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Epic journeys usually star one or a few heroes who find themselves moved by forces beyond their control or their understanding. The fates lead them to unexpected adventures where the outcome is never assured. With not too much of a stretch of the imagination, I think each of us is on such a journey. It’s called life. As assuredly as each of us was born, each too in their own way is worthy of a story well told and remembered. What brings out the power of our lives is to share our journeys and to whomp the magic of intentionality onto possible outcomes. Such will be the parrot pilgrimage coming this December to Ometepe Island in Nicaragua. We will walk around the volcanic island where there are thousands of parrots, hundreds of people who love them, and tens of conservationists who are dedicating their lives to these species. (For those who may wish to not walk far other transportation can be arranged). This journey of 3 days will show us new worlds of communities and ecosystems, and invite us into new understandings, relationships, and friendships. The journey that begins in Nicaragua could last a lifetime. By participating, you will also be showing and offering real support for the parrot conservation work there. Children during the annual parrot festival in 2021 - which will be celebrated in 2022 during the pilgrimage (photo by Norlan Zambrana Morales) We enhance the chance for bonding with each other and those we meet because as we move from town to town, and also engage in parrot counting in every location, we will have many chances for reflections, conversations, and spiritual practices that invite us to connect to the wondrous earth and the wildlife that lives with us. The goal is to both celebrate what life is and what we could be, and alas, to also mourn all that has been lost and yet still could be. We walk to manifest our sorrow and our joy, which are both prime ingredients in any adventure. Our time together will show each other and the world that the parrots and people of Nicaragua matter, as do such beings do everywhere. There has been too much hardship for the declining and captured parrot populations in the world and for the people who live under their bright wings. Our walking is both a statement and a question of how we can both save and savor the world. Our walking pilgrimage will include many steps, covering a little more than 20 miles (33 kilometers) over three days. Consider taking the first step today on the journey by learning more and signing up. The Journey by Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice – But little by little, as you left their voice behind, there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do -- determined to save the only life that you could save.

Sermon delivered at the Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation at White Plains August 6, 2022 We keep fighting voices in our minds that say we’re not enough Every single lie that tells us all that we will never measure up Are we more than just the sum of every high and every low? We need each other to remind us once again just who we are because we need to know what you say of me: You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing You say I am strong when I think I am weak You say I am held when I am falling short When I don't belong, Oh, you say I am Yours And I believe what you say of me I believe Words adapted from “You Say” by Lauren Daigle I begin with an oxymoron, a sign of either a great orator or perhaps someone who is as perplexed as you are at the state of the world and our understanding of it. The oxymoron: Social intelligence. There doesn’t seem to be very much smarts going on in our societies these days. Our social relationships are under duress and we are learning that we don’t have a lot of control of our behavior. For instance, in one study, they found that people would have harsher moral judgements of others if their disgust reaction was stimulated. They stimulated the disgust reaction by using fart spray. Who says science isn’t fun? They sprayed trashcans with varying amounts of the odiferous solution that mimicked human flatulence and had people watch videos about marriage, sex, environmentally correct behaviors, and morally questionable films. The stronger the concentration of the spray, the more strongly the participants judged the strangers in the videos. Our behavior is also impacted subconsciously by other individuals, and not just by their gas. We are more likely to follow or believe someone who is taller or has a deeper voice. Groups of people will also act in ways not predictable by the sum parts of each individual’s personality or world view. There are many theories explaining how crowds turn into mobs, but most involve a dissolution of the self into a group at a subconscious level, a loosening of standards for what constitutes decent behavior, shared values amongst the gathered, and anonymity further fueled by social media – all of which came together January 6th of last year. But mob or group behavior is not always harmful. Mixed flocks of birds will mob predators, risking themselves and even their species, to help the community. Humans, when they see someone helping another or acting compassionately, are more likely to do so themselves. They also become more generous. For instance, if you see someone helping another, you are more likely to put more into an offering basket. Western kingbird attacking a red-tailed hawk* Laughter too is a subconscious social phenomenon. Studies show that people who share laughter are more likely to consider each other to be similar, and want to affiliate with them. It boosts our sense of connection to each other. The down side is that shared laughter enforces the in-group connection and contributes to building up walls between us and them. How do we lower these walls that divide us? David Brooks, a New York Times Columnist, researched how it is that humans make up stories about why they feel what they do and why they do what they do, and he mused, “One of the most unsettling findings of modern psychology is that we often don’t know why we do what we do. People will concoct some plausible story, but often they really have no idea why they chose what they did.” He concluded, “Maybe we can’t know ourselves through the process we call introspection. But we can gain pretty good self-awareness by extrospection, by closely observing the behavior of others...we can attain true wisdom and pretty good self-awareness by looking at behavior and reality in the face to create more accurate narratives. In telling ever more accurate stories about ourselves, we send different beliefs, values and expectations down into the complex nether reaches of our minds, and — in ways we may never understand — that leads to better desires, better decision-making and more gracious living.” Accurate narratives are a group process because who we think of as a self is actually a bunch of neural wiring created by relationships. Infants have been studied thoroughly in this regard and their emotional and mental development depends on those to whom they relate in their environment, quite strongly with mothers and parents, but also animals and trees. Their sense of self, called the ecological self, depends on who else is in their environment, interactions and relationships. This works at a meta-level as human species physiology evolved around the environment exerting selection pressure on our genes, meaning that we are hard wired, as well as culturally and developmentally prone, to be part the human group, part dog, and part bird. In the book, “The Parrot in the Mirror,” Antone Martinho-Truswell, a behavioral ecologist, said that the challenges to life on earth, indeed the ache of physical suffering and death, caused birds and humans to develop similar traits in a process called convergent evolution. We both are very social, smart, live long lives, move around more in the day and raise our young more like birds and unlike other mammals. In another book, “Avian Illuminations” by Boria Sax, who teachers at nearby Mercy College and lives in White Plains, writes how humans’ close relationship to birds shaped our culture and human identity. With one example after another he shows how intimately our bonds with birds are bound up in the matrix of ideas, practices, fears and hopes that make up human civilization. He concludes that a world without birds would effectively mean the end of humankind, for they not only tell us how we got to be where we are, but what we might yet become. Listening to everyone in our environment tells us who we are. We are not our own, others formed us. Earth formed us. One way that we see how we are one another is in the deep ancestral roots of subjective experience, especially in the realm of body state, affect, and needs. According to the Constructive Emotion Theory, there are no genetically hardwired emotions such as “anger” or “joy.” The only thing that is truly biological is whether the we are attracted or repulsed (level of pleasantness or unpleasantness we experience) by something and if it results in low or high arousal. We share this with other species, all the way back to one-celled beings. The brain interprets what the body is experiencing and forms stories and words to describe the experience particular to each individual, though modified by family and culture. Basically, any assumptions beyond our basic animal body experience, which formed out of earth and with all others, has been constructed and ultimately politicized. We want to live, and live well, and so we categorize the mysteries of life into understandable sound bites, so that we might make the next hard decision. A religion professor once said in an ethics class on nature and Religion that I was auditing at the University of Florida, “Life is just one tragic decision after another. That is why we need one another so we can do the least harm possible.” But instead, we often blame the other based on stories we have been taught. As Miki Kashton, a prominent facilitator of Nonviolent Communication once told me, “Don’t believe anything you believe, for you have been taught what has been based on disconnection and domination.” So how do we change our culture to one based on the reality of interdependence, and diminish the harm caused by subconscious motivations warped by rampant politicization and domination? We need to bring as much into the conscious realm and undo the stories we have been taught by learning new stories based on present body experiences. Then we share with one another at the basic level of being an observer of our animality, and also as a nonjudgmental, humble, curious field biologist of not just human behavior, but of all species. Two new books might help to train us to connect to humans and other species. One is “Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of our Human Senses,” by Jackie Higgins due out in November and the other is “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us” by Ed Yong. They both expound on how rich are other species' senses and hence subjective experience, and that humans can only perceive a small part of reality. Higgins writes that learning about what others sense could inspire a brave new world of human sentience. One human can only experience a small part of what others do, and by learning about what others experience we can grow our social awareness and effectiveness, even when our shared stories or facts are so far apart. T. A. Frank in the Washington Post wrote about Sara Palin and said that in his pursuit of how to get Americans to unite on something as modest as a set of shared facts, it became clear to him that the problem was one of “feelings more than metaphysics.” Quoting Linda Zagzebski, author of “Epistemic Authority, “Emotional goodwill precedes the sharing of facts." In other words, “We don’t hate one another because we have a different sense of facts, we have a different sense of facts because we hate one another. Chip away at the distrust and animosity and facts can be pooled once more.” As a wildlife veterinarian I often have the opportunity to observe other species to arrive at a commonality of shared experiences and shared facts. That’s hard enough, but humans? Family? It’s probably best to practice social intelligence in situations where you are not overly triggered, hence the warning, “Don’t try this at home.” But there I was visiting a close family member who lives in Southern Virginia. Visiting him is like coming home, because there is love between us, yet there are times that are uncomfortable for me, and probably for him. His home is literally a Civil War museum, and it complements quite well the tattoo of General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate flag on his arm. He had invited a group of his buddies over to play poker. They kept throwing out one-line statements that left me with an energy of “You say what!?” Their reality was so different than mine. Removing myself from the fog of cigarettes and whisky, I excused myself to the bathroom where the toilet paper was a roll with President Obama’s face on every sheet. I put my face in my hands and said to myself, Okay, smarty pants Dr. Consultant on social and multispecies intelligence, watcha gonna do? Well let’s see if I can take my skills of observing red-necked grebes and apply it here. So, I went back out there and while sweeping up their quarters from the poker game, I went through the political list. Tell me where you stand on immigration. What about health care? Abortion? Each time I heard some politicized retort, I tried to dig deeper why they thought that way, and what they actually did regarding each issue. I asked about their feelings and needs, and then observed my own. And this is where their reality diverged from Fox News. From all the outrageous comments (maybe mine were unvoiced but were still present in my mind) emerged a sense of what their lives were like, of where they had a lot of compassion for a wide variety of people and animals. I could feel in my body their yearning for community, fairness, and meaning that had been captured in the story of the South with all its racist and classicist layers. Then we spoke about guns. A tough subject in that part of the world, right? But not just there. I work in areas where the indigenous people can’t legally carry guns and they have few options to protect themselves from the criminal and corrupt elements that all carry guns. In May 2022, two of our conservation leaders in Honduras survived an assassination attempt. They were unharmed, though our project truck got shot up. I guess we were getting too successful. I asked what I could do for them and they said what they needed was, guns. I feel that here, deep in my chest. I wonder sometimes if I "get the other too much.” Paradoxically though, I seem to be taking stronger and braver advocacy stances for the people and parrots in our projects. The use of social intelligence is helping, and it is just one tool among many in my work and life. There are many ways to learn and unlearn. One way is, as Mary Oliver says, to “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Trust that it ties you to all of life. And then who knows what is possible. The adjacent possible, writes Steven Johnson, is a "kind of shadow future hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.” But we must come to the present moment as much as we can. And one way to do that is to grow a group’s social intelligence that is based on what bodies are saying now. There is no wholeness outside of our connected animality that flows with beauty and tragedy, brokenness and healing. When we ask, “You say what?” with all our senses and presence, we hear that we are loved, that we are strong, that we are held, that we are each other, and that we belong. Do you hear? Dare to hear. And believe. A child of our conservationists in La Moskitia, Honduras listening to the heart of a wild scarlet macaw chick *Credit and link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/21085902@N08/,https://www.flickr.com/photos/21085902@N08/9330376283

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. - Rumi There is a natural tension between inner preparation and action. Are we to spend our days an idler in nature, consuming beauty? Or meditate, beat drums, sing, or dance ecstatically? Or should we take concrete actions to diminish suffering and enact justice in our societies? Yes. I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. – ee cummings Perhaps you feel a sense of judgement if you are not productive enough in a given day. The story of Lazy An expresses the ancient conundrum of saving and savoring. Lazy An was mesmerized by birds, and so still was he in his observation of them that they gathered around him and often lit upon him. He said he was guarding the village oxen but to the villagers’ eyes he was lazy. Yet his joy in the birds transferred to the villagers, who became more caring of one another, and of the birds and other wildlife. Hence his laziness and birdwatching fortified not just his connection to life, but that of others, resulting in more compassionate action. Soon other villages learned of this peaceful community and they too took up watching birds for joy, and the region became known for its long-standing peace and equity among its members (from Healing Earth Tarot). Lazy An card from the Healing Earth Tarot deck We are not lazy when we savor life, though I do believe that even Lazy An had intention in his seemingly idle practice of watching birds. Social and biotic community justice cannot be teased apart from our love of this life. Some days it will look like falling down in joy in a field of grass and other days it means filling out a spreadsheet while writing a grant application. Writes Bell Hooks in her book, All About Love, “As we act, we not only express what is in us, and help give shape to the world, we also receive what is outside us and reshape our inner lives.” As we grow our love of the earth, we work harder to put our love into action, which in turns causes us to fall deeper in love. In my own life, I often reflect that I can hardly bear to carry the burden of the love for life on this planet, wanting to escape the toil and witnessing to suffering in my avian conservation work. But then love surprises me, burning deeper into my being, seeming to erase my sense of self, as each year I become more a bird and less an isolated and lonely human as my awareness and acceptance of the web of life increases with all its beauty and tragedy. Too many spreadsheets in a day and I forget who I am, and often enough I forget whose I am. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life? - Mary Oliver

There is a body of knowledge growing that points to biodiversity and climate crises that impacts us all. In the Americas, these two crises harm many, including the most endangered birds in the region, our parrots. They live near some of the most oppressed people in the world who are bearing the brunt of our societies' cultures based on domination and power over others. At One Earth Conservation, we are compelled to commit to life on this planet, especially for these most vulnerable beings. Now is the time for us to recognize that all beings (including, but not limited to, humans) have inherent worth and dignity, and their suffering matters. By seeing ourselves as interwoven equals among others in the web of life, we heal the wounds caused by our sense of separation from life and become more welcoming to others. Now is the time to let the beauty we are be what we do. We are putting together a group of people who embrace this vision of interconnecting beauty, and who will commit to the wildlife, ecosystems, and communities around us all by joining One Earth Conservation's Parrot Conservation Corps. Using parrots as a gateway species to learn about conservation and the need for personal and societal transformation, we will grow stronger together during this year-long virtual course given in Spanish and starting in mid-August 2022. This course follows the year-long version offered in English last year. Our aim is growing the knowledge and skills of those working together for a holistic approach to parrot conservation. If you’d like to do more for your communities of all species and you understand Spanish, please apply today, as registration closes on August 1, 2022. There will be a small stipend offered to those accepted into the program, though the benefits reach much beyond this. To learn more and to apply, go here. See you in August, and if not then, in a future made better by our commitment and solidarity. Cuerpo Conservacionista de Psitácidos Cada día se genera más información que señala que estamos viviendo una crisis climática y de biodiversidad que nos aqueja a todos. En América, uno de los organismos que son más afectados por ésta situación son las aves y en particular tiene un mayor impacto en el grupo más amenazado de la región que son los Psitácidos, donde encontramos a los pericos, loros, lapas y guacamayos. Es común observar que los psitácidos vivan cerca de las personas con situaciones desfavorables, que sufren la peor parte de nuestra sociedad basada en la dominación y el poder sobre los demás. En One Earth Conservation (OEC) estamos fuertemente comprometidos con la vida en éste planeta, especialmente para los más vulnerables y ahora es el momento de que reconozcamos que todos los seres (incluidos los humanos) tienen un valor y una dignidad inherentes y que su sufrimiento es importante. Por lo antes mencionado, es importante reflexionar de que, al vernos como iguales entrelazados en la red de la existencia, podemos curar nuestras heridas y volvernos más comprensivos con nosotros mismos y con los demás. Es por esto que al vivir el aquí y el ahora, es decir, el presente, es el mejor momento para dejar que la belleza que somos sea lo que hacemos. En OEC estamos formando un grupo de personas que adopten esta visión de la vida como una belleza interconectada y que se comprometan con la vida silvestre, los ecosistemas y las comunidades uniéndose al “Cuerpo de Conservacionistas de Psitácidos." Usando a estas maravillosas aves como una especie de puerta de entrada para aprender sobre la conservación y la necesidad de adquirir una transformación personal y social. Para lograrlo, nos fortaleceremos juntos durante éste curso virtual con duración de un año e impartido en español y que comenzará a mediados del mes de agosto de 2022. Esfuerzo que surge del curso impartido el año pasado en inglés “Parrot Conservation Corps”, donde el objetivo principal fue y sigue siendo el hacer crecer en conocimiento y espíritu, a aquellas personas que trabajan en equipo y con un enfoque holístico para lograr la conservación de los psitácidos. Si deseas hacer más por tu comunidad y por las diferentes especies de psitácidos que en ella se encuentran, manda tu solicitud hoy mismo, ya que la fecha límite para registrarse al curso es el 1 de agosto de 2022. Otra cosa que debes saber es que se ofrecerán apoyos simbólicos a las personas que sean aceptadas en el programa, aunque podrás ver que los beneficios van más allá. Para obtener más información y mandar tu aplicación consulta aqui. ¡Nos vemos en agosto!, y si no, podremos coincidir en un futuro, el cual será mejor gracias a nuestro compromiso y la solidaridad de todos.

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. – Wendell Berry I've got nothing against ducks, but I found myself going to where the red-bellied macaw rests in the cavity as sun set approaches This poem encapsulates, in part, what I felt after two weeks of counting parrots in Suriname. Each day we began and ended in the dark, often wet and cold as it is the rainy season. We were out on the rivers as part of a national year-long parrot population study. The many parrots were astounding, in numbers so much more than those parrot species in dire situations in most other countries where I work as a parrot conservationist. This is where part of Berry’s poem does not resonate with me. Though I don’t know what wild things think, I do believe that parrots experience grief, and anxiety and fear over the loss of their family and friends. I have witnessed parrots refuse to eat after the death of a partner, and attend to a sick or ailing bird by flying to their rescue. In fact, this is the primary method that trappers in Suriname use to catch parrots where it is legal. They have a “calling bird” that is tied to the top of the tree, and when other birds come to investigate, they become enmeshed in the trap set for them. There is a temporary ban on trapping three of the more commonly trapped birds in Suriname so our teams were spared the sight and sound of birds in distress, though we did have blue-and-yellow macaws occasionally circle above our boats, changing their calls to what appeared to be an angry warning. Our last morning of counting in Suriname So, on this trip I was spared the most direct evidence of despair, though it is never far below the surface of our day-to-day work as parrot conservationists. Over 50% of parrot species’ populations are in decline, and nearly one-third are seriously threatened. The demand for pets drives most of this loss in many regions, especially in the Americas where One Earth Conservation works. Every day I hear stories of grief and loss like a punch in the gut. Two weeks with wild parrots though assuaged the ache in my soul. I didn’t know it was happening. Yes, the days were full of wonder and awe, but it was mostly hard work being out in the weather on long boat rides, and focusing intently on each and every bird that flew or called near us. Now back in the capital city of Suriname, Paramaribo, I feel more peace than I have in a long time, an easy acceptance of my connection to all of life that sustains me through the reality of the woes of this earth. The last morning of counting was particularly glorious. For once, it was not only clear of precipitation, but of clouds. The milky way, stars, and constellations shone brightly, and one of my favorites when in this part of the world, the Southern Cross, led us upriver to the south where we would begin our count before sunrise. Accompanying us were five planets lined up with the moon. The birds began to move early because the day was so clear with no threat of rain or wind. The ample sun made their feathers and colors shine. When we took a group picture on the boat after the count ended, you can see the smiles in each face reaching up to the eyes. We shone too with an unspoken joy, that until that picture was taken, we did not know we had experienced together. Being with birds is good for us. Studies have shown how people’s satisfaction and happiness increase with greater bird diversity, though they may not be consciously aware of what is happening. If we can become aware of our deep relationship with life, in the form of birds or other species, then we can muster the will to be good to them. Parrots and birds are telling us much, if we can just slow down and listen to them. Please join us on our next walks, July 9th and July 23rd at Marshlands Conservancy and Green-wood Cemetery in New York. You can register and find out more here (we take reservations on Meetup). If you cannot attend, or join us on our other activities, including our Parrot Pilgrimage in Nicaragua in December 2022, take a moment to step outside, look up at the stars and the birds, letting the beauty you love be what you do.

In conservation medicine one has to consider the needs of oneself, the wild animal, and the people who interact with the wildlife. It's a complicated ecology of moral concern. As a wildlife veterinarian specializing in wild bird medicine, and eventually moving to Guatemala to work with parrot conservation in the 1980's, I experienced daunting challenges. There was a clear lack of resources to adequately and humanely house and treat the wide variety of animals. Guatemala at this time was rife with poverty and guerilla warfare, and decisions made as a veterinarian also impacted the well-being of community members. For example, I controlled the salary paid to workers, whether people worked in risky locales and situations, and how medical services could be provided. The demands were impossible to meet given the oppressive and violent conditions. As one professor in ethics once said, “Life is full of tragic choices. There is no correct ethical stance over another, only the presence of one another to support us as we engage to make difficult decisions in our life.” How do we decide who to take care of? All life seeks nourishing and flourishing. To help us minimize harm, we all can improve our ethical discourse. You could read about various approaches to growing your ethical competence here in a paper of mine that was recently published, but this cannot be achieved by reading this paper, or even the thousands of tomes dedicated to ethics. Ethical processes also differ between cultures, and this article only begins to touch the surface of how multicultural skills are an important part of moral reasoning. It takes practice, hard work and discomfort for our whole lives. We can always improve. We are neither static beings—nor are others, our communities or our science or medicine. Ethics cannot be achieved then by just one period of focus. One is not alone in this life-long effort because ethical discourse also cannot be done alone. It is a multidisciplinary effort that involves the community, in which our wildlife medicine is embedded. The question of what to do next is not “What will I or you do?” but “What will we do, together?” For the shared well-being of wildlife and humans, there is much we can do together. We can work together to develop protocols within our institutions or strengthen individual and community processes of support. We do this, so that our care will be dictated by our ultimate values and the inherent value of other species, and not by the vagaries of our cultural influences and daily events (for a list of suggested actions and institutional programs, go here). One of the best possible of all actions is to engage in life-giving practices that nourish. In nourishing ourselves and others, we can give more to the flourishing of all life. Even if one cannot decide how to take care of the next wild animal one comes across in a clinic, backyard, roadside or preserve, we can strive to do better for the one after that and the many to come. One of the best approaches to ethical discourse is to listen deeply to the hearts and experiences of others, including other species.

Gobi and shrimp helping each other out - The shrimp builds and maintains a burrow that both animals live in, and the fish offers the shrimp protection from predators* Some days one finds oneself telling the same story over, and over again… The earth is dying, Humans are selfish and only care about themselves Humans are incapable of working together across differences Today, for one day, let’s reflect together on a different story…. Collaboration across different individuals is rampant among species on this planet. Humans are capable of incredible acts of cooperation, kindness, and compassion. The earth is being reborn constantly. There are multiple examples of collaboration among different species. Think of each time you see small birds mobbing (chasing or dive bombing) a predator bird, such as a hawk. Each individual is attempting to drive away the danger, not just for themselves or their nest, or even for their own species, but for all the species the predator threatens. Western kingbird attacking a red-tailed hawk** Flocks of mixed species of birds forage for food and defend territories together, sometimes in alliances that last for years. In one study, two different species of fairy-wrens in Australia, the variegated and splendid fairy-wren, not only worked together with the other species, but also with specific individuals of the other species. Splendid fairy-wren Humans, too, can cooperate with other species. There are many instances involving birds. In Africa, the honeyguide bird actively looks for human partners to help them locate and extract honey, and humans use special calls to solicit the aid of this species. One recent example of humans working with birds is the story of Rojito in Paraguay. Rojito, a red-and-green macaw, was sick as a chick and had to be removed from her wild nest to ensure her survival. To become competent as a free flying macaws, juveniles often stay with their parents for months, and indeed continue to learn until they are ready to be parents themselves at about five years of age. But Rojito isn’t with her parents, but is instead with a human volunteer, Pamela, who is dedicating months to Rojito’s adaption into the wild. Slowly, but surely, Rojito is gaining independence thanks to Pamela, and thanks to our team in Paraguay. Those who support One Earth Conservation are also showing collaboration and cooperation. Every donated resource is channeled into helping multiple other species and in this way every dollar becomes a commitment and a prayer that life on Earth can be regenerated, and always has been, through multiple species relationships. Thank you one and all! *Credit and link: *https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Gobi_and_shrimp.jpg, https://www.flickr.com/people/11076453@N00 **Credit and link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/21085902@N08/, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21085902@N08/9330376283

We'd like to share a success story -- made possible by people like you -- about a two-week-old Red-and-Green Macaw in Paraguay. We found her thin and covered in mites. LoraKim and team veterinarians treated her and returned her to her nest. She was improving -- until a cold front came in. Our vets changed from shorts and sandals to wool hats and layers. When we checked on the chick, she was nearly dead. She was cold to the touch from hypothermia, breathing infrequently. The team quickly removed her from the nest, injected warm fluids, and sped towards the ranch house with her warming up against LoraKim’s bare abdomen. Once at the ranch, we placed her next to the kitchen wood fire and tended her throughout the night. She revived! Today, she goes by Rojito and is a rowdy juvenile awaiting her chance to fly free once again with her parents and relatives. We are all amazed by and deeply grateful to her colleagues, who lost so much sleep to keep this chick alive. Our parrot rangers and partners in the field practice conservation with passion, respect and love. We have given so much unexpected effort for one bird, but that's conservation. You show up when you are needed. We now have an active parrot conservation team in the field made up of 4 veterinarians, dedicated to developing a liberation center for the many parrots in Paraguay that need a chance to live outside of a cage. This is the work your donations support! With your help, we can ensure that more parrots like Rojito fly free. Right now, our volunteer, Pamela, is training Rojito for release. This means teaching Rojito to return to her so that Rojito can practice flying and be able to return to the cage for safety and food. Little by little, Rojito will become a better flier and learn to eat natural foods, as well as hopefully mix with the red-and-green macaws that are there. Pamela and Rojito! This is a soft release program that slowly helps guide young birds into their natural environment. However, Pamela needs to stay an extra two months to finish the job, a bit longer than we anticipated. Can you please help us pay Pamela for her time and provide her with food while in the field? Above: Rojito, awaiting liberation! Below: More friends we are fighting for every day.

By Gail Koelln and Dr. Sylvia Margarita de la Parra Martínez One Earth Conservation’s Board of Directors is excited to announce that we recently hired a much-needed part-time Parrot Conservation Project Manager Assistant, who will support LoraKim’s field work and research activities. Please give a warm welcome to Dr. Sylvia Margarita de la Parra Martínez, who lives in Mexico. Sylvia also works part-time at Tecmilenio University, Campus Culiacán and has conducted many research projects related to parrot conservation. I recently interviewed Sylvia to learn more about her, as well as her experience with parrots. How did you become interested in parrots and parrot conservation? I became interested in parrots when I had the opportunity to participate in 2005 in a collaborative research project to evaluate the conservation status of psittacines (i.e. birds in the parrot family) along the Pacific coast of Mexico. With this opportunity, I was able to discover my great interest in ornithology and become fascinated with parrots and the tropical dry forest. After that I could not stop and I knew I wanted to be a scientist, study parrots and do all I can for threatened parrot species. Do you have a favorite parrot species? If so, why? I do not have a favorite parrot species. I think all the species are beautiful, each in its own particular way, and I love their colors, what they do, their behaviors and their specific characteristics. I equally love working with and studying the large- and medium-sized species, like the Lilac crowned parrot (Amazona finschi) and the Military Macaw (Ara militaris). I worked with Lilac crowned parrot chicks during the nesting season and it was amazing to watch the chicks develop until they were ready to leave the nest. With the macaws, I learned a lot about them and about the forest, because I was more focused on ecology and conservation issues. I spent time evaluating the ecological requirements of this species, such as their nesting habits, food preferences and habitat requirements. Military macaw (photo credit: Raul654 on Wikimedia Commons) Can you talk a little bit about being a biology professor in Mexico? I am not a biology professor. Currently I am an advisor of biology students at the college graduate level. Working with these students has been a very interesting experience and at the same time it has been a challenge for me to develop my advisory skills while also working as a researcher. It is also very gratifying to see that some students are interested in generating information that focuses on the study and conservation of parrots. Can you tell us something personal about yourself that you would like to share? I am as passionate about the field of parrot conservation today as when I first started over 17 years ago. We know you like field work. Can you talk about what you like about it? Since I began my career and started to work more formally in the field developing my research projects, I found it seems like an infinite space where I am able to observe many wonderful things. I always enjoy thinking about what every new day will show me. The forest always offers something interesting, it always gives answers and raises questions at the same time. When I have the opportunity to do field work, I realize that I am a part of nature and this allows me to develop what I enjoy, from creating a new research method or technique to observing parrot and plant species to working with a variety of people. It is an interesting world where my passion for the study and conservation of parrots are expressed. Is there anything else you’d like to share? I will always support the study and conservation of birds and I think working for One Earth Conservation is a great opportunity for me to continue to contribute to the conservation of parrots. I also look forward to doing my part to make a better world and increase awareness of everything we all have to do to achieve this. We at One Earth Conservation are delighted to have Sylvia join our team and to get to know her. We know the parrots in the Americas appreciate her help too!

You are a manuscript of a divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that. If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished? - Rumi Both empathy and honesty are foundational in Compassionate Communication (CC), Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and Emotional/Social Intelligence (EI/SI). Compassionate Communication/Nonviolent Communication are both a spiritual practice and communication art tool at the same time. Both rewire our brains so that we embody compassion for self and others ever more quickly and automatically, and under times of greater duress and ambiguity. This certainly describes the field of conservation, where there are so many challenges and where over half of conservation projects have been shown to fail due to the lack of interpersonal skills. Nonviolent Communication was founded by Marshall Rosenberg and is international in scope (www.cnvc.org). NVC, CC, and EI/SI are frameworks help us develop connection to self and others, in part because we see how others are so much like us, and also so much different. No matter the difference, we are all connected to the beauty of life. Developing our emotional intelligence helps us achieve greater connection to self and other acceptance, and achieve greater results in conservation. Empathy for others and self-empathy are interconnected: each facilitates and reinforces the other. The beauty and needs we deny ourselves we will end up also denying to others – and what we deny to others we will end up also denying to ourselves. The more "we shine our mirror," doing our work of seeing our own inner beauty, the more we are able to reflect the beauty of others and bring peace and possibility into the world. Love the world as yourself, and you will be able to care for it properly. - Lao Tzu, The Tao Te Ching If we don't love and care for ourselves fiercely, we cannot be fierce advocates for this wondrous world and her beings. Taking time and energy to understand oneself, and to then to manage the outcomes of this understanding is not a selfish act, but a self-full blessing that nurtures us, and hence the many others to whom our souls are deeply connected. Self-Empathy: Deep and compassionate awareness of one’s own inner experience -Marshall Rosenberg Self-empathy means identifying and considering our feelings and needs without judgment, and it is no easy task. We all grew up in a culture where blame, domination, judgment, bullying, and power over others were the methods that were modeled for us as ways to meet our needs. If our needs were not being met, it was surely the fault of someone else – someone fundamentally wrong, at least in some aspects of their being. The tools we have for thinking about others are also the tools with which we think about ourselves; so we also see ourselves as basically flawed and lacking. These negative judgments harm our well-being, sap our energy, divert us from our goals and dreams, decrease our happiness and effectiveness, and affect our health. But the irony of affective empathy is that it requires being really good at listening to one’s self. A person has to be able to identify his or her own feelings to notice how they’re resonating with someone else’s. - Andrew Price Self-empathy is necessary for our individual flourishing, and is a hallmark of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the awareness of one's emotions and the ability to manage them. While a person’s emotional intelligence is influenced by genetic predisposition and by encouragement (or discouragement) in the early years, almost all of us, whatever our genes or age, have the capacity to increase, at least a little bit, our emotional intelligence – and thus our self-understanding and care. As animals, we have emotions. Almost constantly, we are having one or more emotions. The fact that we are having them, though, doesn’t mean we know we are having them. Nor does it mean we know which one(s) we are having. - LoraKim Joyner We have to bring to higher consciousness the emotions, feelings, moods, and body states our mind and body are communicating. The limbic system, the location in our brains through which emotions communicate to our mind, body, and higher cognitive functions, is a slow learner. It takes repetition and practice to grow awareness of emotions and to manage them. If we can do this, we have greater choices as to how to think, feel, and act. Nonviolent communication is not about "getting it right" or "getting rid of uncomfortable emotions," it is about increasing our choices. To be fully alive means feeling everything – the comfortable, the uncomfortable. Don’t push any of it away. Whatever you’re trying to ignore or deny or suppress, that’s what you’re dead to. Life isn’t about what you like. It’s about what you can open yourself to – attend to, learn from, love. The more honest you can be with seeing yourself for who you are, which means not suppressing your feelings, the more tenderly honest you can be with others. You can also more clearly communicate what you really mean to in a way that helps build connections and trust with another, and be precise, open, and curious about requests you have of others and how they respond to you. If you suspect that your honest message will be painful, be ready to offer empathy to the receiver. Also, couple your honest messages with clear and doable requests in the moment. Being honest with others helps us live authentically and be more deeply connected to life, not matter how the other people around us react. Honesty, authenticity, and connection most likely communicate self- and other-acceptance, which in turn are more likely to result in being listened to and understood. In summary, honesty and empathy help us live better with ourselves and our world. In so doing, they nurture our relationships and communications, so that all have a greater chance for flourishing through our skills and our deep connection to the beauty that connects us all. Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make sense anymore. - Rumi

March is a busy time for birds the world over. On Ometepe Island, Nicaragua it is high parrot breeding season, which makes for very occupied parrot conservationists from BIOMETEPE, Flora and Fauna International, and One Earth Conservation. Dr. LoraKim Joyner recently worked in three communities on the island as part of the team climbing trees with yellow-naped amazon parrot nests to assess the health of the chicks. She then followed this up with a half day training on Parrot Care and Welfare. We thank the Ometepe Veterinary Clinic for their participation and commitment to parrot conservation on the island. Yellow-naped Amazon parrot parents watching us climb the tree their nest is in If you’d like to be part of this amazing project and see the beauty of this island, enjoy the pictures that follow, or join us in person in December for a Parrot Pilgrimage when we will pay homage to the parrots and people of this land. We led a similar trip to the island in 2017 and the pilgrimage idea was first attempted, but could not happen, in 2018. After several years of civil unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic, tourists have now returned in full force, as will we! On the ferry to Ometepe Island, Nicaragua, with a great view of Concepción Volcano. Our main transportation to get to parrot nests is on motorcycles Some of the roads are more crowded and bumpier than others The climbing team sets up the ropes they use to climb Levis Hernandez sets up the endoscope camera, so he can see what is in the parrot nest cavity - three chicks! While people are climbing, some of us take a break under the tree before the work starts for us land dwellers Norlan Zamana Morales takes notes during a physical exam of a yellow-naped amazon parrot chick, who we treated for subcutaneous fly larvae We concentrate on the yellow-naped amazon parrot, but we pay attention to all the species that live on the island, including this unusual species, the orange-fronted parakeet It looks like a picture, but this is a video of a very still orange-fronted parakeet chick ready to fledge Some of the BIOMETEPE team after our time together learning about the care and welfare of parrots

This was a sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. LoraKim Joyner to the Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation at White Plains on February 27, 2022. The sermon can be viewed below as either a video or as text, and the entire service is recorded here. Have you ever been anxious about finding a solution to some problem and this tension surfaced in a dream? We can spend grueling days, and even years trying to resolve the complexity, confusion, and pain of living in this world. Sometimes, sometimes we are graced with moments of clarity on how to go forward. I was in a rough patch when attending Divinity School about 25 years ago. I was still trying to piece together what I had witnessed and experienced living and working in Guatemala as a parrot conservationist and wildlife veterinarian during their Civil War. One night my search for how to live took place as a tossing and turning during a very long dream. I thought if I just looked hard and long enough, I could discover an important truth, and that I would learn the lesson I was supposed to learn. Near dawn the answer finally came, and I suddenly awoke. The lesson came from birds in the form of 3 words: parakeets and paracletes. The mood was one of ease, of joy, of purpose, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t know exactly what it meant. I knew what parakeets were but had to look up the word paraclete. It is a word used in the Christian New Testament and means advocate or counselor, as well as bringer of Truth. What I dreamt is what I have been doing ever since with my ongoing ministry – advocating, supporting, and witnessing to parrots and the people who live with them. Now perhaps this lesson is a bit specific for most of you, so let me share with you how Mary Oliver in her poem, "Sometimes," rephrases “parakeets and paracletes.” She calls it Instructions for a Life: “Pay attention, be astonished, talk about it.” We will use birds as the ingredients for this recipe, but you could choose just about anything – another species, another mindful or spiritual practice, even the back of a cereal box. But birds are prettier, and way easier That’s because birds are everywhere, well not as much as before, but they are readily available to pay attention to. And we reap benefits when we do. According to Attention Restoration Theory, people can concentrate better after spending time in nature, or even looking at scenes of nature. It helps ease fatigue from informational processing. Looking at wildlife also helps us experience a state of flow, awaken sensuality, and increase spiritual fulfillment and feelings of well-being. Even if consciously, we might not be tracking birds, subconsciously we are. A study in Europe found that a higher density of birds correlated with a higher degree of life satisfaction, as much as did income. It’s like taking a walk in nature. You reap the same physical and mental benefits even if you don’t want to go for a walk. Birds are doing the same things for you. And if you go out looking for birds, and don’t see many, just the pursuit of them puts you in nature which has immense benefits, such as decreased stress, and increased creativity, kindness and generosity. Looking up at birds also is good for you. Studies have shown that looking up can lead to greater feelings of awe, as well as being more helpful and ethical. Looking up combined with bird song has been linked to greater mental integration through quieting the inner chatter, and dissolving constructed boundaries of self. Medical doctor, neuroscientist, Zen practitioner, and bird watcher Jim Austin has written much about this subject and points out how in the zen tradition there are multiple stories of people becoming enlightened after seeing or hearing a bird, such as in this story. The disciple was always complaining to his Master, “You are hiding the final secret of Zen from me.” And he would not accept the Master’s denials. One day they were walking in the hills when they heard a bird sing. “Did you hear that bird sing?” said the Master. “Yes,” said the disciple. “Well, now you know that I have hidden nothing from you.” “Yes.” Dr. Austin explained to me in neurological and zen terms what had once happened to me. I was out walking in Guatemala studying parrot nests, and my guide was a local Guatemalan. We weren't seeing many birds and so we began to talk. He wanted to tell me of his love of Jesus and Mary, and I put up my guard a little bit, unsure if he was proselytizing me or expecting something from me I could not give. We came up to the forest's edge where the sun was just rising over the tree tops in a shroud of misty fog. Suddenly a loud flock of parrots burst forth from the tree canopy. Before I knew what happened, I was on my knees in the grass, weeping. I guess I had been so startled with awe and beauty; I just fell. Afterwards I was a little embarrassed, but more than anything I had a sudden clarity and connection to humanity and the world. I knew that when people said words like Mary and Jesus, it was like when I said birds and trees. I fell a little bit more in love with life. Seeing birds might not lead to sudden clarity, but birds as a mindful practice with repetition can build up benefits over the long term. This can be from the general unfocused gaze, such as looking out and up, openly receptive to what comes, and also from the more cognitive focused attempt to identify a bird, or understand their behavior. Both are mindfulness practices with resulting benefits Cognitive understanding and open reception lead to astonishment, the second step in Mary’s instructions: be astonished. We can grow our awe and wonder by not taking any birds we see for granted. One time, early in our relationship, my spouse, Meredith and I were out looking at birds. He didn’t know much, or that is what I thought. A bird flew over and he said, "What is that?" "Oh, it’s just a crow." " Just a crow!" he said, "Tell that to the crow!" He had me; I was being "species-ist." And there is so much to be in awe about with crows. They remember human faces and your actions. So, if someone stresses them, they’ll not just avoid you, but warn their friends. So, it’s good not to cross a crow. Crow calls also distinguish individuals, which means they have names, as do parrots who are taught their names by their parents while still in the nest. Crows and ravens also have native “words,” such as a particular call that means “meat” and use other words to depict particular situations. Parrots have dialects and some birds, such as great tits and finches, use natural syntax in their calls. They order and combine their calls for meaning. Parrots use syntax when not just mimicking, but constructing new meanings with human language. Humans also share with birds social complexity and cognitive intelligence. In some cases, parrots score better on intellectual tests than college students, even when they hadn’t pulled an all-nighter. Parrots are rated at a level of cognitive ability of that of a 5-year-old human. Every year new studies are published, such as one recently where they found that the brain of some birds, such as crows and parrots, are even more densely innervated than most of the great apes, and are structured in ways similar to apes. It turns out that parrots may be as smart or smarter than chimpanzees and dolphins. Yet I grew up in a time when birds were considered very dissimilar to humans and low on intelligence. But then came a paper in 2005 that said, whoops, birds may not have a neocortex like we do, but they have a neopallium that serves the same purpose. They evolved their intelligence, as well as their auditory learning abilities and longevity separate from mammals and apes – going all the way back to when they were theropod dinosaurs. Through convergent evolution they had developed traits like us. But we had missed the signs of what was going on in them, because we didn’t look, or only until recently. Perhaps it’s because they look so different from us, we couldn’t see the connections. After all they don’t have the same kind of facial expressions as we do, but the way they move their eyes, bodies, and feathers is a language in and of itself. They say and do similar things, but with sounds, calls, language, and culture that is not the same as ours. By paying attention we can be astonished even across differences. In the past we didn’t ask, What Would the Parrot Say? We are learning that parrots do not just mimic speech and the earth is not a mirror for us to only see ourselves. Birds can help move us out of seeing the world just as a human projection. They help us listen, pay attention, and be astonished to hear what life is really saying to us. We need them, for as a social species we construct our social reality. We humans make up stories to explain our behavior and motivations, and to make meaning. If we only include humans in the stories, we are leaving out most of reality. And if we just repeat these same stories we have heard, we compound the problem. For the more a story is repeated, no matter even if upon first listening we consider it false, we began to believe it. We used to say that birds are dumb, don’t have feelings, don’t use tools. We got it wrong, not just about them, but about so many groups of people and other species. There is much to unlearn. We can’t believe anything we believe. So, if we want to live in a reality that is kind, compassionate, and beautiful, and pass it on to future generations, we have to tell stories of interconnected beauty and worth, now. And we have to live it in thought, action, and word. By repeating as much as possible every just and loving word, we incant a better world. And by so doing, we follow Mary’s last instruction – “talk about it.” What would you say? In our nonprofit organization, One Earth Conservation, we figure out what to say and do with a policy that has us ask, “What would the parrot say? What would the parrot have us do? What would the people who live with parrots say and have us do?” After we listen to what the birds are telling us, we can then share their story of beauty, wonder, and tragedy. The birds of the world are in trouble. The population of North American birds has dropped nearly 30% since 1970. That's almost three billion birds gone. Over half of parrots are endangered, their numbers are quickly decreasing. Other groups of birds are also in serious decline. We mourn for their loss, and so do they. Magpies have been seen covering a dead companion with grass and flowers, and parrots will become depressed after a mate dies. ­During the West Nile virus pandemic 15 years ago some areas in North America lost over two-thirds of the crows. The remaining crows mourned. They changed. They experienced social and individual trauma. These are the conclusions that scientists came to after studying them during this time. Females didn’t disperse as much from their biological families and territories shrunk. Birds were reluctant to try new things. Crows normally move as small family groups, but these were torn asunder. They forged new families, such as adults taking care of chicks from another pair. Does this response to a pandemic, or loss in your life, sound familiar? We are bound together in this world, across differences, and their story is ours, and it needs to be told. W.S. Rendra writes: I hear the cry of a wounded animal; Someone shoots an arrow at the moon A small bird has fallen from the nest. People must be awakened, Witness must be given, So that life can be guarded. Birds tell us of beauty, and tragedy, and no doubt, by facing reality we see that there is a crack in the world. In Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem,” he tells us that the dove will be sold again and again. As will the parrot, and as will the lives and futures of countless others. Yes, Cohen tells us there is a crack in everything, but that is how the light gets in. I witnessed such a story of cracks and light several years ago in Honduras. An elderly leader of a Miskito village came to me and said, “Come see our scarlet macaw.” Scarlets are wild parrots coveted around the world for pets, and hence they are in trouble. I didn’t really want to see a captured bird, but the woman told me, “No, it’s okay. The bird can fly but chooses to stay here. We rescued her from a wildfire when she was just a chick.” She then turned to Cindy, her granddaughter, and said go get your parrot. In she walked with a rainbow bird, whose length was as tall as she. They proceeded to roll around on the floor together, playing and laughing, both of them about 4 years of age (video below). They were growing up together. A few years ago, I visited the household and Cindy and the macaw were gone. What happened I asked the grandmother? “It was a terrible thing,” she replied. “Cindy’s mother came to take her back to the city and we lied to Cindy, telling her that the macaw would soon join her. But there was no way that the wild parrot could go with her. Cindy screamed and cried as the car pulled away, 'My macaw, my macaw!' After Cindy left, the macaw pulled out nearly every one of her feathers and wouldn’t eat. Cindy would call and I said the bird was fine.” The grandmother took a deep breath, and continued. “After about a year the macaw let her feathers grow back in and began to fly further and further. One day a pair of wild macaws flew over and off our macaw went to join them. I almost called her back, for I didn’t know how to tell Cindy that her bird was gone. But then I listened to the birds as they flew away, and thought that this bird deserves to be free.” The grandmother said this as she held her hand over her heart, her voice cracking, and the light of the sun glistening in her tears (Grandmother telling the story in video below). Hearts break when we open them to birds, and to each other. But oh, how the light gets in and how the light shines out. One study showed how people who imagine they are a sick or ailing bird will score higher on empathy afterwards and have a greater probability of working for environmental concerns. Being with birds teaches us important lessons on how to live this life. Pay attention. Be astounded. Tell about it. And oh yes, repeat as necessary.