A Pattern to follow

The Swifts gather at Portland’s Chapman Elementary every fall. They dance together in an acrobatic art display with one neural network guiding them. There is no boss, mayor, pastor, or CEO telling them what to do. They float in complete harmony through three-dimensional space, with no one leading. The ants on the ground below them do the same thing and so does the mycelium in the ground under the ants. The planets and stars above them also float like engineered art by the same dispersed universal laws. 

Wouldn’t a source of this be one of love, energy, and shared authenticity rather than a marionette yanking our chains? Generous rather than narrow-minded and punitive? I hope the sacred source you yield to invites all of us to live in limitless love and protects us from exclusion. I believe in an intellectual, emotional, and physical presence expressed through every ever and future existing thing in the universe. We are each unique parts of it and we relate to all the other parts in symbiotic relationships. Like the birds.

They follow simple rules when they come together: 1) Don’t bump into each other. 2) Stay in alignment. 3) Stick together. They follow those rules in small groups. But there are multiple links between groups because the individuals in each group are in relationships with individuals in other groups - creating a network that includes every single bird. After their dance, they dive into the Chapman chimney and rest. 

We are held together by a mysterious but knowable source and we, more than anything in the universe have the freedom to choose how we honor it and each other. But there is a harmonious, beautiful way and a destructive, ugly one. Which pattern shall we follow?

​