Liberating Wings

Gopher Tortoise - No better church!

I have fallen in love with a gohper tortoise in my backyard.  She makes all my days glad, and here I hope this time with her brings joy to your life too!

 

 

Zanesville Massacre

 

In this video, I offer a short memorial service for those 49 animals that were killed in Zanesville, Ohio on October 18, 2011, and for Terry Thompson.  May we know that their light is always with us.

 

 

 

What I'm Looking For - La Moskitia, Honduras

 

 What are you looking for?

 Meaning?  Love?  Belonging?  Beauty?  A way to save the world?

 I invite you to watch this video about my recent time in Honduras where a group of us came together to build a world that we all are looking for.

 

 

 

 

Owls Get a Kick Out of Soccer

 

There is nothing as liberating as a good soccer game.  It can also be dangerous in parts of the world as soccer has been the inciting stimulus for riots, death threats, murder, and in one case, a war between Honduras and El Salvador. Recently this harm extended to an owl.  A tame barn owl, the mascot of a Columbian soccer team, flew down to the field during a game and was hit by the ball.  While still stunned, Panamanian footballer Luis Moreno kicked the bird off the field.  The bird died two days later, suffering a broken wing and shock. The crowd yelled "murderer," and Moreno had to leave the game under police escort.  Since then he has received threats.  He won't be prosecuted because Columbia has no laws against animal cruelty, although the soccer league penalized him by requiring a fine and banning him from the next two games. 

 

 

This is a painful reminder of how humans in their worst moments do not have the capacity for compassion and care, even when beauty of game and bird surrounds them.  But sometimes we do.

In a 2008 soccer game between Finland and Belgium, a great-horned owl visits the game, flying around the stadium and landing on the goal posts. The officials stopped the game and the crowd cheers and applauds the owl. Smiles and laughter abound.

 

 

 

In another instance, rescuers remove another Great-horned Owl that had become entangled in a soccer net.

 

 

 

There is beauty all around us, and there is nothing as liberating as people responding by loving and saving the birds of our world.  How though do we make sense of our complicated natures where we both get a kick out of birds and kick them?

Sufi poet Rumi writes, "There is a field out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing. I'll meet you there."

On that soccer field, great apes and owls are neither wrong or right. Instead  we are caught up in our goal directed lives, and make tragic choices that harm ourselves and others. 

May we this day see the beauty within and without, and in our gratitude, not penalize the beings of this earth.

 

 

Guatemala Scarlet Macaw Chick Exam

Examining Avian and Human Virtue

At long last I have up a video in three parts that shows the Wildlife Conservation Society team of veterinarians and biologists examining wild Scarlet Macaw nest in Guatemala. It depicts a fairly thorough physical examination of wild parrots that is possible under field conditions. We learned so much about the birds, and about ourselves while doing this work in April of 2009. As you watch these videos perhaps you too can learn about what it means to be human in a community of mixed species, for me a primary religious, ethical, and hence scientific question. Like us, birds have the virtues of caring, compassion, protection, prudence, and nurturance. The parents care for their young, feed them, protect them, treat them with kindness, while also keeping a safe distance from we humans climbing the trees. You can hear the parents calling out in warning while we handle the chicks.

 

Like us, birds are anxious for the well being of other birds.  The calling of the parents echoes our own anxiety about what will happen to the younger chick, and what can we possibly do to save this one bird, let alone an entire species that is under threat from poaching, forest fires, and habitat loss that results from an economic system that is based on addiction – to consumerism, to drugs, to satisfying one’s own needs, now, at the costs of meeting others basic needs.

 

Like us, birds demonstrate perseverance, strength, and adaptability.  The youngest chick in this nest (the second one to be examined) is frightfully thin and over the next several weeks falls further and further behind in weight as her/his sibling thrives. Yet the bird lives for several more weeks as one or both parents still feed the ailing chick.

 

 

Like us, birds are beautiful, defiantly so as it seems against all odds that such a rainbow of colors and social complexity survives from egg to the powerful, gliding adults circling over us during the examination. How did such beauty come into existence and how shall it survive we ask? To answer this question we continue to examine our own lives, our own complicity in a system fraught with harm for ourselves and others, and we continue to examine these birds and their chicks, for the hope of understanding what is ours to do in this world. How shall we liberate ourselves as we liberate the birds, and love ourselves as all our neighbors?

Feed the Birds

Parakeets and Paracletes

 

This coming week I'll be traveling to Puerto Rico to witness the release of captive-raised Puerto Rico parrots into the wild.  About 12 years I worked as a consultant on this project helping to design release protocols with Hispanolan Parrots in the Dominican Republic.  What we learned there would go on to help reestablish the very endangered Puerto Rican parrot more firmly and in more locations in Puerto Rico.  What I learned there and in all my work with parrots and people continues to help me reestablish the beauty and joy of the human heart more firmly and in as many locations as possible.  I'll be blogging from Puerto Rico, so stay tuned. 

 

For a complete version of the sermon go to:

http://www.uuf.org/Sermons/Sermons2008/2008-Jan-13-Parakeets_and_Paracletes.pdf

 

Special thanks to Shelby Havens, producer of this video:  http://www.uuf.org

Earth's Sacred Feminine

 

Working in Guatemala during the 1990's I had an amazing realization. I was hiking one morning around the forest edges of our parrot conservation area with my Guatemala counterpart. He was speaking to me of his love of Mary and Jesus. I was struggling to really listen to what meaning these religious figures had for him when the sun tipped over the steaming forest canopy and a flock of parrots flew screeching into the sky. We both stood transfixed in wonder and gratitude, In that moment I knew that when he said Mary and Jesus it was the same as when I said trees and birds. From that moment on I was not afraid to enter a church for I now had the tools to translate the meaning of the sacred femimine and masculine into my own experiences.

Over the suceeding years earth's sacred feminine has come to embrace the importance of staying engaged when tragedy strikes, and mourning the suffering we see around us. In this way we might give birth to beauty and new love and life, or at least not forget wonder in our darkest night. The story of the Marys in the Gospels, of how they were present at Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection shows me the power of the abiding power and possibility of this planet and her beings, as long as we don't forget the whole spectrum of life's experiences, from pain to glory, from birth to death, and from wounding to healing.

I first heard the song, "Mary" when traveling in Chiapas, Mexico visiting the Zapatistas. Images of powerful women and Mary abounded amongst the scarred and wounded land and people, asking me as I now ask you, where are you denying what you and the earth have lost? How might you "clean up the place" as the song Mary suggests?

A Prayer for Earth and Her Beings

        

From My Videos

 

 

I created this as a prayer for our species so that we might learn to love our neighbors of all species as our selves. I'd be interested in hearing what these images bring up for you as you ponder these questions: What does it mean to be human? Given what we are as a species, what is ours to do in this world, with our one precious life?

 

Con esperanza,

LoraKim