Nothing Is Ordinary

This morning I woke up to the sound of grackles, hundreds of them screaming jee-jee-jee, that distinctive rusty-hinge call. They travel in swarms in the spring, land in your trees, then take over your lawn looking for insects.

They're not a particularly beloved bird species. They're everywhere. The most common grackle species is called, well, "common grackle." A blackish bird, you may see them in mixed flocks with blackish starlings. Many people mistake them for crows. They're noisy, pushy and crap all over everything. And bold! I walk out to my mail box and they just look at me as if to say, "It's just a human."

Well, I've heard plenty of humans say, "It's just a grackle." Just another pesky, nondescript black bird. Even the name is inelegant! Not swallow. Not lark. Not bunting.

As you can see, they're not black. Anyone who's seen one clearly in full sunlight knows that the most apt descriptive term is "iridescent." While the common grackle gives the impression of being a darkish bird, it has blue-green iridescent black plumage with a glossy purplish breast. The eye is yellow. They're gorgeous. On the east coast of Florida we also have the slightly larger boat-tailed grackles. With their huge fan-tails, they're about 16 inches in length. They're gorgeous, too.

"Just a grackle."
" Just a crow." "Just a blue jay."
"It's only the next-door neighbor."
"It’s just five o’clock on a cloudy, windy day."
"Only a brief shower."
"It's just me."
"Just a thought."
"Just an ordinary day."

In truth, nothing is ordinary. Sometimes when I turn off all this received commentary about how normal and unremarkable everything is, I can see a thing for what it is. I can almost feel a click as reality comes into focus, revealing its astounding beauty.

Article Source: http://www.articledestination.com

Dennis E. Coates is CEO of Performance Support Systems, author of MindFrames, a brain-based personality assessment system (www.initforlife.com) and co-founder of the Train-to-Ingrain alliance (www.train-to-ingrain.com, info@train-to-ingrain.com, 800-488-6463), which delivers a reinforcement-centered approach to learning and development that achieves permanent, measurable improvements in workplace behavior and positive impacts on business results.

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