After a 50+ year love affair with nature I lost interest - what?! To reignite the passion, or at least a modicum of it, I put my sea kayak in my living room. I'm not certain how long it will be there but, "out of sight out mind."
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"Mathematician Steven Strogatz shows how flocks of creatures (like birds, fireflies and fish) manage to synchronize and act as a unit -- when no one's giving orders. The powerful tendency extends into the realm of objects, too." - TED
If this tendency exists in nature and people are of nature, might the tendency also be found in social groups in a way that supports emergent cooperation and collaboraton from a group's "nature"?
Approaching Seneca Creek during an I-270 commute.
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In a previous post, on Inauguration Day, I mentioned how I drove to Little Seneca Lake near my home to look for eagles. I'd seen them previously in a particular dead tree by the water but they were not there.
Today, the warm air prompted me to drive to the lake but not necessarily to look for eagles. On driving pass the dead tree the eagles were not there but on returning they were, sitting close side by side and high up. I only had an iPhone camera so you cannot see them in the photo below but I've pointed to the dead tree where they sat.
Many eagles now inhabit the Cheasapeake Bay and the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers. It is always exciting to see them, and equally exciting to see their very large nests. Its actually rarer to see their nests than the eagles themselves.
I'd engaged a woman in conversation at the pull-off where we were viewing the birds on this day. She said their nest was visible from the road about a half mile away. As it was on my way home I looked for their nest and saw it clearly in a sycamore tree, not 60 yards from the road and in the backyard of a private home! Moreover, the nest was about 80 yards from a railroad track. Talk about making your home wherever you are!
This business with trying to see eagles brings this to mind on contemplative prayer:
"Prayer is like watching for the
Kingfisher. All you can do is
Be where he is likely to appear, and...
Wait."
(Ann Lewin, Candles and Kingfishers)
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There is a lake near my home where two mature bald eagles have made their home for the winter. I've seen them sitting several times in a dead tree by the water but never in flight. Two days ago, however, one seemed to drop from nowhere and flew low over my car, and then disappeared beyond the woods. I went to the lake today hoping to see the eagles in the dead tree and to capture an image of the national symbol of freedom to bring here. They were nowhere to be seen but I'm glad I looked.
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Taken from the deck at home - the beginning of the first measurable snow fall of winter. I wonder how much will fall? (The answer came later: about an inch)
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