I was in the UK this December and January, visiting family and friends, not only visiting some great towns and cities such as Oxford and Leeds, but also some amazing places such as Snowdonia in North Wales, Keswick in the Lake District, and Avebury in the south west of England. Simon and I also went to see the starlings in Gretna, the most southerly town in Scotland, which is on the border with England, and here again we had an unbelievable treat, first on the 2nd of January, and again on the 4th when we changed our viewing location, ending up right underneath them. Simon has made a film of them which you can watch below.
For me, experiencing the starlings and being so close to them was a blessing. I felt that the universe was blessing me with wonderful, marvelous natural display over my head. Coming and going in a very gentle way. I felt a great harmony between us standing there and that very wonderful sunset, the colours in the sky and the silence and the sound of them moving in that spectacular fashion.
Photo: Simon Robinson
That very wonderful spectacle much more than many other things with just us two watching. I felt a very great privilege to be there at that moment, exactly where they were.
While I was watching, I was thinking how we as human beings create so many points of disharmony because we use our expectations, emotions, our value judgements about everything, and this makes us far from other people, far from the natural world which in fact we really do not understand. So this is why it is so difficult to connect.
When I saw the starlings flying together in a very big harmony without questioning. None of them were stopping to ask why are we going in this direction and not the other. They were just flowing, going, having fun together as a group. So I saw what great wisdom they have, I saw they live in such a great state of grace, a state which we find so difficult to achieve in our daily lives.
There is so much which exists around us all the time, teaching us, and if we open our internal eyes, the eyes of our heart we really feel the marvelous things around us, a plant, the water which comes to us from the tap or when we are having a shower, the gratitude of the things around us, fulfilling their ‘mission’ without question. The water is there to be water. The plant is there to be a plant, they do not question, they are just ‘being’.
If we just observe these things we can find our authenticity and what we are doing here. We can flow, because these things around us have an ‘intrinsic’ or ‘original’ wisdom there is an internal belief that they have to be what they are. Nature is all the time this, and we can learn a lot from nature, and be more authentic, more connected and more in harmony.
We have this intrinsic wisdom, but we’ve forgotten it. We are far from nature as there are so many things which we put in our minds. So nature around us can teach us a lot, and nature is happy naturally. When you see the starlings flying, you feel a very good sensation, a happiness, when you see a flower, the things around us. It is an intrinsic happiness and we can learn so much from this.
Transition Happiness 