Elder Blue Jay Speaks
The path of truth invites you to root fully in your integrity. It’s not always the easiest or most comfortable choice…Elder Blue Jay (The Animal Elders Oracle Guidebook)
I’ve experienced seemingly random threads on this topic of truth - of listening deeply and speaking up - on my personal path recently. And I’ve observed the same out there in the world – uncomfortable truths being revealed, reckoning with our silence, both past and present, discerning human generated truth amidst the FUAI (Flood of Unidentified Artificial Intelligence).
Until this morning, the treads out there and my own exploration of speaking up seemed separate. But, in two back-to-back events, the randomness evaporated and the threads began to weave into a tapestry of deep listening and authentic voice. I felt the simultaneous guidance to speak up and to listen more deeply and with greater discernment. Not new. Deepened and widened.
Robert Hamburger’s Substack post The Hollowing of Human Speech: We’re Starting to Sound Less Like Ourselves reminded me of a post a few weeks back citing that “Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development recently analyzed hundreds of thousands of video transcriptions and found something unsettling: humans are unconsciously absorbing AI linguistic patterns into their own everyday speech, completely independent of whether they personally use AI to write.” The ‘YIKES!’ of that planted a seed that seemed to sprout and connect with reflections on deep listening, the quest for truth, and speaking up.
Then as I began to turn my attention to writing today’s post, I consulted The Elder Animals Oracle, asking the heartfelt question ‘What wants to be shared today?’ The message wasn’t loud, but it was clear: Speak Up! Not just about speaking up, but about how we listen, how we discern, and the blind spots we may have in seeking convenience and ease; about whatever your heart wants to share, in both close relationships and in interacting in the world.
Elder Blue Jay’s message landed in me as an answer to a question I’ve been sitting with trusting that clarity would come. It did! And the elder’s message put icing on the cake of confirmation about something I’d spoken up about recently, albeit a bit reluctantly. The cake? In response to speaking up, I was invited to say more which led to a rich, relational conversation and opened into seeds of a wider, generative exploration of possibilities.
Just what I long for and intend to create as I put a wrap on my 76th trip around our star and step into my 77th round.
I thanked the elder, remembering that Blue Jay was one of the first birds I identified as a child. While Blue Jay does not reside here in the woods, I’m in close relationship with its kin who do, both Pinon and Stellar’s Jays. They speak up. Loud and clear! Thank you wise, winged beings!
As I look back, the dots of other events and encounters connect in interesting patterns not as random, separate events. Rather in the noise of our world, I was presented with threads beneath the noise of mainstream. Curiosities and concerns were being offered clues, signs along the way about using my voice more clearly and intentionally and about the voices in the world and the growing challenge to discern who and what is human created content versus AI feel good puff or fear mongering stories meant to generate confusion, fear, and uncertainty.
We are reckoning with much from our past and in our present, including the cost of our silence when we witness misdeeds and withhold our voice. After listening deeply into a panel discussion beginning to reckon with just that and reading Hamburger’s post, I’m beholding an inquiry about what is slipping away in the noise of manufactured words as well as in withholding our voices. Are we willing to lay our humanity on the altar of convenience? Of ease? It occurs to me as I write that approach hasn’t worked out so well for us in terms of our health as we consume quantities of fast, convenient food. But that’s a story (or a rant!) for another day.
We are grappling and reckoning with much individually and collectively as the volume of disclosure rises and blatant hypocrisy inches toward becoming the norm.
I experience that when I pause to breathe, become fully present, listen beyond and beneath the noise to my heart the synchronicity of experiences is revealed along with a way forward: what step to take and what is mine to speak in the next moment.
What seemingly separate threads in your world may be synchronicities awaiting discovery to guide you in your listening and your speaking up?