Seeing all is connected and intertwined.

Bird Droppings October 1, 2026
Seeing all is connected and intertwined.

“Observation isn’t always searching for something; sometimes it’s simply being available to notice what shows up.” bird

As I thought about the Sydney J. Harris passage below and walked out to my car, I thought of my quiet spot on my back porch where I meditated, and something hit me. I generally sit facing east towards the rising sun; daily, the gossamer threads of life are interconnected with everything. Spiders busy the night before spin threads of silk across the terrain. They are always iridescent and softly moving with the wind. Occasionally, one thread would disconnect and float effortlessly upwards, sparkling and dancing as it went ever so slowly into the clouds. Each twig, plant, and leaf seemed to be connected. Each rock and branch is a tiny thread weaving through the entire visage before me.

I sat on my back porch for a few minutes, watched a Joro spider working on her web, and decided to go for a walk. I followed the strands of silk, finding several orb weavers and more writing spiders. I am always amazed by the simplest things that catch my attention. My brief walk uncovered fifteen flowers and seven spiders before I sat down and lit some white sage. As the smoke spiraled and my mind cleared, all interconnectedness hit me hard. Thinking back on my former students, I remember communicating with one in college to teach special education; hopefully, I provided a piece of the puzzle for them.

“When we try to pick anything out by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” John Muir

Most people would read this and scoff, yet in the early morning, as the sun rises and moves across the skies, spiders have been at work all night, moving between plants and rocks, trees and leaves, leaving silk threads. If you were standing in the midst of them, they would be invisible, yet with the sun behind, sparkling in the light; it was a beautiful scene as I sat pondering as an older man sat looking towards the east in the early morning many years ago and came in to tell his grandchildren as I started the passage. On the back of my T-shirt, it reads All things are connected, and rightly so, by a thin gossamer strand of silk. So many thoughts today as I sit and ponder. In my case, how we interact with our children and grandchildren matters most.

“Our task is to make our children into disciples of the good life by our own actions toward them and toward other people. This is the only effective discipline in the long run. But it is more arduous and takes longer than simply “laying down the law.” Before a child (or a nation) can accept the law, it has to learn why the law has been created for its own welfare.” Sydney J. Harris

Today, I have to finish everything by Sunday: a set of Math slides and problems, interview and transcribe a math problem with my grandson, read several articles on culture and start an outline for a major culture course project, and clean up before the grandkids come over later. I was reading and discussing how procrastination is a form of anxiety.

“What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.” Aristotle

“Self-command is the main discipline.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I spent six months counseling in a psychiatric unit in a state mental facility many years ago. There was never a question about why something happened, as they were considered combative psychotic adolescents, which was the term used to describe the unit. When someone got upset, it was solitary confinement, rather large doses of drugs, and a few straitjackets were employed. Little was done to change the behavior, rationalize it, and/or understand why it occurred. Deal with the moment.

“Anybody who gets away with something will come back to get away with a little bit more.” Harold Schoenberg

“Better to be pruned to grow than cut up to burn.” John Trapp

Often, when I find a quote, the person behind those words has more to offer; in Schoenberg’s case, he is a music scholar and a prolific writer about great musicians and their music. John Trapp was a bible scholar with several biblical commentaries to his credit. Both men were writers who themselves were very self-disciplined.

“THE STUDY OF WORDS is useless unless it leads to the study of the ideas that the words stand for. When I am concerned about the proper use of words it is not because of snobbism or superiority but because their improper use leads to poor ways of thinking. Take the word ‘discipline’ that we hear so much about nowadays in connection with the rearing of children. If know something about word derivations, you know that ‘discipline’ and ‘disciple’ come from the same Latin root discipulus, which means ‘to learn, to follow.’” Sydney J. Harris, Strictly speaking

Sitting here looking up references and quotes related to behavior and ending up with the example: to learn and to follow; this is semantics as we go. To run a public school, we have standards to follow, so we have rules. From a behaviorist standpoint, it is easy to say ABC: Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence. First, you have an antecedent; the stimulus is what causes the behavior. Then you have the behavior, the event or action we see, feel, or hear about. Finally, we have consequences, such as what we do in response or what the student or person receives for eliciting that behavior.

“What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?” Leonard Cohen

“Act the way you’d like to be, and soon you’ll be the way you act.” George W. Crane

“To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.” Rene Descartes

It is always about what we do. Over the past few days, I have been discussing perception with several teachers and friends, which is how we see events and happenings. One category in writing a behavioral plan for a student is planning to ignore, often simply tuning out a behavior. Often, a behavior disappears when there is no stimulus to keep it going. So often, the desired consequence is attention.

“People don’t change their behavior unless it makes a difference for them to do so.” Fran Tarkenton

“Physics does not change the nature of the world it studies, and no science of behavior can change the essential nature of man, even though both sciences yield technologies with a vast power to manipulate the subject matters.” B. F. Skinner

These lines from a football Hall of Fame quarterback and the father of behaviorism are intriguing, as these two men from distinctly different arenas have reached remarkably similar conclusions. Tarkenton has built an internationally known management consulting firm based on his thoughts. It must make a difference to the person for them to change. Skinner sees that we can manipulate the subject matter by offering alternative consequences to hopefully change behaviors into ones we can accept. A Sydney J. Harris line caught my attention as I started on discipline and prepared for several IEPs later this week, some related to behavior.

“…by our own actions toward them and toward other people.” Sydney J. Harris

So often, it is not the consequences that deter or change behavior, but our actions toward the person and those around them. The example we set, not what we say, matters. As we venture out today, keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your heart, and always give thanks. Namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

bird