The flamboyant flamingo of Canbace

Over the past few weeks I’ve been reconnecting with my “inner flamingo” and starting to understand the power of the Canbace. It is such a powerful affirmation and gives me so much hope that more and more people around the world will start to see the healing power of Canbace. One of the benefits of feeling better is noticing what is going on in the world outside my door. One of the things I’ve noticed is that more and more forget-me-nots have be appearing in my Twitter Feed and my Facebook notifications. It has been wonderful seeing the pre-WCW excitement growing: both Andrew and I are really looking forward to publishing the blogs that we have planned for the middle of September. Whilst we don’t have the time to be as actively involved behind the scenes as we were last year that doesn’t mean we aren’t fully supporting this great initiative. Seeing all these flowers made me realise that Canbace needs an instantly recognisable emblem like the Infertility Pineapple and World Childless Week forget-me-not.

I knew I wanted to choose something that could create a strong image and would look good with the Olive Green that Brandi Lytle, of Not So Mommy, has chosen for the Awareness Ribbon. In addition, the emblem needed to mean something to me whilst also being pertinent to the Canbace/CNBC communities. In other words, the emblem needed to have a story behind it. So, what would it be. I’ll give you one guess.

The Canbace Flamingo!

This isn’t the final version. There will be a short delay whilst I wait for the artist to finish drawing it for me. However, I couldn’t contain my excitement about this any longer.

So, apart from the fact that I am currently re-connecting with my inner flamingo [Beautiful Perspectives About Flamingos], why have I chosen this bird to be the visual representation of the CanbaceTribe?

We do what we need to protect ourselves: Flamingos tend to congregate in mudflats and lagoons as the shallow water makes it harder for the flamingos’ natural predators to negotiate. We tend to congregate in trigger free zones which often means there are no parents.

We often hide part of ourselves from the rest of the world: When anyone thinks about a flamingo they imagine a bright pink feathered bird. We may realise that the exact colour and intensity of that pink differs depending on species the PINK is the overriding colour. However, flamingos also have blank feathers. There are located on the underside of the wings and are the stronger “flight feathers”.

The health of our community isn’t a priority for people outside the community: Flamingos are not an endangered species. In fact, they are classified as “least concern”. The “healthy” of other species of birds is concerned to be a priority, whilst the flamingo is left to fend for itself until such time as attitudes and the situation changes.

We need a sense of belonging: Flamingos are social beings and do not thrive when the are on their own. They like to connect with other flamingos and their colonies can ranged from around fifty well into the thousands. The largest recorded colony was over one million birds. That’s one heck of a community!

We are a minority: There are only three types of birds that produce milk for their young. The flamingo is one of them: the others are pigeons and the male emperor penguin.

Fabulous flamingo symbolism: the flamingo represents a confident person who lives (or in our case is striving to live) a vibrant and social life. Around the world the flamingo is recognised as the symbol of healing so if you need balance in your life call on your inner flamingo to help you. Flamingos are also associated with:

Honesty

Inner truth

Balance

Emotions

Confidence

Social vibrancy

Healing

Community

Love

The power of flamingos: people with the flamingo spirit animal are powerful healers. They are able to pinpoint and create healing in their own hearts and the hearts of other people. They are known for their true and caring nature. Their ability to nurture and love those around them will not only be inspiring, it will provide healing and self-acceptance in other people too. No wonder the flamingo feels like the perfect emblem for the Canbace Community.

Now that I have chosen the flamingo to be the emblem for Canbace Andrew and I are seeing them EVERYWHERE. Incidentally a community of flamingos is called a “flamboyance” which means we will be a Flamboyance of Canbacers! I don’t know about you: however, that really appeals to me!

However, I digress. I was talking about flamingos being everywhere … Cattier’s bed has a flamingo print and our “holiday fund” money box has two flamingos “kissing”. A local shop had flamingos advertising a sale: unfortunately there were no flamingos FOR SALE ? . Another shop had a flamingo clock, a flamingo water jug, two different types of flamingo decorative light, and a flamingo jigsaw puzzle. I really covet their flamingo swimming pool lounger. Unfortunately, Andrew is being cruel and refuses to let me buy one. OK so the lounger is bigger than our “swimming pool”: however, that’s not the point! As we’ve been sorting through boxes in the barn we’ve uncovered two different types of flamingo candle holders, a flamingo plate and some flamingo twizzle sticks. My house was already full of flamingos if only I had taken the time to look. However, I have come to believe that you can never have enough flamingos so the artist who is designing the new Canbace logo will also be creating designs to be used on a range of articles and I am going to become a purveyor of flamingos. Once the new designs are ready there will be an e-store on this website.

One last thing …… I still felt that I could do something more to let my inner flamingo shine brightly for all to see. Here’s the “big reveal”!

In CANBACE friendship!

If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about so if you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website please let me know and I will keep your words private.