Starling Murmuration

You might have seen this startling starling murmuration viral video:

According to Wired Science, murmurations

 are best described with equations of “critical transitions” — systems that are poised to tip, to be almost instantly and completely transformed, like metals becoming magnetized or liquid turning to gas. Each starling in a flock is connected to every other. When a flock turns in unison, it’s a phase transition.

At the individual level, the rules guiding this are relatively simple. When a neighbor moves, so do you. 

The movement of each starling is influenced by every other starling.  In simpler terms, there is an intimate connection between the energy of the whole and the energy of the parts of the whole. 

The group of starlings is poised on the bring of becoming something: that is, it's "critical" in the physical sense of being highly attuned to respond to external stimulus: wind, obstructions, the movement within its own whole.

Suggestive stuff.  Beauty might save the world.  But what is it in us that responds to this metaphor of ourselves in bird-flight?