate Torture.

Other than the raking I have been doing around my house, as mentioned in my previous post, I have been doing some walking, which is tricky, because I have a minimum of one child with me at all times, and quite frequently a dog.  I’ve had to train our dog to walk next to the stroller instead of being crushed underneath it.  It’s been complicated.  BUT walking in nature has not. 

I have to get past my tendency to believe any rustling in the brush is a bum waiting to steal my children, kill my dog, and crush my phone, however once I move past this and accept that it is probably just a squirrel, I can appreciate the beauty around me, and quite simply, it’s just a chance to escape my thoughts (as much as is possible).

When I am completely still (i.e. not untangling the dog’s leash from the stroller), and listening, everthing suddenly seems seamless and transparent.  All of the heavy lifts and calm is restored.  I also can’t help but bring it all back to the Fibonacci Sequence post, where it feels like everything and everyone has this unexplainable connection.

I’m going to borrow another beautiful phenomenon from nature to bring home my point today.  If you’ve ever been outside, in a field, near a river, or anywhere where large masses of birds flock, all in one motion, as if they have become the ‘Shadow Monster’ from Stranger Things1, then you have witnessed what zoologist Wayne Potts calls The Chorus Line Hypothesis for the way birds move.  In an article by Deborah Byrd on EarthSky.org (I realize her name is quite befitting for this article), she discusses Potts hypothesis and explains, as Potts formerly explained in the Journal Nature, in 1984, that birds in a flock do not follow a leader.2 

They don’t follow a bird next to them either, but they anticipate their next movement based on movement they see down the line.  They all anticipate and move together in the direction that keeps them from danger (i.e. something trying to eat them) or toward reward (i.e. yummy yummy worm meat).  

If all you can picture is an Alfred Hitchcock film, bear with me, would you.  You are not the yummy yummy worm meat.  You are, however, part of a flock.  The individualist in you may resist this assertation, but whether we know it or not, we’re flocking.  Maybe it’s out of fear or maybe it’s to reap reward.  Either way, we are this greater being out of millions of tiny beings, trying to anticipate what comes next together.  We’re just out there trying to fly, but we’re not alone. 

Ok, so ‘stay with the flock’, lest you get picked off by predators, but doesn’t this feel very dehumanizing, and simplistic?  It is if you think of it in terms of following.  No-one is following.  We’re anticipating. Together.  We’re all moving, but maybe the birds are trying to teach us that moving together is the best way forward.

Additionally, the science of flocking doesn’t end with birds.  Studies have even been done on humans, finding we naturally cluster together, and if you watch walking traffic from above, lanes are formed and move in one direction, together. 3

There’s something in us that draws us to others, and it appears, at least, that this is universal.  

Healing started when I found a group of women who helped me anticipate my next move.  Part of me was pulling toward them and part of them was pulling toward me, and together we went forward, learning how to move despite the pain, and eventually finding the reward of getting our pain under control.

Social support, community, love, whatever you want to call it, in all of its complexity can sometimes be simplified down to the birds.  We have an innate desire to know and be known, and to navigate this existence together.  

1 Stranger Things [Television series]. (2016, 2017). Netflix.

2 How do flocking birds move in unison? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://earthsky.org/earth/how-do-flocking-birds-move-in-unison

3 Keim, B. (2013, February 01). You May Have Been Born to Flock. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2013/02/human-flocking/