Raving With The Ravens

Having returned late the previous night from a brief sojourn south, I decided to go for an early morning walk up the canyon to clear my mind. I am incredibly fortunate to be able to step outside and be in the country, with a winding dirt road in front of me meandering along Sacate Creek (almost dry again) and past old oaks and sandstone rock formations. For me, it's not unlike William Stafford's poetic advice on How to Regain Your Soul, which ends with these words:

Suddenly, anything could happen to you. Your soul pulls toward the canyon and then shines back through the white wings to be you again.

The air was fresh with morning, and the sunlight was soft and silvery, filtered through fog, and the grassy hills, now golden again, smelled sweet to me, like hay. I took a deep breath, feeling a genuine sense of relief, and walked onward, the crunch of dry leaves beneath my trusty hiking shoes, pausing to zip up the fleece jacket I'd put on over an incongruous red sun dress, in my element.

But my head was brewing over like an unwatched pot filled with toxic ingredients. Stop, little pot, stop. I refuse to think about disappointment dismay disillusionment death...

It will all be there later, when I return, I thought. All the bad news, all the old sorrows, all the existential questions.

Not to mention the tragedy and absurdity of what's in the White House, the callousness, corruption, and lack of courage among those entrusted to lead, the naiveté and bickering within the ranks of resistance.Stop thinking about this.

"I am especially open to sadness and hilarity," wrote Grace Paley.I feel the same way.  But I've been short on the hilarity lately.

The purpose of the trip from which I'd just returned had been to do an interview (for The Living Stories Collective) with a rancher and developer in southern Orange County whose reflections I thought might be worth documenting. But it was also just part of my ongoing coping strategy: be busy and purposeful, don't think too much, and keep moving.

I had traveled via the same southbound train I used to take to visit my mother. It was strange to be sitting there, hearing the stations called out, knowing she would not be at the other end. I felt that old ache again. Oh.I stayed in a sterile, over-priced hotel right next to a freeway, its long bleak corridors lined with identical numbered doors. I felt bewildered every time I stepped off the elevator, never sure which way to turn. I yearned for a walk and a wander, but there was nowhere to go but a fitness room with treadmills and a television set.

An old dear friend drove over to meet me and have dinner. Things are rough for her, and her father died recently, and she wanted to sit in the room and talk about loss and grief and the brevity of life and missing someone terribly and where do they go and what does it all end up meaning.Stop thinking about this, I thought. There was nothing to say.

The next day, after the interview, I went to the Mission in San Juan Capistrano, and I checked out the old historical neighborhood across the tracks, killing time until arrival of my train. It was very hot, and my bag was getting heavy. I found a shady spot where I thought I could just lean against a wall and wait, but it smelled like pee. And somewhere in the course of my peregrinations, I lost a plain gold ring that had belonged to my mother. I didn't discover its absence until long after I had boarded the train. How strange and blank my pinky felt, its tiny talisman abruptly gone.

Oh, it felt so good to wake up at home the next morning, and to step unfettered into the solace of Sacate Canyon, pulled along by my soul, shining back through white wings.

And there were wings indeed. Black ones. I had come upon a noisy conference of ravens, a great clamor in the high branches of the trees, and I seem to have interrupted it, and it wasn't taken lightly. They burst from the branches, screaming in indignation, shrill raspy cries. There were at least four large birds, perhaps five or six, and they divided into duos, flew to more distant trees, then circled back. I had the sense that they were waiting for me to pass, urging me to hurry along, annoyed at the intrusion. But perhaps I overestimate my impact.

I tend to anthropomorphize, attributing my human emotions to beings who are navigating in an arena unknown to me. But my friend James later shared a story that suggests that ravens possess touching loyalty, high intelligence, and an emotion that sounds a lot like love: "We had two raven couples in our neighborhood," he wrote. "One male was killed by a hawk in an air fight. The remaining three ravens have returned to our yard every day since, to where the injured raven fell, and they call to the four directions for their mate."

I also mythologize and over-interpret, forever in search of symbolic meaning, trying not just to see, but also read the world. And when ravens are involved, why not? The Wise One (Wikipedia) tells me that in Native American culture, the raven is a god, a creature of metamorphosis that symbolizes change and transformation. Am I on the cusp of transformation? I kinda hope so.

In the meantime, I am bluster and bellow, outrage and ouch, wings outspread but flight unattainable.Keep walking. Anything might still happen.