NOTICING Adjacent Sevens (Part 2)
Murmurating Democracy
Last week, I wrote about the emerging science regarding the emotion of awe, and what scientists currently understand about the murmurations of starlings. Those two subjects suggested an idea to me for a Third Way for America. The aim of a Third Way is to calm ourselves enough, and to keep ourselves well enough as we endure the shocks, betrayals, and in-your-face-theft of our tax dollars and the gaslighting of facts. The mission of the Third Way is to figure out how to turn the administration’s ship of state around.
This week I am following up about how to include the effects of awe and starling murmurations into our daily lives. Why? Because it is so very, very possible that by feeling a whole lot better we will be able to use a Third Way to soar through and above the polarities and horrific actions, which are wrecking the institutions and laws of our America. We often feel powerless. Yet folks like you and me have done it before in bold, pivotal moments of America’s political history, recounted many times these past eight years by historian Heather Cox Richardson. We can take hold of our country once again.
But is it too soon to refocus? Most of us are still reeling by the past two weeks the illegal actions. It’s a coup. I know I must still be reeling because before I opened my eyes this morning I was in shock from last night’s dream. In the dream I see my blueberry bushes. Instead of being carefully pruned, as one does in winter, they are torn up, shattered, hunks of nightmarish, malformed branch limbs thrown down. They are piled every which way. I feel a scream as I look at the havoc. I am stunned. Then I see a gaunt, distraught Abraham Lincoln. He stands wild-eyed, frozen and mute. Then I realize it’s a picture I’ve painted of him in watercolors of grays and blacks. And my dog, my treasured Teddy — he’s off in the far distance, running to the horizon’s edge. Nooooo!!! Suddenly, anger rises. I shout, Get out! I still have not opened my eyes.
When I do, Teddy is at the foot of the bed. He’s ready for breakfast. Onwards. It’s yet another day of the Executive and his unelected allies strafing federal laws, policies, and the lives of federal workers. The everyday work-a-day American lives—from the childcare of little ones too small to go to school, and the aged, dependent on Meals on Wheels are devastated. I, for example, am seeing my doctor this morning. She will not be able to tell me or her other patients anything that would rely upon the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Why? Because the Executive has shut down MMWR. What? The reports are essential to scientific publication of timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations. This might be in the weeds for us regular folks, places we don’t usually go, or want to go. But there’s no way out of this mess without knowing exactly what’s personally important to you. The details of your private information? Set loose, no one knows where. Your social security check? Who knows? Tax return? Maybe. Maybe not. Federal paychecks? Same.
How did this happen? Elon Musk, an unelected foreign-born, beneficiary of a multitude of federal contracts, has illegally seized power over the US Treasury. Your money. That’s how the personal and private information of millions of Americans is in the hands of six young men aged 19 to 24 doing Musk’s work. Really.
But here’s the good news about details we don’t want to know: it is actually beneficial to acknowledge and name what frightens us. Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Awe, The New Science of Everyday Wonder says that embracing what scares and terrifies actually calms people down. “Through various processes of the brain stress is reduced.” An individual’s immune profile improves.
The emotion of awe is foundational to the Third Way. This emotion orchestrates systems such as perception, attention, inference, learning, memory, goal choice, motivational priorities, physiological reactions, motor behaviors, and behavioral decision-making. In other words, our entire being.
When we see a murmuration of starlings for example, or an act of simple kindness or unexpected courage, the beauty of any has the same effect; we feel good. We’ll turn to tell someone about it. We are likely to share or cooperate with one another, instead of turning inward, choosing lonesome isolation.
Starling murmurations of hundreds of thousands are leaderless. Scientists report that the best way for starlings to deal efficiently with threat is to layer up a little bit like a pancake instead of iron filings, and to track the seven closest neighbors. This “rule of seven” describes that each individual bird’s movement is influenced by the seven adjacent birds, and nothing else. Amazing, no?
Safety in numbers may be one reason for murmuration. When a predator lunges through, nearly all survive. A murmuration is a “selfish herd.” Each member of a flock acts out of simple self-interest. Self-interest tracks well for us Americans, who so highly prize individualism. Of course, self-interest and cooperation with others are the evolutionary explanation for human survival. Self-interest and cooperation are why you and I are here today. (This fact deserves an exclamation mark, don’t you think?)
A word about the number seven. It’s a number that resonates throughout time. The seven colors of the rainbow, seven chakras, seven days of the week, seven continents, and seven wonders of the world. The astonishing seven adjacent starlings fly in unison among thousands. The rights and implicit promises in the Declaration of Independence number seven. Our Founding document declares its own Adjacent Seven. Isn’t that amazing? Yes! Count them. The unalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, and the implicit right of Equality, Justice, the Consent of the Governed, and the Right to Alter or Abolish government. Bingo. Seven.
How about you and I—citizens all—come together in groups of seven and use the starlings’ murmuration as an inspiration for taking care of our nearest neighbors? No matter the chaos, uncertainty and fear created by those intent on destroying democracy, aka our lives. We will do good anyway. Even as we walk the dog, do the laundry or prepare dinner.
How to do Seven Adjacent? Call seven friends. Gather in person. Hold one another. Howl. Weep. Breathe. Life is actually beautiful and sacred. And depression recognizes our despair at the wanton destruction of human life. Together, our diverse energies, temperaments, rhythms, notes and chords are seen. Are heard. You will do you. We will do us. Together we will choose one common goal that’s close, vital and personal to us. We will pick up where the Founders and Framers left off to restore, revive, and reimagine what is now needed to serve our lives, our country, today.
Awe and murmurations are our launchpad. Together we can begin conversations by sharing a moment of awe each person recently experienced. Together we will soar through and above the insatiable greed and intent to steal and plunder.
As a group of Adjacent Seven, our connection to one another makes possible the care and comfort we need. As a group of Adjacent Seven we can name the things that frighten and scare us. As Keltner reports “good stuff spreads much more through social networks than bad stuff, and good stuff produces greater prosociality.” In other words, each group of an Adjacent Seven expands human flourishing.
The Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution are made possible by values that we choose to protect. A strong sense of community can rise from a group of seven adjacent, motivated to support and protect democracy for all.
There is much a human murmuration movement can accomplish. We can regenerate, revive and restore the separation of church and state, the right to vote, the right to form labor unions and the rule of law.
Let us murmurate America into flourishing again.
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Notes
Heather Cox Richardson, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, Viking (September 2023)
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/podcast
Dacher Keltner, Awe, The New Science of Everyday Wonder Penguin Books (2024)
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/02/07/birds-feather-track-seven-neighbors-flock-together