We must learn to respect others and their boundaries. Osprey comes into our lives to specifically teach us that those we want to treat with disdain or contempt should be treated with respect regardless of how we feel. We might be drawn to fierce personalities, and then clash with them; osprey energy teaches us that we are able to maintain our integrity but taking a step back and practicing respect.
~ wildspeak
Nature, when we pay attention, always finds a way to teach us a lesson.
This week, my middle daughter’s class had an upset. A female classmate experienced an incident of sexual harassment from one of her classmates, and the entire class was unhappy about both the incident and the apparent lack of action by the school administration to this particular incident, especially in contrast to previous similar incidents where boys were suspended. Two days later, the same class went on a 3-day, 2-night camping trip. I drove the students to their site, and got to hear (and participate) in an interesting discussion about their feelings.
The feelings were strong, causing some vengeful behavior and reactions verging on an old-fashioned shunning. I was a little surprised by the vehemence of reaction on the part of the boys. Some of the parents (myself included) were concerned that they would copy-cat the action and all the girls would experience an escalation of undesirable behavior. These are young adolescents, in a mixed class of 12-14 year olds. Young adolescents are not particularly known for their thoughtful behavior.
Instead, the boys reacted with strong disapproval. Ok, partly because the entire class was forbidden to play tag for an undetermined amount of time. None-the-less, I was surprised and pleased to see that the girls wouldn’t need to fend off unwanted attention all through the camping trip. Instead, the boy needed to fend off unwanted and heavy-handed censure. It’s too bad; had the administration acted as they had for similar previous actions, perhaps the boys in the class wouldn’t have felt the need to impose their own censure. Instead, I think the boy experienced much worse peer-punishment.
I dropped off the students at their camping site, and returned the following evening to chaperone for the night. After arriving at the campsite, the students and teachers pointed out an osprey who had taken shelter at the edge of the lake where they were camping and hadn’t moved all day. About an hour after we returned to the site, the osprey finally moved position, flying to a branch even closer to the campsite, as though to make sure the students noticed it was still there. They did and shrieked with delight to see it even closer.
One of the other parent chaperones went home for some supplies and to relieve his partner while she taught an evening course, and returned with the above quote on the significance of the osprey as an animal totem. When one of the teacher guides read the statement to the class, they responded with deep and profound silence for an incredibly long time. I was moved, not only by the statement, but by the way the class thought long and hard about the message the osprey was delivering to them.
Nature, when we take the time to see and listen, can teach us how to be better humans.
