The Mind is an Old Crow

I wrote this first part earlier this week.

It is the beginning of the second week of staying home.  I fell on the ice in the forest four days ago and hurt my shoulder so I have been resting it and taking anti-inflammatories.  And staying off of the ice.  Yesterday, it rained cold rain with an equally cold wind.  I went for a short walk in town to the post office and back.  But this morning, it is bright and sunny although still cold.  I decided to walk down the street that is flanked by forest, to the lake as the road is clear of ice. 

The family of crows that live here are busy re-establishing their social order.  Their grown young from last year are being asked to give the mother and father crows some space to nest and start a new family.  The grown siblings will be allowed to help once the babies have fledged from the nest.  But right now, they are being sent away, noisily.  And the young crows are responding just as noisily.  The young crows do not like this change it seems.

There seem to be more cardinals this year.  They sit high in the treetops, bright red and calling out their mating whistles to set up housekeeping with a partner.  They seem to be welcoming a change in their situation.  It’s time to create new cardinals, according to the sun, according to the temperature, according to the buds on the trees.  They seem enthusiastic.

We pass people, at a respectful distance, who are walking dogs.  The dogs love the smells of spring and are delighted.  Of course most dogs are always delighted which makes them excellent role models for us.  I love their love for life.

We stop at the spring along the way where people sometimes take water straight from Earth.  It bubbles up happily and there are those that swear by its health-giving properties as opposed to town water.  So far, I haven’t tried any, but I appreciate its abundance of life and stop to be grateful.

As I walk, I remember that I am grateful for the sunshine after a few days of clouds.  I am grateful not to be in pain as my shoulder is healing.  I am grateful to be walking on the road, not on ice.  I am grateful for the oxygen I breathe into my lungs thanks to the trees and all the plants that create it from the carbon dioxide I breathe out.  I am grateful for the porridge and maple sweetwater I had for breakfast.  I am grateful to all the trees that tower above me. 

We reach the lake and notice that it is still frozen over at this point.  Farther along, the channel if open and full of migratory ducks but the pathway is full of snow and ice still, so I stay away.  We look out across the lake, bright and shining in the sun and feel the March sun warm our backs.

We decide to walk back along the hiking, bicycle trail that runs along the lake.  It is partially clear of ice and we decide to try it out.   When I come to icy patches, I go onto the bare grass instead.  Disobeying the “Stay on the path” sign, I opt for solid, frozen Earth instead of ice.  The path that we have walked along for years now is not safe.  We have to find another path.  This seems quite appropriate for this time of staying home to “flatten the Corvid-19 curve”.  But we are humans, creative and adaptable and we walk on the grass.  A few times, my partner offers his arm to help with my balance over small slippery patches which I navigate safely.  When we pass the houses of people we know, I wave, even though I can’t see anyone at the window.  I waved to the person driving the black pick-up that we passed on the road as well.  There is no harm in being friendly, from a distance.  We are all in this together after all.

We get to the bottom of our street where the other springs run down the road to the lake.  But today it is all ice.  I walk along the side of road on pavement and then have to hold onto my partner to cross a larger icy piece.  There is no other alternative it seems.  I can’t go it alone.  He discovers that the ice is soft and he crunches down a path for me to safely traverse. One more optical delusion crushed.  

And then we are on the road again and walking up the hill to our home.  We start to warm up as we go up the hill and I arrive back at the house warm and safe and feeling better for having walked.  And I am grateful that I didn’t fall as well.  In exercising caution and courage, I feel stronger and more able to pull up that same courage as I listen to the news and wonder about the future.  Like the young crows, I am not happy about this change.  I grieve for the status quo, even though I wasn’t in love with it.  I guess that’s just human.  I know that new things will be born from this time and that this disruption is also disrupting unhealthy patterns.

Then I read John O’Donohue’s poem Thought Work.

Off course from the frail music sought by words

And the path that always claims the journey,

In the pursuit of a more oblique rhythm,

Creating mostly its own geography,

The mind is an old crow

Who knows only to gather dead twigs,

Then take them back to the vacancy

Between the branches of the parent tree

And entwine them around the emptiness

With silence and unfailing patience

Until what was fallen, withered and lost

Is now set to fill with dreams as a nest.

Today, my friend sent me a picture of the tree that we adorned with our woven belts not even two weeks ago.  She has put up an invitation for people to leave messages in the woven belts.  To my delight, she sent a picture of the tree where a new story is being written by neighbours.