PTSD

When a soul in a body gets frozen in time due to trauma, the ego responds with a curious series of reactions and accommodations. The soul observes this activity and offers best commentary, which, if the damage isn't too crippling, continues to be heard, like a distant memory of something on the edge of awareness. A dream on the verge of recall. As the ego builds a fortress from within which to rule a wildly unruly cavalcade of sensation, emotion, and consequence, its distracted state provides an uneven rulership. One knows what one SHOULD do, but damn it, what one NEEDS to do to survive, to protect the psyche, demands rule. Any trauma will do it, but physical violation, of any sort, or trauma to a loved one brings a rare, though common set of orders from the emperor within. Hold others at a great emotional distance, drown out the raging emotional voices , and find a safe zone within which there is no real relationship with the more superficial day to day activities considered cultural and social norms. Frozen Music.

what do you see?

Watching parrots is a world removed not by tropical origins but by attention paid to detail. They inhabit the present moment in a way we learned to forget long ago. Was it the invention of the clock, the calendar, or the militarization of man which deprived us of this presence with life?

I learned to see that world through the eyes of a parrot, the eyes of a wild eagle. They focus on a reality different from this two-legged one; theirs is a multi-dimensional cavalcade of impression and response. We, the majority of us, react to life for the most part. They respond to opportunity moment to moment.

The wild flowers are poking up early - in late March, as we like to define this place in the annual cycle of the planet - and they point something out to me.

In the past years living in this glorious wild place in Harvard, I would find wildflowers I have loved all my life. Quaker ladies, nodding ladies tresses, and tiny violets with blossoms smaller than the nail on my little finger. I would discover one and think wow, I wonder if another particular wildflower might live here too? And then I would discover THAT wildflower. I wanted to believe, after this happened many times, that my desire to live alongside them was calling them to seed and bud here with me. What I know is that until I wanted to see them they remained invisible to me. What we allow ourselves to see depends upon what we believe is possible.

Parrots see worlds of possibility where we see limitation. A wild bird, harvested in Africa and traumatically shipped across the ocean, is willing to entertain the possibility that a human being could have something to offer other than the damning gifts of a predator or foe. Flowers grow where we don't see them. What else is happening in plain sight?

Murmuration

Music is wide open movement, even when frozen. A composition in the key of  wing beats and a subtle roar sings the lyrics while the tune unfolds in silence. Murmuration is counterpoint to frozen music.

To view the original film without the annoying ads and TODAY logo go to Murmuration at vimeo.com