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January 21, 2002
Mixed Flock
On this Martin Luther King Day we may see things in black and white, or we may not. The vector of the civil rights movement is now invested in the rubric of diversity. This represents a move from a Cultural premise to a Natural one; an exchange of legal language for that of the natural sciences.Dr. King was an officer of religion, yet such are the tools of his movement: law and learning, that if they serve the spirit must do so at a distance.
And yet these things will all conflate.
Snow finally fell, leaving the woods black and white.
But it is not so, not entirely.
Among the dark trunks, flitting between the silhouettes, even in Winter, the birds persist. They are not limited in color. Black and white, yes; but also blue, and red, and green, and yellow. And as if to honor the idea of inclusion, they appear together, in mixed foraging flocks. Birds of a feather may flock together, but they are seldom exclusionary, except when breeding.
In the Winter, when there are fewer birds here, and fewer resources for them to exploit, you become more aware of these congregations. First you notice a Chickadee, up in a treetop; if you see a Chickadee, chances are you’ll see a Titmouse in short order. Then a Nuthatch swoops in and starts walking head first down a trunk. Then another. Probably you heard them yammering before you saw the Chickadee (make that Chickadees), but it’s hard to say, and you keep noticing other things... Take a minute to figure out how many different kinds of Woodpecker you’re seeing; three..four...five? Doubtless there are Cardinals in the brush, and Sparrows too, if you’re inclined to pursue them through roots and under litter, which is also a good way to meet up with the Wren, or the Towhee, while high above a Kinglet or a Goldfinch is busy...
Mixed-species flocking distributes risk while maximizing foraging efficiency, thereby conferring an evolutionary advantage on the whole population, as well as providing a nice metaphor for human diversity. Why can’t we be like the birds? Their conflicts seem few; even the White-breasted Nuthatch and the Brown Creeper can work a single tree trunk in harmony, using a similar probing technique, because the Creeper moves up the trunk, while the Nuthatch comes down, so together they see both sides, and one finds what the other misses.
It would be nice if our various peoples were so congruent. It’s risky to exchange our own laws for a Nature we do not really understand. But we reach beyond our niche, while the Creeper never does aspire to descend the trunk, remaining within the boundaries of habit.
We are not so content.
And our self-definitions do not restrain our desires.
Our desire is like a plummeting Hawk, scattering the flock, seizing one victim, as it were a sacrifice that spares the rest. And if the Hawk is drawn to the consolidated numbers of the flock, then who’s to say the predator is not a part of the flock? It’s all a matter of where you draw the line. We’ve drawn so many lines between us that our best hope is in the Mystery that makes every separation also a place of joining. Our dividing lines criss and cross us, and overrun our individuality. Soon we must all find ourselves marked with the same pattern of conflicting distinctions,
leaving us a pied people;
the mixed flock of the late Reverend Doctor.
January 6, 2002
Epiphany
Today marks the arrival of the Magi, and the end of the Christmas season, even as the first snow of Winter is in the offing. The arrival of Wisdom is much to be wished for, and surely it must travel a long hard road to reach the likes of us. Shall we receive it as a gift, putting us in the position of the Child, rewarded for nothing save innate goodness? Even so, we will not learn how to be wise, except by living out the travails of this Life. And that too puts us in His place. Or Him in ours, more to the point of today’s Holiday.The Magi recognized Christ, though they were not Christian. Some say the terms of existence changed that day, in a New Dispensation. The Gnostic in me says that the only change was in our understanding of the terms, and that revelation and recognition are much the same, though we take one as a gift, and the other as an exercise of our own faculties. So it is that the Divine becomes Human: simply through the recognition that Humanity is an aspect of Divinity; even its coarsest Manifestation.
Or perhaps its finest.
The Magi did not so much gain a revelation as extract an admission; the truth of one of those festering secrets that separate us from God.
* * * * * * *
One new bit of Wisdom can make everything clearer, and another Year serves to make us all wiser, or so it may be hoped. One Winter revelation came to me as I walked in McGowan’s Pass, by the shore of the Meer. The bare twigs revealed a Baltimore Oriole nest overhanging the path along the water’s edge. There are many nests built in the Park each year, but the Oriole’s is distinctive: a dangling sack, rather than the usual cup-like arrangement.I knew it had to be there.
I saw the birds in the Spring; even watched them mating nearby. As Spring passed into Summer I saw them feeding their young in the Mulberry tree at Nutter’s Battery.
But I never saw the nest.
Not until now, with the wisdom of Winter, whose nakedness reveals much that was hidden.
Now on display, underneath a wandering Star.
January 5th, 2002
The Twelfth Day of Christmas
January 4, 2002
The Eleventh Day of Christmas
January 3, 2002
The Tenth Day of Christmas
January 2, 2002
The Ninth Day of Christmas
January 1, 2002
The Eighth Day of Christmas
Is also New Year’s Day.
December 31, 2001
The Seventh Day of Christmas