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I’ve written before about ravens. This morning there were so many birds singing in and around my backyard with such volume that I couldn’t distinguish between them, it was just a wondrous chorus of sound. After a half an hour or so all got quiet, but for the continuing northern flicker and pileated woodpecker noises that drifted over my block like the thick smell of wildfire smoke that lingered overnight. Then a lone raven started in, loud and proud, as if he were telling all the songbirds to shut it, it was his turn to say something. As I said, the songs were cut short then.
It was a while before they returned. The raven only had a little to say and it did not take him long to say it.
I usually think of my Dad when I see ravens and more often than not when one cocks its head and looks at me funny or “follows” me on a walk from tree to tree or rooftop overhead, croaking and crooning, I feel as though its him, or a part of him, sharing with me a little part of his day, reminding me of a western we loved to watch or an antique “pick” that he found. In the very least, seeing one always reminds me of him and I think about the things I’d like to say. Perhaps, those things above and perhaps a little bit more, eh?!
This morning as this bird, that I didn’t go out to look at, only listened to, interrupted the beautiful chorus with its rough laughter, I thought of the fragile tenuous thread of life and how, interrupted, it can be forever changed, but it will not be silenced.
The song flows on.
We live in a place and a time, where information is key. It is the key that unlocks endless possibilities and it has also become the key that locks us behind the door and cell of our own making. There’s a new application (app), new channel, new thread, new X, new social, new news, new alert, new notification, new new, created, marketed and fed to us every minute of the day it seems. They inform (great!) but they also take control until we are not thinking for ourselves. Until we are only reacting. Until we are only waiting for the next shoe to drop.
I discovered a little freedom over the weekend after I lost my phone in the lake on fishing opener. It was an expensive lesson that I am honestly surprised that none of us in my family had learned to date, but it came with a freedom that I didn’t know I needed. That I deserved. Listen, I don’t use my phone excessively, but at times, it does feel like a curse and not the magical all seeing orb of reflection we dreamed of carrying while playing Dungeons and Dragons back in the early 1980s.
Anyway, not having it for a few days freed me from the anxiety of information overload. It allowed me to think of a time when I didn’t know all of the things, weather alerts, news, potential world issues, stock rises and falls, tariffs on my time, etc. It allowed me some time to think without distraction. I liked it. Ironically, one of the last pictures I took with the old phone was of this Raven Rising. He had been sitting in the sun, panting, with all his feathers poofed out, you know the way they do on some of the first hot days of the year. They look like they’re experiencing a heat stroke moment, but they’re not, we just put that on them, in our desire to interpret everything from our point of view. He was sunning himself and then he looked up at me and jumped up to the top of the Ely Steam roof and after peering down at me fumbling with my old phone that still had music (New Order) pumping out of it, he rose up to freedom, both wings spread.
Now, in the backyard, the songs have continued. Too numerous to filter out, they blend together into one beautiful announcement of the day that started at about 4:30 this morning and will continue until they’re finished. It’ll pick up again tomorrow, despite what I, or you, may or may not know about stuff. I know I’ve got the magic in my pocket, but sometimes I just prefer to roll the dice.
