Monday, October 19, 2009
Our extended family of parrots here at home (our Amazon, Macaws, African Grey, Cockatoo, Quaker, Sun Conyer, and Parakeets) are passionately vocal. They squawk to draw both our attention and the notice of one another. Like all creatures of significant intelligence, they seek truly interactive and interdependent community. With quite distinct personalities, they are nonetheless fiercely attuned to the needs of the flock. They resonate to the energy in the room, and the moods of the human beings who live among them. They pick up and express our nervousness, fear, hesitations, and joy. They are the very epitome of being one’s brother’s keeper.
If their calls go unnoticed, the cries become both shrill and incessant as they escalate the call in hopes of a reply. It is all about assurance and well-being defined as being in the embrace of a visible and audible community. While people can become quickly impatient with the loud calls of parrots, the action is quite literally a conditioning of the space in which they find themselves to the world that is more naturally their true home, the rain forests. In the forests, the Pandemonium fits perfectly. It is part of an abundance, a special acoustic landscape celebrating a very delicate and important ecology.
Humans talk of fellow-feeling but it is unfortunately rarer among men then among parrots. The poet Longfellow once wrote: ” Listening is the rarest of events among Human Beings.” In the call of parrots, there is continuous deep listening and vigilance; no malice, no ego, no zealotry, no artful manipulation, brinksmanship, nor perpetual distraction. Parrots always expect a response, demonstrate indomitable hope in receiving one, and there is never even a hint of disingenuity.
The pandemonium fills the air with the raucous affirmations of vibrant life and unflappable care for the flock (of which we are honorary members) with no reference to either yesterday or tomorrow. The dialogues of the parrots are the innocent, pure, boisterous and joyful psalms to the Living Now.
Party on feathered masters. Call out all you want and let all the world know you are here and, while you squawk, I type!
© Brother Anthony Thomas and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
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