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A HUGE part of the quandary I create for myself is my (so far) inability to peacefully accept that I was born into exactly this time period, into this particular segment of the evolution of the species I am a member of. Yet I also understand that if every person was entirely content to remain aware of only that which is known and practiced by our species nobody would dream, nobody would hope, nobody would even be able to GUESS that there IS A BETTER WAY – not just for a selected few of us, but for all of us.
Given that my right brain hemisphere remains the most dominate for me over the two brain hemispheres we have been blessed with as humans, I now draw on a very clear, very sensual, and very relevant image that seems to have rested within my awareness this morning.
One of my most glorious series of childhood memories is of the wild Canadian geese, the Honkers, as they migrated south in the season of Alaska’s fall. While I know they also migrated north in the spring, that flight pattern evidently did not exist directly over our homestead mountain.
I didn’t, as a child and teen, wait for this event to happen. I didn’t think ahead that way. But every time this happened my innermost essence stopped to pay the closest attention that I could to what was happening during these most special moments in time.
Always it began with my first hearing – like a remembered glimmer of a shimmer – of the faintest whispers of the sound of these grand birds announcing their coming from the north with their calls. I stopped in the yard and breathlessly waited as the sound of the honking became louder and louder and LOUDER.
Suddenly high above the outline of the highest mountain peaks behind our homestead the first goose appeared against a brilliant blue sky, followed in formation by thousands of birds.
They flew fast. They flew with instinctual determination. They flew without err, taking a period of some minutes for the end of the back, final, wide end of this gigantic “V” to appear over the mountain’s ridge.
My heart danced with fundamental delight THEN at the sound and the sight of these birds, just as it does now in my memory.
I know things as an adult that of course I did not know when I was that young. I know that the strongest bird always flies at the front of the “V”, that the shape of the pattern itself allows maximum distance to be covered at maximum speed with the least amount of effort possible. Wingtip to wingtip the bodies placed this way allow the wind to flow like invisible gossamer silk on down the entire length of the “V.”
I know that no matter how powerful, how fit, how superior any lead bird started out to be, it is mortal. It will tire. It will expend itself for the good of the entire flock until it eventually and naturally, without question or shame, gives up its heroic and vital place in the flock and falls, falls, falls not DOWN but BACK to the tail-end of this fascinating, dignified, impressive, most memorable gathering of birds in flight.
And – then this job falls to the next most powerful bird in the lineup – and on they all travel south over many mountains, over many thousands of miles.
I also know that migrating birds are designed to be able to travel incredible lengths of time, as well, without needing to sleep. I know this can happen for the same reason sharks don’t sleep: There is nothing, absolutely NOTHING unusual happening that their brains would need to process. “No sleep necessary or required.”
On they go. Year after year, season after season – the constant from my perspective was ME, the one watching, the one with feet planted upon the earth covering the great stone of the mountain while the migrating “V” stretched itself across the Eagle River Valley as their lead goose vanished over the crest of the mountain ridge on the other side.
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About 15 years after I had left home, left Alaska, I had a dream that I lived near a far northern village in Alaska. Only there was a city there, lots of people residing therein.
One day I was outside in the dream and I heard clearly the faintest sound of a thundering flock of Canadian honkers migrating south. I knew their flight path would cross over the ground slightly outside the collection of buildings that defined the edge of this city. I stood in awe watching – and then I saw the miracle!
These thousands of geese were flying not in their common “V” pattern. They were approaching from far to the north in the shape of a perfect 5-pointed star!
I gasped in amazement, turned and raced to the city, running through throngs of people going about their late afternoon routines – as I yelled at them as loudly as I could, “Come! Come see this!! The geese are coming, and they are flying in the shape of a perfect 5-pointed star.”
Nobody – absolutely NOBODY – cared!!!!
I knew I had to give up trying to find anyone to come with me. If I didn’t return NOW to watch them I would miss what I knew was perhaps the greatest miracle I would ever be a part of.
So I did. Alone I watched this massive formation of some of the most impressive birds God has seen to create flew exactly over my head as they disappeared to the south.
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It’s a common and familiar saying that “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Perhaps no matter the size of a migrating flock of birds their travel is limited by the pace of the weakest birds flying.
At this juncture in time that God chose to pop me into in the river’s flow of the life of my flock of humanity, there still seems to be a great many weak links. Someone like Dr. Allan Schore, as reflected in his writing, is a ‘pinnacle’ human being – a leader of the “V” of humanity traveling forward at its crippled yet still moving pace.
It is my belief that if everyone who has any concerns whatsoever about the well-being of humans and how that well-being is either created in great degrees or all but destroyed by the quality of human attachments – READ and studied these three books I post links to below – 99.9% of our questions about what goes RIGHT with humans and what goes WRONG – and why – and how we can prevent the WRONG and improve on the RIGHT – can be clearly understood.
We would all then be strengthened to be a leader of our flock in every and any way possible as needed.
Read and study – difficult BOOKS? No? Let’s all just play helpless victim. Let’s all just act plain lazy and stupid.
After all, what does any of this actually matter?
And then there’s also compassion, patience and wisdom…….
Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self/Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self (two-volume set) by Allan N. Schore (Apr 2003)
I doubt there is a better book on the planet for understanding attachment and its critical role in building human beings from their foundation forward!!
The Attachment Connection: Parenting a Secure and Confident Child Using the Science of Attachment Theory by Ruth Newton PhD and Allan Schore PhD (Jun 1, 2008)
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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »
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Stop the Storm 
I know that human beings need one caregiver to develop and thrive, ( mom is best ).What happens when a society doesn’t value motherhood?Yes, some women must work…that doesn’ t mean evolution or mother nature care about her need for income.To any infant, daycare is abandonment.I’ve walked into many daycare centers and when I see 6 cribs lined up side by side I see an orphanage.Why can’t women see this?Your infant’s cries are not petty, they are evolution’s way of ensuring that you DON’T leave your infant’s side.*Shaking head*, how can we ignore the obvious?
Appreciating your comments – long day today and can’t reply other than this right now – but will soon…… thanks!! Serious stuff you are speaking of – I have thoughts, but not tonight! thanks for writing – for your honesty – more later……
There were so many times where I needed help. My neighbors know I’m not well. They ridicule me and isolate themselves from me, they shut their doors. SAD THING IS: I’M RAISING TWO HUMAN BEINGS!! I need their help. I don’t get help, I’m not their problem….my kids may be in the future if I fail as a parent. How many others can’t parent? How many members of society shut their doors? Society failed Luka Maggnota…lol, they suffer in the end.
My step son’s whole maternal side is afflicted with BPD. Most of them have spent time in foster care due to severe neglect….it’s intergenerational. Now if I were to reflect and examine his mother’s history and her families way of relating to each other I can firmly say, his sister will be a very neglectful mother. She’s approaching puberty, the history in her family dictates she’ll be pregnant in 3 years…why can’t we prevent the outcome of her life? I know she has choices, but she’s immersed in dysfunctional. We need to help her, ( as I’ve been doing already).I have an obligation as a member of society to help her make the right choices. Tell her that she isn’t helpless, we care, and we want her to have a healthy future.
Just a thought – my mother never worked outside the home – she was a horrible mother. There’s research presented somewhere on the blog here (I can’t even find it on my own blog right now) on Pygmy mothering where the mothers of tribes raised the infants together – my great grandmother on Mother’s side was pretty ‘liberated’ as was Mother’s mother who had a masters degree in 1919 – and yes I think their attitudes contributed to the traumas of how my mother was raised so poorly – which of course nobody recognized.
The answers are complicated and I don’t think can be disentangled from the crumbling of society that WILL lead to a new world as has been promised us. We will take the very rocky road to the changes needed – or we will continue on the road we are choosing – and it will not be a pretty journey.
But humankind does not seem ready yet – has not suffered enough – to hear the answers. They ARE here.
This research is related
On Pygmy Mothering
click
http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/ushanda_io_elima.html
A community can raise a child. But we’re not a child centered community! Human beings function better as a collective, the more hands and hearts to raise our young is obviously ideal. We have strayed away as a collective…now we are stuck trying to function individually.
It is kinda absurd to think that our children only belong to us. No they belong to themselves and also part of a larger community. I’m trying to figure out where this behavior started. Why are communities shocked when a family unit fails when they were always around to watch the suffering?
Our society of individuality is failing. When we examine the quality of parenting that families are nurturing their young with today I cringe at thought of the following generations of violent human beings. Fear based parenting, equates to punitive, restrictive parenting. Most parents use consequences to guide their children, the parents really should be living examples.
The problem is they are segregated and society can’t keep them in check! Look at the number of children with diagnosed ADHD, or emotional problems. My step son’s social worker is seeing a steady increase in explosive children. He said there is a serious lack of good quality nurturing in today’s parents…and they think as individuals, that should have the right to parent their children as they see fit, ( usually in some sort of punitive approach).
I imagine our ancestors lived in very close proximity to each other and they were able to pick up the slack for another mother or even help her correct her bad parenting pattern. Help for the mother is still preferable to separating the infant from her to a place like a daycare or a foster home. The pygmy tribes even acknowledge that the infant’s place is beside the mother for the first year.
I don’t believe infants should be left in a daycare to be cared for by various strangers. These strangers are there as employees, not loving mommy substitutes. They are not permitted to be close and intimate with these infants. I know that some mothers SHOULD NOT have their infants…..but, if there is going to be a care giver around to take over, this care giver should be warm, attentive, and constant for the infant.
It’s about quality, sensitivity, and attunement to the infant or young child. If the mother or various care givers lack empathy, understanding and compassion the child or children’s brains will wire according to this environment. This is what’s happening. Our society is becoming more violent, detached and emotionless. Maybe BPD, RAD, and ADHD will [become] as common as allergies. I know ADHD is very common. So sad, our society is slowly dsyregulating.
Sometimes I find awareness just plain hurts. I am having one of those days….
I know, this angers me!People would rather resort to being helpless than to to actually pick up a book and educate themselves!Someone falls out of the loop or chain of humanity and people resort to blame, helplessness or magical thinking!!When something horrific happens and happens with more frequency everyone is shocked and helpless.WELL, when Eric Newman, ( AKA Luka Magnotta) was a little helpless infant screaming in his filthy crib someone failed to respond to his cries, that same someone was also neglected as an infant.Humanity failed him.All of his cries for help were ignored.He grew up.His brain damaged by severe neglect.He horrified society by committing the most disgusting crime, ( total disregard for human life).He’s not the only violent sociopath to emerge lately, they’re becoming the norm lately.So why aren’t people realizing the pattern?Why do they see the emerging pattern?I see it.I’m worried.I have to launch my children into this world.It’s scary and violent.Have you ever really wondered why are our children are increasingly becoming less regulated?Why are there so many cases of ADHD?All it takes is one strong bird to fall out and we’re doomed.Where did this happen?Did it start with women going into the workplace?Did it start there?I do know that it’s not part of human evolution to have an institution or stranger raise our young.So, what’s happening?