After dinner I set the dishes to soak and stole a walk along the Snake, nostrils filled with an evening bouquet of willow and grass, and a late June river now warmer than the wind.
Mid-channel, where a less sensitive fisher might have cut doughnuts and shattered the day's-end respite, a lone jet sled planed, sedate and respectful.
As it passed, a black periscope suddenly rose out of the weedy bank, then two more: the half-honking sentries of a squadron of Canada geese. Odd, there in canyon country, where such large, horde-inclined birds might be supposed few and temporary. But these were clearly local, bedded down in the casual trust of home. I later learned this resident flock was new, having landed one spring day, literally out of blue, and set up a permanent summer headquarters.
Military types, geese. Not the cocky commandos of war movies, but the steady, steely soldiers of real life, more resolute than brave, given to objectives and logistics and calculated risk. No other culture could sustain a nation like theirs: bulky, soft-sided airframes blacking the sky twice a year as they cross and recross a predatory planet. Evidently, Chief Timothy State Park was one place in the Snake River Canyon that met their criteria: food, water, and cover, with a wide approach that favoured landing and take-off.
And, critically, an acceptably low incidence of shotguns.
(Last week I posted a photo of feathers mysteriously left by an extremely fastidious predator. Just a few days later I found, 50 yards away, the above remains. So whatever left the feathers seems only to have plucked its prey on that log before transporting it to a less exposed position to eat.
Still no skull, but most of the other bones are here. So though the exact culprit remains unidentified, given all the data points, I'm leaning toward a raptor. Likely a great horned owl or bald eagle.)
(A few days ago I was walking around a crumbling, overgrown abandoned farm near my house when I happened on a mass of feathers piled on a fallen tree trunk. Even more intriguing: no sign of their owner. No bones, no flesh, not even blood. Just a nearly complete, completely empty, suit of feathers.
I can't think of a local predator that surgical, though my experience in such forensics is far from exhaustive.
On another account I'm more confident: these are hen feathers. So whoever this neat and thorough raider was, he or she will have come over, under, or through the fence just out of frame.)
(I found this great horned owl [Bubo virginianus] tail feather on the trail a few weeks ago. Note its frayed tip in the close-up below. Flight feathers of all members of order Strigiformes – the owls – have this kind of tip, which softens their aerodynamic slip, resulting in their owners' famously silent flight.
Great horned owls are native to the Americas, where they are present through virtually all of subarctic North America and a great swath of South America. Here on the North Pacific coast, their classic call – "Who died today? Who? Who?" – is a common feature of the night.)
I had never heard of this alt hymn, or the artists who built it, or even the television series that launched it, before I first heard it on Celtic Music Radio some weeks ago. (Or maybe The Whip, or Folk Alley? Apologies to the unknown programme director with the sound judgement to add this track to the rotation.)
Which is probably for the best, as I understand the climactic scene behind which these poignant verses run would have superseded any connexions my own mind might have made.
And the work is deeply moving on its own.
In the meantime I've listened to it over and over again – I'm listening to it now – and suggest you do as well.
Listen without the lyrics. Let the chant flow through your skull. If the current moves you, listen a few times more before you engage your binary drive.
Just savour the oracular growl of Jake Smith (aka The White Buffalo), voicing the literary dexterity of lyricist Kurt Sutter. (While we're up, let's also note that the titular "murder" refers to a posse of corvids, not a capital crime.)
Those birds – crows, jays; ravens above all – were sangha during my forest ango; omnipresent, providing a guidance hard to quantify in the Red Dust World.
But you can take my word for it. These words–
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
–arrested me.
Never mind that the story puts a darker spin on it; for me this quatrain encapsulates my experience on the mountain, taking me back to that time and place.
Therefore, for the good of The Order, I say in brotherly communion:
Let us clear our minds of discrimination, and contemplate this wisdom.
Wu Ya's commentary:
"Look, it's just a song."
–烏鴉
Come Join The Murder
by The White Buffalo and The Forest Rangers
words and music by Kurt Sutter
There's a blackbird perched outside my window
I hear him calling
I hear him sing
He burns me with his eyes of gold to embers
He sees all my sins
He reads my soul
One day that bird, he spoke to me
Like Martin Luther
Like Pericles
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king
On a blanket made of woven shadows
Flew up to heaven
On a raven's glide
These angels have turned my wings to wax now
I fell like Judas
Grace denied
And on that day he lied to me
Like Martin Luther
Like Pericles
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king
I walk among the children of my fathers
The broken wings, betrayal's cost
They call to me but never touch my heart now
I am too far
I'm too lost
All I can hear is what he spoke to me
Like Martin Luther
Like Pericles
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king
So now I curse that raven's fire
You made me hate, you made me burn
He laughed aloud as he flew from Eden
You always knew
You never learn
The crow no longer sings to me
Like Martin Luther
Or Pericles
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king
As the world swings into Christmas, I believe justice demands I use this forum to correct a historical inequity that's been allowed too long to stand.
I'm speaking, of course, of the studious ignoring of the important œuvre of Jimmy. (Also known, in possible reflection of his troubled youth, by the nom de street "Jimmy the Crow". This in spite of the fact that he was actually a raven, but that's The Man for you.)
Obscurity notwithstanding, this gifted thespian appeared in perhaps a thousand features spanning Hollywood's Golden Age, including several enduring classics.
Yet, due possibly to deliberate suppression by corporate media, few today have ever heard of him.
Abducted from his parents in 1934, Jimmy was schooled Artful Dodger-style in a variety of nefarious skills, including typing, opening mail, and driving a motorcycle. He also learned to recognise "several hundred" English words, generally acquiring new ones, according to his handler, at the rate of just a week per syllable.
In short order, Jimmy was estimated to function at the level of the average 8-year-old, an accomplishment that, along with his verbal intelligence, would qualify him for voter registration in most nations today.
So why is December the best month to correct the likely speciesist repression of Jimmy's contributions to Western culture? Because at this time of year, arguably his best-known performance plays on television in heavy rotation. I'm speaking of course of It's A Wonderful Life, which production profits significantly from his involvement.
Said leading man Jimmy Stewart, speaking on-set, "When they call 'Jimmy!', we both answer." He also judged Jimmy the Crow "the smartest actor on the set," and added that the consummate avian artist nailed his scenes in fewer takes than mammalian castmates.
So this holiday season, when curmudgeonly older relatives gripe that cinema today is "for the birds", remind them, in Jimmy's name, that we should be so lucky.
(Photo of Jimmy on the set of It's A Wonderful Life courtesy of National Telefilm Associates and Wikimedia Commons.)
In the fifty-odd years I've worked with pets and farm animals, I've learned that anxious and abused ones often fear men – but women, not so much.
Some of this gender-specific apprehension may be down to the fact that we're bigger, louder, and maybe don't smell as nice. But a lot of men also appear to believe the world is an action movie, of which they're the beefcake.
They hurt everything that doesn't meet their approval, usually while shouting. And those guys create dread and disconsolation in many creatures.
Catch enough of that, and any sentient being learns mistrust.
You can accomplish a great deal with their victims by just sitting nearby, not reaching out, speaking quietly or not at all. It takes steady patience, but often eventually works. Perhaps the target simply concludes, based on available data, that we're not really "men". (Or maybe that we're just not failed men, which would be accurate. Brothers barging around hotdogging for the camera snatch the lion's share of attention, which is why we non-gnawers of scenery tend to fade into it.)
I was put in mind of this recently during a night sit in the back yard. First, a coyote stepped into view 30 feet away. He seemed unconcerned, not just with the intense human habitation all around him, but even the intense human right in front of him. I hissed, and he ducked away.
Then not one, but two squirrels almost climbed into my lap, in the course of whatever before-bed routines they were pursuing.
As a Zenner who sits outdoors whenever possible – it's a form in my hermit practice – I've had countless similar experiences with wildlife. I've also used this technique intentionally, with lost or traumatised cats and dogs; nervous horses; and at least one refractory laughing dove.
The grace of these encounters never ceases to thrill. For a brief instant I'm freakin' St. Francis.
Very brief, to be sure. But a flash of kensho all the same.
And a reminder that true warriors are silent and watchful.
(Photo of a true warrior courtesy of Wikipedian Petr Novák and Wikimedia Commons.)
While sitting my 100 Days on the Mountain, I sometimes daydreamed about founding a North Coast-native order of forest monks. And should that fancy ever gel, we will sit in the forest of my forebears, wearing the habit of our Douglas squirrel hosts: a hooded robe of honest Cascade umber, over an ochre jersey.
(Text edited from the notes for my book, 100 Days on the Mountain. Photo of Tamiasciurus douglasii courtesy of Ivie Metzen, the US National Park Service, and Wikimedia Commons.)
(Trumpeters [Cygnus buccinator]. Brief stopover over two foggy days. Watching this large flock of very big birds light on this small lake in successive wings was a memorable experience.)
(The age of this robin's nest, blown out of the tree in a recent windstorm, can be estimated by the strand of baling twine incorporated in its construction. It's been at least 2 decades, maybe more, since the area where I found it was agricultural.)
(For my money, the American robin [Turdus migatorius] lays the most beautiful eggs in the woods, and we often find large pieces of their intensely blue shells discarded on the ground after a successful hatching. Sadly, that's not the case with this one, as something has chiseled a hole in it and sucked out the contents. Squirrel is my guess, though other suspects include crows, Steller's jays, or even rats. A greater expert than I could no doubt finger the miscreant by the size and shape of the perforation.)
After dinner I set the dishes to soak and stole a walk along the Snake, nostrils filled with an evening bouquet of willow and grass, and a late June river now warmer than the wind.
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