NPR meets My Telepathic Bird Lily b, part 2 by Sara Wright

Part 1 was posted last week. You can read it here.

About ten years ago I began to keep a (public) though never advertised blog to help me keep track of my life. Because I am so severely directionally dyslexic this blog helped me to organize my material. Drafts of published and unpublished papers, poetry, opinions, changing seasons, virtually anything that I was experiencing and writing about ended up on that blog. Without conscious awareness/intention I began to include the more esoteric aspects of my experiences, and this is how stories of Lily b, lizards, various extraordinary encounters with birds, bears etc. ended up on this online journal sort of by ‘accident’.  I didn’t even realize what was happening. I wasn’t talking about these experiences, but I was starting to write about them publicly, not just privately. People read what I wrote, I realized vaguely.  Frankly this didn’t matter much because that wasn’t why I kept an online journal. Its primary purpose was twofold. It helped me organize my writings but more importantly it distanced me from particulars so that patterns emerged. Enter NPR. Anna had apparently been reading my blog for a couple of years and asked me if I would do an interview on Lily b my telepathic bird. I was astonished, but agreed, although with some trepidation because I had so rarely discussed this subject. The old fear of crazy surfaced.

We met and spent an entire afternoon together. I felt a sense of familiarity. On some level Anna is open in ways many are not. I poured out my story jumping from one incident to another in a non-linear way as is my custom. Because images drive my thoughts, I am hard to follow. I do a little better as a writer.

Now that the story has been aired my earnest hope is that the people who listen might entertain the idea that Interspecies Communication does exist. No doubt each person has already had unusual experiences they couldn’t fit into the narrow materialistic scientific perspective that our culture has created and ruthlessly maintains.

 Only now do I see that the ‘long winding road’ that I have been traveling on for so long. has had a definite long-term purpose. During this time of ecological and cultural breakdown it is critically important to prioritize and speak out about interspecies communication to interrupt the old paradigm that is killing us. We are part of nature no matter how insistently we may deny this reality. In the process of destroying life as we know it on this planet, we are also destroying ourselves. Opening our minds and hearts to interspecies communication could help us begin to change the story.

Although male scientists took me seriously and have become personal friends, I need to add that as a dedicated eco – feminist I have been aware for many years that men and women think very differently overall. Some women seem to have the edge when it comes to being open to other ways of knowing. Some seem to have better access to all their senses as well as their intellect and are able to perceive the whole, not just its parts because feelings are included.

 In my experience without a heart centered approach interspecies communication is blocked. The conventional belief that ‘scientific objectivity’ is true is a lie. Everyone has a perspective and is influenced by the socialization process he or she was born into and the brief time in which that person lives or lived. Context is as important as any creative idea.

There are many courageous women scientists that have been mercilessly attacked. I think especially of Dr. Suzanne Simard’s work with forest ecology, and Dr. Monica Gagliano’s work with plants. It is not surprising that women scientists like these two, blend western science with Indigenous knowledge because these are two ways of seeing the whole. Unfortunately, these women are faced with enormous obstacles as they courageously attempt to navigate their way through patriarchy, a system that is destroying us all.

I may feel isolated, but I know that I am in good company. I guess it’s no surprise that my closest friends and colleagues are either writers or scientists who live on this precarious edge.

Link: To hear the interview click here.