According to what most people believe, this post’s flightless bird is a perfect symbol for “moving forward in 2021”.
After all, aren’t the emu and the kangaroo Australia’s heraldic beasts precisely because neither is capable of taking a backward step?
Self-styled “rational” adults delight in having long ago discovered the truth about Santa.
However, even many self-styled “scientists” still believe that emus cannot walk backwards.
Emus do favour forward motion.
The same is true of kangaroos, as it is for many other species.
You may well have never seen an emu or ‘roo engage “reverse gear”.
However, anyone who has observed two “boxing” kangaroos in action knows that ‘roos can in fact step backwards.
Emus can too.
It is/is not amazing how falsehoods are so widely believed, provided they are oft-repeated…and provide comfort.
Religions, various senses of national (and personal) “identity”, assorted “healers”, marketers, press secretaries, loan sharks, spokespersons, ministers both secular and “ordained” – along with elected Presidents, Prime Ministers and unelected despots alike – all too often rely on our propensity to believe fervently in things-unprovable, even in things dead-easy-to-prove-untrue.
Featured image is copyright Doug Spencer, taken in South Australia’s Coorong National Park on 14 December 2019. That particular emu’s behaviour was impeccably heraldic, albeit characteristically emu-erratic.
Thank you Doug for this and a year’s beauty through your eyes, wisdom and empathy. Wishing you and Kathy a new year of continued beauty, joy and good health. Til we meet in person – March, hopefully. Annette.