Crows

Knowledge always deceives.

It always limits the Truth, every concept and image does.

From cage to cage the caravan moves, but I give thanks,

for at each divine juncture my wings expand

and I touch Him more

intimately. 

Meister Eckhart

A faint sound greeted my ears as I opened the front door.  The morning air was otherwise still.   There were shades of pink lingering on the wisps of clouds.  As I descended the stairs toward the street, the sound came closer.  It was like an echo of “-aw” “-aaaw” four times, and then it faded.

The disappearance of the sound disturbed me.   Normally, a symphony of different pitches and lengths of caws arises soon after the first one begins.    The vocalization of the local crows is a routine morning phenomena that I’ve come to expect.   Like the roosters crowing at dawn, the crows here open the day with their distinctive voice.  Whenever I sleep much past dawn, I can rely on a few to perch on an electrical wire outside our bedroom window, and chant a continuous series of four long and short caws until I look out at them.  Their silence is rare and in the past, it related to an impending storm or quake of the earth.  

Fortunately, my concern was quickly eased.  While driving out away from home, three crows appeared and began to glide along in front of my car.   For several minutes they coasted ahead of me, perfectly synchronizing their pace with mine.   I laughed at myself for at first feeling as though they were escorting me along the road.  Then, I noticed a slight tension in my hands.  It was more than necessary for guiding the car.  Here I was, a human clinging – albeit lightly – to a steering wheel, driving in a metal container along the paved earth.  Yet, the crows were soaring effortlessly in the freedom of the open sky. 

These rather largish birds with their silken black color have long captured the attention of humans around the world.  Most of the mythology – from Asian to Europe to Northern Africa to the Americas – portrays these mysterious feathered beings as bad omens, particularly of an impending death. If that is the case, then I welcome their elegant grace in inspiring a little laughter in me.  In that light-hearted moment, there was a mini-death of any sense of superiority as a human.  I actually felt quite silly transporting my body around in an invention built with, and fueled by, an untold amount of planetary resources.  While the crows move freely with the gift of their wings, my journeys are along predictable routes buffered from the air, earth, and those very things that sustain all of life.

My father who lived until the age of ninety-three always reminded my four siblings and me, as well as his couple of dozen grandchildren, that it is important to laugh at yourself every day, and to know that all of life is just on loan.   As a person with a graduate degree, I had to unravel myself from an idea that knowledge comes from books before I could appreciate his simple, but wise guidance.  Now, I treasure each little moment of laughter as it brings me a little closer home to myself.  I hope you will laugh along with me.

Practice

This short practice supports our capacity to let go.

Prepare –

• Turn your phone and any other devices to airplane mode.
• Find a quiet and comfortable place to sit. 
  • If you are on a chair, place the soles of your feet on the floor.
• Make tight fist with both of your hands and hold for several seconds.
• Release the fist and lightly shake your lower arms and hands.
• Lightly brush your fingertips across your face, each of your arms, your torso and your thighs. 

Practice –

• Close your eyes for a few moments.  Imagine any unneeded tension is melting.  Let it go from your face, chest, and rest of your body. 
• Open your eyes into a soft gaze. 
  • With each inhale, imagine every cell in your body is smiling.
  • With each exhale, imagine your entire body is saying “aaah” as though you were settling into a hammock or a similar comfortable place.   
• Continue for a few minutes.
• Notice the space between your toes.  You might need to wiggle your toes a bit.  Notice the space between your arms and your body.  Notice the space between your fingers.  Notice the space behind you and all around you. 
• Invite an aura of ease into those spaces and imagine that ease is seeping into your skin, tissues, muscles, and organs.  Invite ease into the core of your being.  Breathe. 
• Imagine you could hear yourself laughing.   Laugh along with yourself.
• Stand up and shake everything out – arms, legs, feet, hands – and sway from side to side as though you were a moving freely in the air.

Transition back into your day –

• Return to your seated position.  Sit quietly for a few moments. 
• When you are ready, return to your day.

This poem appears in Mala of the Heart: 108 Sacred, page 35, edited by Ravi Nathwani and Kate Vogt and published by New World Library.   HEARTH is posted each new and full moon.  KateVogt©2019.