RUBY WOMAN BRINGS PEACE WITH PARROTS
Gloria Waslyn’s exotic birds spread message of living as one with earth
If you’ve ever attended a community event, it’s likely you’ve bumped into Gloria Waslyn.
Sometimes, Waslyn can be spotted, camera in hand, shooting photos of area politicos and other business and community leaders attending one function or another.
She also sits on the boards of the Children’s Home of Kingston, and of Boughton Place and is a member of the Esopus Democratic Committee,
But most frequently, she can be found, surrounded by her exotic parrots, spreading what she said is their message of world peace and living in harmony with the earth.
Recently, Waslyn has taken to Facebook to chronicle the life of Hope, of the newest addition to her Parrots for Peace family.
Hope, so-named “because this world needs hope, and hope makes magical things
happen,” Waslyn explained, was born on April 10, the third offspring of Merlin and Mr. Baby, the matriarch and patriarch of Waslyn’s parrot family.
Through the daily postings of photos and videos, Waslyn’s 5,000 Facebook “friends” are able to witness the metamorphosis of the Hope from a tiny hatchling devoid of any feathers and unable to stand or vocalize, into a fully feathered blue and gold macaw finding its voice and its wings.
As importantly to Waslyn, she is able to show through that the birds are more than simply caged animals, but thinking, loving,
sentient beings.
Born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and raised on Long Island, Waslyn graduated with a degree in education from Hofstra University and went to work on Wall Street as a career coach, working with high-powered Wall Street moguls and bankers, prepping them for television, making presentations to others, or helping them synthesise their remarks to better convey their vision.
It was a fascinating life, she said, that her across the country and world.
“It was great,” she said. I totally loved it. I still love it.”
Then, one day, with a few minutes to kill before attending an art gallery opening in New York City, she wandered into a pet store
and met Merlin, a blue and gold macaw.
At that moment, she said, her life was transformed forever.
She found herself visiting Merlin daily and eventually bought the bird, making the three-month old macaw a solemn vow to “give her the best life I could so she could do the work she crossed my path to do: together, we would work to educate people that we are all inter-connected.”
These days Waslyn, who describes herself as the human communicator for Merlin, her life-partner Mr. Baby and their offspring, Peace-Nik, Ara and newborn Hope, spends much of her time spreading the message of her Parrots for Peace, who she says are “spokes-avians for the voice of nature,
the voice of animals, and the voice of the cosmos.”
She and her Parrots for Peace traveled to the World Trade Center after 9/11, to be with the workers there, have met with U.N. ambassadors, and participated in the U.N. Internatonal Day of Peace. She said the parrots have a way of reaching people on a level that transcends politics or personalities and can bring about transformative moments.
“I can create through happiness a moment of joy that is often accompanied by a transformative experience,” she said.
And while Waslyn still works as a career coach, she said chooses her clients a little more carefully these days, offering her services only to those who are willing to use their clout and power for good.
“I don’t coach people unless they are instruments of the right thing,” she said.
Her newest effort is securing the future of her avian family by establishing a foundation to ensure that Merlin, Mr. Baby, and their growing family will have a place to live together well into the future.
“Now I need to focus on creating future for them,” she said.
Waslyn, 68, said because parrots generally live to be 120 years old, it is all but certain that her avian family will outlive her.
She hopes, that through the creation of the Parents for Peace Foundation and activities that will support its mission, she will be able to secure a future for the birds that will bring them — and their message of peace — to generations not yet born and ensure the “sacred vow” she made to Merlin will continue long after Waslyn is gone.