Eating Crow (A Humbling Experience)
Reading Terry Roger’s website story of his Native American Crow heritage prompts me to share a memorable crow experience. Even in adulthood, my knowledge of this species of birds is limited to their color, size and the fact they have very strong vocal abilities. My Maryland childhood memories visualize crows swooping into a cornfield for their lunch of grains from the stalks in our neighboring farmer’s field. The farmer’s attempts at using ‘scarecrows’ on poles left their namesakes undaunted!
Since leaving home, in 1954, and settling in South Florida, I have seen very few crows, if any, among the usual winter visitors of robins, red birds, assorted sparrows, woodpeckers and others who frequent our back yard. By contrast, throughout the year, wild parrots flit among our trees each evening around six o’clock, noisily chattering about their workday enroute home to their chosen Banyon-tree-nests for the night.
Some years back, because of my natural healing from cancer, my macrobiotic counselors advised that the tropics were not conducive to healing in the summertime. Therefore, my husband and I contemplated moving to Asheville, North Carolina. We knew Asheville would be wonderful in summertime, but if we were to actually move there, we needed to experience the winters.
We decided to rent a house in Asheville from January through March in 1994. As fate would have it, we were snowbound three times in the first three weeks of our experiment. Our native Carolinian neighbors declared, "This is the worst winter we have had in ten years." We listened, politely smiling, and queried aloud, "Really?" Inside we cautiously thought, "Oh, no! You can't fool us!" We began to pray that the realtor would be willing to take our Miami home off the market before the contract ended.
One morning, during the third snowbound period in our temporary home, seated by an expansive picture window, I pondered the view. The gently swaying tops of trees that grew on the steep slope adjacent to the house reached about six feet above the snow-capped railing of the now stark white deck outside the living room. The house was on a mountainside, and everything slanted downward to a frozen lake. All blanketed in white, it was beautiful to me, but treacherously threatening and deeply depressing to my southern spouse. Despite his gloom over our confinement, inside myself, a Yankee heart beat and was having a winter-wonder time -- a first in many years.
Outside, everything was frozen around us. We had thought to buy seed for the bird feeder on the deck, and on this snowy day I had gone out earlier to fill it. Now, my view of the swaying foliage from the strong winter winds became mesmerizing. It afforded me many minutes of meditation, when suddenly from the north in flew a gigantic, jet-black crow! He perched on a branch, a few yards above the deck’s feeder, eyeballing it, and with wings spread aloft like fluttering, feathered flags, he loudly screeched: “Caw, Caw, Caw!!! "
Startled, I stared with amazement, and immediately thought: "Oh-oh, big boy, don't you dare eat all the food!" Because of his bold entrance and huge size, I presumed he would be very piggish and clean out the plate. I fully expected to see more crows arrive, since he seemed to be anxiously inviting more hungry visitors! After all, I mused - “do not birds of a feather” - travel together?
On all counts I was dead wrong! This proudly confidant bird, perched commandingly, much like a royal herald, “Cauwwllll-ing” repeatedly with urgency in the direction from whence he came. All at once, from the sky-trail he had flown, came the first of a string of tiny, feathered ones -- wrens, sparrows, and several other varieties of birds traveling together! From his arrival, Crow had remained on his perch, excitedly vigilant, until finally the first little bird alighted at the feeder – followed by another, and another --until dozens were present on the deck eating and resting. Crow was both their scout and ‘guardian angel-crow!’
Now silent, his huge claws calmly clasped the branch; I watched intently and began to rethink, “I was mistaken. This crow is not selfish at all. He is truly a majestic sentinel, affording protection to the little ones.” Indeed, throughout this dramatic visit, Crow never left that branch, and NEVER ate one seed! Finally, emitting his last “Caw-Screech” signaling the end of lunch, with wings furiously flapping, Crow headed off to the south, no doubt in search of the next place they could all eat and rest, as they journeyed out of the frosty weather. Seconds after his departure, his tiny charges began their departure, forming a lovely “follow the leader” bird trail for us to witness, as they soared heavenward, finally lost from our vision. But the “vision” lingers still in my mind of the lesson King Crow and his friends taught me that day.
I felt humbled, and a bit embarrassed, at the first thoughts I had of Crow. The realization came that I must curb my tendency to make rash judgments. I now also disregard the old phrase about “birds of a feather,” after seeing the various species loyally traveling together on that perilous journey. Impressed with the nurturing care the mighty gave the fragile, I thought, “what great role models for us humans.”
“The animals serve selflessly and wisely,” Terry Rogers records elsewhere in his website. While writing of this winter drama, I realized that I have become somewhat of a ‘bird girl’ myself, not in knowledge, but in appreciation. It is apt, for I was raised in a place once labeled a “Bird Sanctuary” on the early maps in Maryland that listed our tiny un-incorporated village, called "Bird River Beach.” Most of the homes rimmed the edge of a small, secondary tributary of the great Chesapeake Bay. Suitably, the tributary is named, simply: Bird River.
In the summer when we did not have to rise early for school, we would lie in bed with open windows, Mom's sheer curtains billowing in the breeze, listening to the hundreds of birds chirping in the nearby woods. Those were melodious awakenings and home was an unforgettable haven to us children of Bird River Beach; indeed, a great place in which to grow up in the thirties and forties.
Now my "Golden Years" are lived out in my adopted, tropical state of Florida; however, in this new century, my mind visits Maryland more than ever. Sometimes homesick, reading Terry’s memories about his special, secret place from childhood prompted my nostalgia. Thank you, Terry, for sharing about your imaginary cave in your Grandmother’s yard which called forth my mind’s magic carpet. It now frequently takes me back to my personal enchanting places and experiences. These memories become food for visualizations that, like the northern journey of that small, diverse flock led by Crow, help me to incubate the seeds planted by my past for my present and future healings.
--Reiki Master Margaret Lee Lyles is Florida massage therapist #8199, who has written and published her first book about Reiki, entitled: Reiki and You: Awakening the Healer Within (An Ecumenical Guide for Energy Healing) ©2001 p. www.Xlibris.com. You may write to her at www.birdrivergal@yahoo.com.
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'Manipulated' Background crow feathers by Peggy Jentoft: http://www.solarraven.com
Ms. Logan's web site is located at: http://www.alaska.net/~dlogan/alaska.htm
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