The body of my life encompasses the friends I have known.

Along with the the river where I live, these beloveds have been my deepest teachers. In ways literal and metaphorical, they’ve been lovers, dancing partners, confidants, fellow walkers of the ways.

These my friends prove, for me, the insistent potential of this our earth to fulfil itself not only in the life of the woods and seas, but in human relations of care, thoughtfulness, and affection. I bow and kiss your every hem.

I’ve been curating conversations with these friends while I still can. Any friend is invited to suggest a theme and off we go with a kind of mutual interview, rough-edged, not quite knowing where we’ll go. These are the murmurations.

Once, when ornithologists gazed at murmurations, they wondered how the starlings coordinated themselves so exquisitely. In the end, it was found that they don’t. Each bird acts alone, following three imperatives:

• Stay close.
• Don’t crash.
• Keep flying.

The phenomenon of the murmuration emerges from these three simple principles, like a ghost. Or like life. Keep close, don’t crash, keep flying.

Here are the recordings so far.

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Photo: Murmuration over Otmoor, dusk. Ally Stott.