{"id":10939,"date":"2014-01-07T11:22:42","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T16:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=10939"},"modified":"2014-01-13T18:34:18","modified_gmt":"2014-01-13T23:34:18","slug":"above-the-wintry-fields-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2014\/01\/above-the-wintry-fields-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Above the Wintry Fields"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center>The poem &#8220;A Murmuration of Starlings&#8221; is by Heathcote Williams, the narration by Alan Cox.<\/center><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>After a visit to the Wordsworths in the Lake District,<br \/>\nColeridge caught a glimpse from his stagecoach<br \/>\nOf a gigantic flock of birds as it swooped, rose then fell<br \/>\nAbove the frozen, wintry fields of a passing farm.<br \/>\n<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WRhv_tVMifk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>It was November 1799 and he described the phenomenon<br \/>\nAs \u201ca vision\u201d in his Journal, then detailed the way<br \/>\nThis \u201cvast flight\u201d drove along \u201clike smoke, and expanded<br \/>\nThen condensed\u201d, then continually shifted shape.<\/p>\n<p>First he saw the starlings as an arc, then as a globe \u2013<br \/>\nA force field of matter that changed from an oblong<br \/>\nInto an ellipse, \u201cglimmering &#038; shivering, dim &#038; shadowy,<br \/>\nNow thickening, deepening and blackening!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The vision stayed with him all his life \u2013 a mystery as to how<br \/>\n\u201cThe one be many.\u201d How thousands of creatures<br \/>\nOperated as a single entity, performing extreme stunts<br \/>\nOf swirling acrobatics \u2013 free from gravitational pull.<\/p>\n<p>Coleridge was at the time devising an ideal community,<br \/>\nA utopia, which he called a Pantisocracy,<br \/>\nAnd which, together with his fellow poet, Robert Southey,<br \/>\nHe planned to introduce to America.<\/p>\n<p>Now here were starlings creating a miraculous order<br \/>\nJust by instinct. It was an object lesson,<br \/>\nSpelled out by nature herself, as to how human beings<br \/>\nMight happily interact and co-operate.<\/p>\n<p><font size=4>*<\/font><\/p>\n<p>Watching starlings, on Otmoor, two hundred years later<br \/>\nI saw them spelling out the same lesson:<br \/>\nA towering organism was moving in perfect formation<br \/>\nWith no discernible leader. No President.<\/p>\n<p>It whooshed through the air at forty miles an hour.<br \/>\nEach bird reacted to another bird\u2019s movement<br \/>\nIn a hundredth of a millisecond. They tumbled and banked<br \/>\nIn synchronized, spatial symmetry \u2013 collision free.<\/p>\n<p>They moved like iron filings drawn by a magnetic field<br \/>\nTo create their sophisticated, aerial society;<br \/>\nA society that flies, instead of creeping along, suborned<br \/>\nBy unnatural pressures and alien orders,<\/p>\n<p>And the flock\u2019s structure echoes the physics of magnetism<br \/>\nWith each particle\u2019s electron spin<br \/>\nAligning with its neighbor\u2019s in a symbiotic harmony<br \/>\nLike a metal entity becoming magnetized.<\/p>\n<p>It hints at the discovery of a universal principle<br \/>\nWhich seems to tap into a natural order:<br \/>\nA physiological mechanism, happening almost simultaneously,<br \/>\nIn birds that are separated by hundreds of feet.<\/p>\n<p>Since they can mimic us with an unusual facility<br \/>\nIt shouldn\u2019t be too hard to mimic them:<br \/>\nTo rise high on nature rather than wrecking it;<br \/>\nTo enjoy a life that no one can condemn.<\/p>\n<p>There are no controlling starlings exercising force;<br \/>\nNot a single bird\u2019s left behind in isolation.<br \/>\nNot one wastes time voting \u2013 they\u2019d lose height if they did<br \/>\nIt\u2019s anarchy in motion, and a glorious revelation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The poem &#8220;A Murmuration of Starlings&#8221; is by Heathcote Williams, the narration by Alan Cox. After a visit to the Wordsworths in the Lake District, Coleridge caught a glimpse from his stagecoach Of a gigantic flock of birds as it swooped, rose then fell Above the frozen, wintry fields of a passing farm. It was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-literature","7":"category-political-culture","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-2Qr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}