The Furious Spinner

...The Tale of the Two Crows

Mario and I walked to Falling Creek yesterday. We took the upper falls trail, hoping to miss most of the people traffic. We have actually never made it to the falls using this trail because it's a steep grade, and the trail is away from the river most of the time, so it gets hot. But I wanted to be away from people and create a Douglas fir essence from one of the four hundred-plus year old trees. We found four of them together, so I started the process, then we continued up the trail. Every time I saw a cedar tree, I pressed my face into the trunk, hoping for a scent of tree. I did get just a whiff, and I was ecstatic. I hope I get my sense of smell back soon.

We walked for a long while. At some point, we heard a crow overhead. It was very loud, its call seemed to ricochet down through the trees the way it can in the forest, almost echoing but not quite.

"Do crows live everywhere?" Mario asked. "We saw them at the ocean a few days ago. We see them at our house. They're here in the forest."

"I don't know," I said. "I think they can survive pretty much anywhere."

We stopped at one place in the bend of the trail that was fairly level and rocky. We both thought it felt like some kind of fairy glen or place of magic—something indefinable you all know when you're in the woods, a meadow, a mountain side, river bank, ocean. Later we came to another bend that felt creepy—I bet you all know that feeling, too. And I couldn't get away fast enough.

We walked toward the falls for an hour or more and decided to turn back. We didn't have any food and not much water, so I thought that was safest since we still didn't know how far away the falls were. We got back to the Doug fir where I had left the essence water and just a few feet away in the middle of the path was a dead crow.

Mario and I stopped and stared. I said, "Okay. What's this mean? West Nile virus? The bird flu?"

"Probably neither."

"This bird was not here an hour ago," I said.

"It's right near your tree," Mario said. "What does crow signify?"

Now neither of us believes the Universe revolves around us or that creatures go out of their way to appear to us (or to die in front of us), but we have been in the world for many years and we had never had a dead crow in our path before.

"Death," I said. "The crow signifies death."

"What does a dead crow mean then?" Mario asked. "Is it the reverse?"

"Of course they're more than that," I said. "They're about mystery."

We couldn't go around the crow; we were going to have to jump over it. I got my tree essence jar—although I wasn't sure I'd actually use it now—and we hopped over the crow and went on our way. At some point I had a feeling something very bad was on our trail. I had Mario go in front of me, so that I could shield him from whatever it was—although I didn't tell him that was why.

I was relieved when we got to the car. I said, "I think something bad is going to happen.”

"Are you going to use that water?" Mario asked.

"I don't know."

We drove home. I decided I wasn't going to use the essence water, so I walked down to the Columbia River and released it with a prayer. Then I walked around town for an hour or so, trying to sort through some things I was upset about. I came home and called one of my dearest friends who nows lives in North Carolina. I finally got to talk with a girl! I was so happy. I love my guys, but sometimes I just need the perspective of someone who has the same genitalia that I do. (Okay, not the exact same genitalia.) And yes indeed we talked about sex and men and women and other things...like bras. How her husband and son are embarrassed when she doesn't wear one, and I said well if they want to strap themselves into a harness, let them wear one. And we giggled. And she let me talk about all the things I've been feeling so stupid and foolish about. I told her some of the strange, bewildering, and wonderful things that had been happening to me. Including the dead crow. I was so grateful to her.

Went to bed after and slept like a baby...a baby who sleeps through the night.

In the morning as we were changing the filter on our air purifier, we got a phone call. "I've got some bad news." Oh fuck. Linda, Linda, Linda. No, wait. This person isn't close to Linda. She wouldn't be calling us about that. No, listen, Kim, listen, don't scream like you did when they told you Dave was dead. Don't scream.

A friend of ours had died in her sleep that night. (I've posted pictures of her before. She's one of the women from The Gathering.) We were stunned. Mario had seen her two days earlier. She was happy, looking healthy. I hadn't seen her since the Gathering last month, and I had left early, just as she was getting ready to read a poem, because the noise from some jet skies on the river was getting on my nerves. Shit. I was tired of this happening. Where do they go? Where was she now? Man, man, man. Why hadn't I listened to her damn poem? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

After a while, Mario and I finished changing the filter. Made me shudder how quickly we went back to doing ordinary things. It just all keeps going. That should be reassuring. But it wasn't. We walked down and got the mail: as though we had not just heard that one of our oldest friends had just died. This woman had survived two bouts of cancer and being widowed. A few days after she had her mastectomy her husband went out duck hunting. He didn't come home that night one time. Sheila called the sheriff who called someone else, and they went out looking for his truck. He had dropped dead of a heart attack out alone in the wilderness with no way to call for help.

How does one survive that kind of news?

Sheila got herself and her two sons cell phones.

Mario and I drove with two other friends to get the truck. It was strange to see his things, just the way he had left them. Please don't let him have suffered. Even though everyone else did. During the weeks and months that followed, Sheila had to go to chemotherapy without her husband, without her family. But she did it. Was that five years ago?

I called people all morning. Too many of them said, "Well at least she died in her sleep." What? Why is that better? Yuck. I have enough trouble sleeping at night without that idea in my brain. Ain't all about you, darlin'!

We went to the library to see how everyone was doing. (Sheila worked there with Mario for about sixteen years.) On the way back home, we went by an evergreen bush. On top of this bush, which was about waist high on me, was a garter snake. Mario and I stopped and stared. We weren't sure she was still alive. I figured a bird must have dropped her. How else would a snake have gotten up a bush? It was so odd. But the snake was alive. I held my hands out and began love-talking to her. "Power of the raven be on you, strength of the grizzly be on you, great health be upon you, and a long long life." Words like that. I put down my hands, and the snake went into the bushes. She was just gone.

We kept going, talking and walking. We arrived at our house and were just about to go up the steps when we noticed a crow was sitting on the ground next to the steps. It startled me. I jumped, and we backed away so we wouldn't frighten it. It looked like it was hurt: It was all scrunched up into itself; it looked dazed and it didn't fly away. It barely moved.

"Man, you think the word's gotten out that I'm faery doctor doolittle and every creature in the 'hood who needs help is gonna show up?"

"I don't know," Mario said.

Two crows in two days. I don't normally think the Universe is talking to us, but this seemed bizarre.

"Maybe it is the bird flu," I said.

Neither of us thought this bird was long for the world.

I will admit I was a wee bit freaked out.

We went up the grass to the porch. The bird didn't move, except to breathe. I tried a little "long-distance" healing and Reiki. Then I did something called "mirroring," trying to mirror good health to this bird. I did love-talking, and the Poppies came out to help. We opened the squeaky screen door, and the crow staggered up. He looked dizzy, couldn't walk straight. He staggered to the car and walked beneath it and sat down.

Now what does that mean?

I went inside the house. The words "test in progress" came to mind. If two crows in two days were more than a coincidence, perhaps I should see what was up. I went back outside, sat on the steps, and closed my eyes and did a journey. We asked what the crow needed or wanted. A white crow detached itself from the black crow and came out from underneath the car with a scroll in his mouth. We unrolled the scroll and read what it said. Then the white crow went back. (It was a message for me, bear-name of the little people.) All my life I've asked for signs or proof—I ain't believin' just anything. So I asked what proof there was that I wasn't making this all up. My guide said the crow would be gone within the hour. Not dead, gone. I doubted that. I went back into the house and didn't tell Mario anything. It seemed unbelievable that a crow came to my house to give me a message.

A while later I went outside and looked under the car. The crow was gone. I told Mario about my meditation.

I don’t know what it all means—although I have some idea what it means to me. I've always said there is more under the sun and moon than we can ever know. I seem to be getting clear indications of this: And maybe some of it we can know. I've been waiting for this for years. Perhaps the years of apprenticeship are over? Strange the twists and turns our lives can take. I talked to the birds, bees, and trees when I was a child, stopped for a while, then picked it up again. Now it appears they are talking back.

Linda’s in the hospital getting a blood transfusion tonight. I’m going to go pick her at about 2:00 a.m. She doesn’t want to spend the night in the hospital. I went over to her place late this afternoon and communed with foxglove. While I made the foxglove essence, three crows flew high above me, calling out and diving here and there. I watched them. Then I went to the house and took Linda’s dogs for a walk.

Every minute counts, my old sweethearts. Every minute.

Afterward I got into my car, waved goodbye to the dogs, and drove home to Mario. 0 comments

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