BP Oil Spill, Birds and Our Destiny with Water

The ocean has long held a fascination to me because of its depth and vastness. This in and of itself demands respect. Many a sailor knows exactly what I'm talking about. Throughout history, people have had a much easier time dominating on land than they have water. Mankind's latest attempts at offshore drilling in the last several decades pans out yet more attempts at us feeble humans to control the Earth and direct her energies where we see fit. The birds fly overhead as they have always done, watching and waiting, communicating to themselves and us. I live in Biloxi, Mississippi, on the peninsula facing the Gulf of Mexico. My yard is home to a host of different bird species and I listen to them every day but not with my ears, with my inner ears. They are full of information and they are not happy about the oil spill. The last two days in particular, a parliament of owls have been hooting more than usual outside my window. As everyone now knows, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig has been draining into the Gulf of Mexico and it looks to continue unabated for some time into the future.

At times, I go into a light trance state and get information about current events. In early June of 2009, I communicated with what I call the spirit essence of Benjamin Franklin. The following is what he told me:

Birds are quite strong and have strong instincts so to speak, and as such are extremely programmed, and programmable. They have rigid set patterns of behavior, with of course some free will of their own, but slim to nonexistent compared to the freedoms we have. Birds are strong animals physically with a resilience and strong survival consciousness understanding mentally. It was for this reason that birds were chosen long ago to program viruses into, for unsavory reasons of exploiting the human population for the greater ends of greed and money, Washington politics and bureaucrats who [hang out with] types who would make the Founding Fathers cringe in their very graves. Many personalities who of course still live are so curious in watching the outcome of America. Various outcomes have been played out already, and those personalities have been most astounded by the reality there is not just one reality, not just one outcome, but innumerable outcomes to the decisions they made. However, in this dimension there are only so many outcomes that can be physically handled. Requirements of democracy can be of great benefit to the whole, much less benefit to the individual, who suffers greatly under the toil of the heavy hand of corporate greed and consumption. It will soon consume everything, including itself, and will exist no more. Much work has been done by the Founding Fathers to flesh out this outcome, much work is yet to be done, but we feel it a worthy and forelorn cause, to liberate individual freedoms in lieu of the collective. At this point, the collective has gone out of control and unchecked, to the point of no return.

Chastise not then the foundations of individual responsibility to create government, surely to govern itself, because it will not be made out as a fool. We are not fools, and will not bow to the agenda of the many, but to the only agenda that ever mattered: individual consciousness.

Liberty and treason combine together to make amends in the righteous few. Make sense to carry over intellectual honesty into democracy in light of world events currently. Do not hinder your search for truth or self-expression by fearing the greedy fearmongers and money makers. They will in time perish of their own hands. Honesty and integrity of the spirit of the nation of America will be the ultimate benefactor of charity, of the lack of malice, and of notwithstanding value placed on the heads of every American, henceforth declared an enemy of the state. Yet, the state would not exist were it not for the individuals! Commerce will always exist, but in what form it exists is being re-evaluated now, and recounted and redone in another fashion. The countenance of all equals the benefit of all. Let Liberty ring true the hearts of all men.

Creative expression is your strongest ally. Use it wisely. Surmounting problems does not necessarily equate to impossible solutions, but to a challenge to grow in character and esteem, in the community, in God's eyes, and in your own heart.

We trust the flavor of this material will make itself evident to all those who hear it. Trust in your own heart and you will be free. That kind of freedom cannot be bought, sold or exchanged, and is part of a commerce that has no physicality to it, and never will.


Regarding the trance information, though, something began to bother me regarding birds. My boyfriend's best friend decided to take his boat out to Horn Island on Saturday, May 30th of 2009, about 12 miles off the Mississippi coast. We've been out there once before with him and I was ready to get away and do something different. I realized a lot about myself on that boat ride. His boat is about 22 feet and can handle much deeper water than smaller type boats are designed to handle. He has taught me how to drive a boat and some of the basics of boating. On this trip, however, I rode in the front on the ice chest. The water was unusually calm and flat so the eight mile trip out to Horn Island was smooth and uneventful. I have a definite fear of deep water but more so a fear of heights. I tend to become fearful when I know I'm traveling either in a plane or boat, though less so in a train or a car. It's the loss of personal control that bothers me, relinquishing my control to another whom I know nothing about, that kind of thing bothers me. I like to have information about everything, and in some cases you just don't have it. I'm not particularly a faith-based type of person, so it really bothers me when I feel at the mercy of other people, particularly when I have seen over the years how lax and careless and mindless some people can be.

As we took the long boat ride, we went under the new Ocean Springs bridge that towers overhead like a skyscraper. My boyfriend and I jog on that bridge almost every day, and in my mind I felt nostalgic because I've had many a good run on that bridge. I've twice now seen giant faces in the skyline as I am running. One face was of a giant female fairy and the second face was of a male reptilian looking creature. The moon is usually perched midway up to my left and the sun setting in the west along Interstate 10 which you cannot see from that bridge, but it's not far from the coastline of Mississippi. There is a lot of beauty here in Biloxi.

Once away from the bridge, we made our way out into open water and for about three miles I rode peacefully and I began to realize one lone bird was flying alongside our boat. The sky was clear and cloudless and the bright sun shone down on us like a burning but warm and inviting globe, at just the right distance so as not to hurt you but nourish you. The bird had flown quite far out into open water and I got concerned, did he know what he was doing? I then remembered the trance data about the bird from May 15th and I began to become even more perplexed. I felt the bird communicating to me, and he told me I really didn't understand birds at all. What was it I thought I knew about birds? I quickly realized that writing about something you know nothing about is not a good idea, because it misleads others and can confuse them if the information is bad. Bad information is the garbage of the mind, it takes up precious mental energy for no reason. The bird continued flying alongside us, and I noticed two other birds who were fishing in the open water, several miles offshore, and I wondered how they had the energy to fly so far, and then to take the chance of diving into the water to pick at their prey. What if they got waterlogged and sank? What if they wanted to perch somewhere? There was no land in sight for miles. I also remembered that at dusk when I was jogging on the bridge, the seagulls would begin flying slowly in circles, skimming the top of the water below in a ritual of bird behavior I've never witnessed before. The behavior of animals is truly a great mystery. The lone bird also taught me that he does have free will, and how dare I presume his will was smaller than mine! How dare I assume I knew anything about the behavior of birds or what motivated them or the complexity of their ritualistic flights. Seeing these three birds, it was clear I knew nothing about them,, and I felt like I'd let myself down. I get discouraged about doing my trances at times like these, because the weight of evidence seems so convincing that I'm just making it all up or accessing pools of subconscious information right below the surface, sort of like the birds do when picking at prey so far out in the water. They could be dooming themselves, or more likely, they are doing what they want to do freely, like most other creatures, and they have individuality, and they have a right to live as do all other living things. So firstly, I realized it is true that all life is sacred. If we just understood that, and taught that and lived it, this world would be more the richer. As it stands now, I was learning more from this lone bird than I have from many people I talk to. We finally reached Horn Island, which was used as a biological weapons testing site by the U. S. Army from 1943 to 1945, the time frame that my maternal grandfather went overseas in the military. There are lots of seashells and horseshoe crabs on the island. The water is crystal clear and the sea is deep blue and green in the distance. You can walk through the shallow water along the coast and see shining orange shell fragments every so often that make the beach look like an artistic creation of the highest order. Nature is so beautiful and inviting.

We walked on the island for about two miles and I gathered two large bags of shells, and we got a nice suntan and ate shrimp sandwiches we'd purchased before our trip. We drank a couple of beers and talked with two girls who came along for the trip. A lot of young kids come out to Horn Island on their parents' boats. Just being on the island is peaceful and calm and I can understand the intense draw it has for most anyone. It's a dream of mine to have a house on the island to live in and be secluded and alone. Of course, it's just a fantasy and impractical, but it'd be fantastic. I'm truly a solitary person by nature and I value privacy.

When we returned home, I think around Sunday night or early Monday morning we began hearing about Flight 447 being lost at sea on its way to Paris. My heart sank. It was my worst nightmare. From what I've read, it seems that faulty software may have caused Flight 447 to take a 650 feet or so nosedive unexpectedly, as happened in a previous flight of those model planes, the A330, in Australia in October 2008. The people on that 2008 flight did not crash but several people broke their necks or had splattered blood inside the cabin from the horrific jump in altitude so suddenly, and all of this was caused by computers, not manual piloting. It's bizarre to think that a few minutes before the crash everyone on that plane thought everything was fine, and then within a few fateful minutes they were dead in the Atlantic Ocean.

Millvina Dean, the last survivor from the Titanic, died also in late May of 2009. She was just a baby when she was put in a paper bag and hoisted down into a lifeboat in the frosty Atlantic in April of 1912. She said in a video she didn't remember it and her mother told her when she was 9 or 10. I cannot imagine the horror those people must've experienced. Flight 447 is probably the worst traveling accident I've seen since I've been alive besides 9/11. I cried when I realized the plane probably went down in the water around 4 a.m., in bad weather. It should not have happened.

The experiences we have with water are changing human destiny. Weather is one of the most influential things in studying history and greatly affects the outcomes of human affairs. All of nature works harmoniously together but if humans stop paying attention, great injustices can and do unfold.

All of this proves that life is unpredictable and you never know what will happen for sure. Things that fly and move often frighten me, and I don't understand birds too well, and I don't understand the bigger birds, airplanes, either. Life can be incredibly cruel but also can be rewarding and positive. I learned from my experience with the bird that you may think you know about a subject or an animal behavior, but you really don't. So much in life is hidden from view, to the point that we are at best guessing in the dark and sometimes we get a hit but mostly misses, or worse yet, tragedies. Maybe birds are smarter than we think. At least they can fly out over open water with their spirit intact.

The majestic flight of the lone seagull has stayed with me since last summer. I find great irony in the fact that we fled England in search of a better life and we have created a democratic republic that I believe is the model for future democracies, and now a British company has polluted our waters and probably won't be held criminally negligent and, if anything, if their public image is too tattered, will reorganize in the future and keep selling us the same petroleum under a different name. Such is the way sociopathic corporations do business, but this is oil spill is different. This spill is going to be so damaging to the environment that we on the Gulf Coast may never fully recover in our lifetimes. An enormous hurricane will soon be on its way, as I believe the Earth will not take this issue lightly, and we are going to see who is in charge of things, and it was never us. In the end, the wisdom of the birds will outlive us all, until we infuse ethics into the way we do business. Anything less, and we will extinct ourselves.


 Copyright 2010 © Marlon C. Hartshorn.