Everything is Coming Up Turkeys

It's nearly Thanksgiving and all is growing quiet in Cambridge. On the way into work I didn't have to dodge the regular tableau of people standing in the middle of Central Square talking on their cell phones and bicyclists failing to obey the rules of the road.

Sadly, my favorite neighborhood turkeys were no where to be found. Maggie the therapy dog and I have been on the look out for said avian creatures since first spotting them. In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday we packed a small bag of bird seed today and were going to feed them.

They've gone missing: I hope a Cantabrigian did not lay eyes on them and decide they were a holiday dinner.

Who are these turkeys? Information is sparse. I have heard from reliable sources on Twitter that these plump creatures live in the Riverside area of Cambridge. I showed a line up of photos to some residents. They were positively identified as part of a rafter of turkeys who live at an undisclosed Riverside location under a blue kayak.

I won't disclose more. If they haven't found their way to a dinner table I'd like to make sure they remain free to wander about town. They are, I think, the only creatures who wander around with constant use of smart phones.

It being almost Thanksgiving, you might be interested in some turkey trivia. Turkeys belong to the genus Meleagris. The wild turkeys we generally see, including our local rafter of birds living in Cambridge, are Meleagris gallopavo. Fossil records (and please, readers, tell me you believe in fossil records) indicate that this critters have been pecking around North America since the early miocene period.

That's a long time.

If you didn't already know (and really, this is important stuff, why don't you know this?), the wattle is the fleshy blob hanging from the top of the beak. Males are called toms (or gobblers) and females are called hens.

I'm unsure if the birds pictured here are gobblers or hens. I figured it was rude to look.

So there you have it. Your obligatory pre-Thanksgiving turkey post. If you see this rafter of turkeys please don't eat them. Let them know I have some bird seed from them.

Further, if you spot them, please capture a picture. I'd like to know their whereabouts. Maggie the therapy dog is offering a reward: unlimited therapeutic dog kisses.

New Persons and New Societies

Maggie and I have submitted a proposal for an upcoming psychology conference. Here it is: 

New Persons and New Societies: Using Social Media and Street-Level Advocacy to Teach Playful and Peaceful Compassion

Alfred Adler wrote “my psychology belongs to everyone.” Does yours? Increasingly psychology and those who practice it have responded to market pressures. Empirically supported treatments; managed care panels; utilization reviews; niche marketing strategies; publications... all important topics yet topics that distract from the possibilities of what psychology might be. Even those engaged in admirable work around issues such as war, poverty, trauma, and political asylum have lost focus. We have forgotten, as psychologist Ignacio Martin-Baró said, that “the challenge is not limited to addressing the destruction and disorders… The challenge is to construct a new person in a new society.”

Social networking platforms and street-level advocacy provide novel ways to engage new groups of people. These venues provide new possibilities in constructing new persons in new societies. This 90 minute workshop starts first with examining the effort of one psychologist and his dog in utilizing psychological principals to build community and spread a message of playful and peaceful compassion. Participants can then anticipate a highly interactive and hands-on workshop covering the following topics. Each will leave with a personal goal oriented action plan.

• Examining examples of what works and what doesn't on various social media platforms
• Understanding the potential and limitations of various social media platforms and street-level advocacy
• Building multiple platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook blogs, the street) to engage a community in dialogue
• Developing a mission statement
• Brainstorming tools to transform individuals from passive participants into engaged partners
• Developing privacy policies
• Supporting thoughtful and engaged dialogue

About the presenters:

Jason Evan Mihalko, Psy.D. is a psychologist who maintains a private practice in Cambridge Massachusetts. Magnolia Wigglesworth is a registered therapy dog. Together both work toward spreading a message of playful and peaceful compassion. You can learn more about their work at http://drjasonmihalko.com/Contact.html

Mindfulness and Puppies

I'm beginning to be fairly sure that puppies and mindfulness do not mix. Perhaps they do mix, but puppies are only intended for the use of highly skilled mindfulness practitioners. I've been innocently recording my current fascination with dandelions. They are very hardy plants: the ones in the field near my home resist even the department of public works grass cutters. The wild violets have been mowed down, nearly all the buttercups are flattened, but the white fuzzy globes of the dandelion stood strong. 

It was sunny this morning, the wind was calm, and the sky was bright blue. I thought it might make a nice backdrop for a few images of the dandelions. Maggie was occupying herself sniffing so I thought I'd have a few moments to concentrate on composing an image and letting everything else flow out of my mind.

Maggie, as you see, had a completely different idea. As soon as she saw my laying down in the grass focused intently on something she wanted to know what I was up to. Naturally if I was staring at it that closely it must be some sort of delectible treat. Right? Of course. So through the view finder of my camera a big wet shiny nose appears and chomp--there goes my dandelion. 

I did not find this the least bit amusing. Doesn't she know I was trying to take a picture? With an earnest expression, I tried explaining this to her. I think she was secretly a bit exasperated with me. She after all has explained to me time and time again that she doesn't speak English and despite my earnest words, she doesn't have the slightest clue as to what I'm speaking about. She might have to sit me down a few more times and explain this to me before I can consistently remember. 

Anyway, she looked at me with her warm brown eyes, wagged her tail, and chomped on another dandelion. She must have decided that my earnest conversation was an explanation of the health values of dandelion greens as she left the stem of the flower behind and started tearing off the leaves. 

This whole episode was rather funny and cute: my laying in the grass, Maggie leaping over me to eat the target of my attention, and well timed photo with her mouth filled with the evidence of her playfulness. How many times do things like this happen and the experience isn't so cute? How many times to we assume the meanings behind people's actions and respond with emotions or behaviors that end up being totally unrelated to what is really going on? 

It would have been totally ludicrous for me to yell at Maggie. She didn't eat the flowers to annoy me, she ate the flowers because from her perspective, I was on the ground stalking them. She figured she'd join in on the hunt. How many times do we yell at children, spouses, friends, or store clerks for reasons that only exist because our faulty interpretations of their behaviors?

Maybe puppies and mindfulness are a very good combination. Maybe with more experiences likes this, a mindfulness of day-to-day interactions will grow and help me notice the times when I'm responding based on an interpretation of the reasons behind behaviors rather than actual knowledge about the intention behind behaviors.

I did, in the end, get the image I wanted of a dandelion. I gave Maggie a task to focus on while I went about doing the things that were of interest to me. Here is the same image, two ways. Have a favorite?