A Bird Cannot Possibly Be Abandoned By The Sky

In a book called "Sensitive Chaos," Theodore Schwark draws a picture of birds in migration. The depiction offers a beautiful window into who we are, what relationships may really be expressing:

Each bird lies on a wave which is made in the air by the leader who initiates it. The beats of their wings follow the ups and downs of the wave and simply make visible what, as a vibrating aerial form, surrounds and bears them all in the arrow formation. By studying the positions of the wings of the birds flying in this formation we were able to deduce the actual shape of the form. Each bird flies in a fixed position and the form itself unites all the individual birds.

A bird does not need much strength, for it is as though the movement of the wave of air were to raise and lower its wings for it. If one of the birds has an excess of energy it will do more than simply allow itself to be carried along. With the beating of its wings it will strengthen the whole wave, will infuse the aerial form with energy from which all will benefit. Those who would on their own account no longer have the strength to fly, these take energy from the whole moving flow of air. Indeed, even the leading bird itself draws energy from this field. The researcher says: The current error that the bird flying at the apex of the triangle has to work considerably harder than those following it must be corrected. The wave of the field of air streams, created reciprocally by all the separate birds, spreads out in space with the speed of sound and therefore as the speed at which the birds fly is much slower, it precedes them considerably, so that the leading bird can if necessary take energy from the field just as can all the others.

An arrow formation is a totality in which the separate birds lie embedded like organs in a new body that has been created out of air in which, as with the body of sound of an orchestra, a single instrument to a great extent merges into the whole. It is, however, a necessary part of the whole. The separate birds are linked together by the surrounding air as though by elastic threads. We may imagine the separate birds linked together, for instance, through invisible elastic threads. If a bird uses more energy than would be necessary for its propulsion through the air, it tightens the threads which link it to its surroundings and thus imparts to the whole formation its excessive energy of propulsion. If on the other hand, a bird has less energy than is necessary to propel it along within the formation, a tension in the opposite direction arises in the connecting elastic links and the bird whose movements lag behind the movement of the whole field receives from its energy, the energy necessary to its propulsion along with the others. The air which connects the birds like an elastic medium acts like a muscle. It unites the different limbs of the formation into a unity which was not there before and is caused to do this by a higher being, namely the group of these birds. One might almost say that this group, or group soul if you will, manifests itself in the density of air and acts as an integrating muscular system. The elastic properties of muscles are indeed similar to the elasticity of the air. In a muscle these properties of air are simply embodied and made visible in matter. Thus it comes about that during a long flight over many hundreds of miles each single bird elastically connected with the whole flight beats its wings exactly as many times as all the others in the formation. The entire process is an aerial form, an organic whole moving through the air. The bird is a creature of the air. It is born out of the air and entrusts itself to it. It cannot possibly be abandoned by the sky.

Thanks to Myotai Bonnie Treace for showing us this text.