Episode 8: A Preponderance of Crows

Once, in what seems another lifetime, I was enrolled and managed to even pass a Southern Literature class taught by a wonderful man and true Southern Gentleman named Jennings Mace. And when I say "Southern Gentleman" I mean it in the best possible sense of that word. He was genteel, engaging, a wonderful reader, a fine teacher, and a true egalitarian in nearly everything except for one: he couldn't tolerate the tendency of both students of and purveyors of literary thought to symbol hunt. He often relied on a cliche, Im sure with no small sense of irony or friendly sarcasm: a cigar, he said, is often just a cigar.

He said this often during class discussions when the literary discussion went wildly off track. And I do agree that rationalism and humanism are important grounding principles in the study of literature as well as in most things, and I do, on most occassions, strive for both.

But this does not save me from all being  a superstitious critter.

It's not even that I look for certain things in my world as much as they happen to appear. And I know all about the Volkwagon Beetle phenomneon: when you get a new car... in the parlace of this example, a VW Bug... you start to see them EVERYWHERE.   It's a trick of the mind and of the fact that people are more suceptible to mass marketing strategy than anyone wants to admit.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about crows.

Since June of this year when I was staying at my friend Patrick's house in San Pedro along with my friend Jeri on our twice yearly MFA residency, I have seen crows. Yes, they aren't an uncommon bird. But I went for years hardly seeing them while being in places where I should. Actually, scratch that. The first visitation happened in 2011, right before my second marriage ended with a whimper and set me out on the road.  I didn't know at the time that the three crows in front of my tiny house in Northwest Illinois were portending anything. But I did note the oddness of the event and even wrote a poem about it.

In Venice Beach and San Pedro I noticed the crows. And for some reason, seeing them made me feel a kind of knowing. Not that they were necessarily talking to me, but that their presence meant that everything was on track. Crows are sometimes thought of as messengers, and while I have no particular reason to think of them that way, that's how I see them and how they operate in my life. They're also scavenger birds... survivor... and sometimes associated with Trickster myths... which have always appealed to me since tricksters are both students and teachers of others, compilers of stories, and  catalysts that cause things to happen just by being there... like a tiny pebble in a river can knock up against other rocks and either cause them to move with the current or become part of a dam.

I see them often now, most often at departures and shifts of events. When I see them, I greet them so they know I'm paying attention... because I suspect that crows, like people, will stop coming around if they aren't made to feel welcome. 

On my most recent trip out to Eastern Kentucky, I saw crows almost every day I wasn't traveling. They come greet me in the morning,  mostly along tree lines. I saw them up on Rose Ridge when I was viiting my friends George and Laura and their kids, and in Rush, Kentucky, when I was visiting my friends Mike and Liz and their kids. I see the crows and I greet them like I greet all my friends along my journeys.  And while I know that superstition is almost always put down as irrational, let me point out that humans, whether we like it or not, are supersitious. We naturally seek patterns and repeat actions that produce a result; not all results are positive, but those positive results do create habits which in turn become the things that occupy our days. It could be said... and I do say it... that our entire evolutionary track record... including our demise, given our habit to hurt the planet and each other in the name of profit... which some people consider a positive result... is based entirely on our superstitious nature.


Thanks for listening to Episode 8 of A Record of Well Worn Travel Boots. Be sure to find me and subscribe on Podbean, Google Play, or Spotify. Also be sure to check out the Spotify playlist, Well Worn Boots. Look me up on Twitter and Instagram, @dirtysacred. You can find me on Facebook as well.

Thanks again for listening. May the road forever rise to meet your feet.