It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 
In the spring, the Canada geese, when they back come down into the black muckland to rest after a day in the fields, they’ll come out of the sky in that beautiful V pattern people know them for.

Well, it looks like they’ve got everything together and they’re all set for a beautiful touchdown and all, and then, maybe thirty or so feet above the water, the first couple of birds kind of flip over, turning on their sides all of a sudden.

It’s turbulence in the air that makes them do it, and they can’t see it coming. The air looks the same to them, no matter how fast it’s moving. So, even though they come in to the same pond every evening, they flip over every time. It’s different every night. They have no idea when it’s going to come.

It’s the same way on down the formation. The first birds at the head turn over, then the next pair on down the line, and the next pair, and the next, all the way down, right to the end of the line. It doesn’t do any good for them to see the bird in front of them get hit. They can’t anticipate. They can’t learn from the bird ahead. Each one falls just like the one before.

I’ve never seen a goose get hurt by it, that wind that hits them as they’re coming in toward the ground. Each one, after they get tossed, turns itself right around again and sets down in the water just fine. I don’t think they plan the recovery either, so much as they just do what comes naturally until they feel safe again.

Posted by J. Clifford Cook at 10:49 AM. # (permalink)  




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