| Supporting our communities and the birds that rely on us |
A few weeks ago, I traveled to my college alma mater to attend a memorial service for a beloved English professor. As one might expect given the setting and the man, speakers touched upon his love of literature, passion for learning and for teaching, and his raised eyebrow when students asked for extensions.
Listening in the pews, my thoughts wandered to my time on campus more than thirty years ago. It was the first time that I was in a community of my own choosing—a place that I had sought out and joined. There I encountered people whose backgrounds and upbringings were different from mine. I heard viewpoints that I had never considered. I made friends for life.
There, within this nurturing place, I studied communities, considering how people of shared and common interests are organized or organize themselves, how communities evolve and grow (or conversely remain static or die off), and what can happen when new ideas and perspectives are introduced.
Here at Audubon, we talk a lot about building and supporting a community of people who want to support birds and the places they need. Much of our work in the Mid-Atlantic is intentionally designed to welcome all as we seek to grow and build on behalf of birds. As you will read below, we are hosting a number of events this fall that we hope will encourage more people to join our flock. Won’t you join us?
I’ll leave you with this excerpt from Seamus Heaney’s poem, Postscript, which was read at the aforementioned service:
“....The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater....
You’re neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.”
Warmly,
Suzanne |
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