Amanda's Murmuration
You may have noticed the new name. Let's consider...
Murmuring definition - a low, continuous sound spoken by a person or a group, typically considered a grumble or a whine. **Murmuring generally has a negative connotation, but its collective actions become murmuration.**
Murmuration is also defined as a flock of starlings that move in concert and was originally described this way due to the sound made by the many flapping wings of a group of starlings in flight.
But this sound appears to have been overshadowed by the mesmerizing visual synchronicity that captivates and holds our attention. The VISUAL aspects of this phenomenon were accepted as its new meaning.
Murmur, a negative droning sound, became murmuration, the sound of many starlings flying in sync, and then the beauty of that synchronous flight became the new accepted meaning of murmuration. Language, like ART, is dynamic - always fluid and evolving. It reflects the culture and common understanding of its time.
So, MURMURATION represents synchronicity in many ways:
Each bird keeps track of 7 neighbors so things don’t fall apart,
They function as a community, adapting to each other,
The WHOLE becomes more than the sum of its parts as each bird choreographs its flight pattern creating a dynamic, contemporaneous dance of beauty.
So Murmuration, like language and art, is symbolic of intuition and change, as well as:
Cohesion: Moving in a group through uncertain environments.
Emergent properties: The whole has characteristics that the individual parts do not have.
Community: Murmurations exemplify the power of communities working together.
Loving neighbors: Murmurations exemplify loving our neighbors.
Keeping focus: Murmurations exemplify keeping our focus local, then expanding.
Interdependence: The interdependence, fluidity, and adaptability of murmuration reflect how we should operate as a healthy community.