When I opened the blinds on the window in front of my home the other day, I glanced across the street. Seemingly a bird flapping its wings, or some other creature crawling back-and-forth in front of my neighbor’s garage, captured my eyes.

Of course, since I could not identify it, my curiosity kicked in and I went outside to get a little closer look at it from the end of my property.  My eyes stayed focused down on the image on the driveway. I photographed and videoed it in motion.

I finally looked up and was astonished to see what it really was!! I excitedly went back to my office curious as to what other people would perceive the moving image to be.  I immediately texted the FIRST video to four friends, looking to discover what their experiences might be.

MY FRIENDS’ RESPONSES:

Blaise wrote: “First thought – A moth, a bird, a fan dancer? Lol.”

Ruth Ridolpho responded immediately, identifying what it actually was. [You’ll see her statement further down this page.]  Amazed at her guess, I sent her a photo of the image, with the comment:
“Likely you see more [of the object she had seen] than full-bodied birds with long necks and tails  [my interpretation of what I had seen].

I continued, “If you look closely you’ll see the bird even has a shadow reflection.” [She had mentioned shadows in her response.]

Ruth did text back: “I do see the bird now in the stopped motion picture.”

Lila responded: “Like a mobile making marvelous shadows?”

When I replied to her, sharing my perceptions, Lila responded, “Yeah I was gonna say that but it just didn’t look realistic enough to be a real bird, or even a shadow of one.”

Interestingly two out of the three whom I texted, identified the shadows. I had been so caught up originally thinking I actually had seen a bird that the “shadow” realization never occurred to me.

Much later in the afternoon, I texted the images and story to one more friend.

Marianne S’s response: “At first a crane flying. Then a dancer and then a flag reflection.”

Unbeknownst to her, she had actually identified all of the elements that one or another of the rest of us had noticed.

BRAVO to Ruth, for her “perfect” identification as you can now see in the full view, what I finally and surprisingly discovered that my “bird..”  actually was.

Before even seeing the video below, Ruth had texted that the image was the “Shadow of a flag in the breeze.”

Two main points to my sharing the above story:

1 – There are many different ways to see and interpret the same thing or situation. It’s possible to have ease in a conflicting communication experience.  One of the benefits the upcoming workshop will be the opportunity to experience the results of different perceptions while in a non-threatening environment

2 – My initial experience with my bird image interpretation had a singular, limited focus. I was reminded, after a while, that it is often necessary to view the whole picture (in interactions and landscapes) as well as isolated circumstances to find our answers.

LASTLY, I’d appreciate your input as I plan the Wednesday, July 27th workshop. Your answer(s) to the following questions would be helpful.

1 – What is/are your preferred way/s of communicating?  

Texting? phone calls? Meetings? in person connecting? Email? Facebook? other social media platforms? Anything I missed?

2 – Are there any specific challenges you have in taking and sharing photos and videos, creating and communicating with your smartphone?

Please leave your responses in the Leave a Reply section below this post.

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