WHOLLY CROW!
HELP! Over the last couple of days a Crow has been following me to and from my son's school..but only while I am alone..never when my son is with me.
Now I am not a superstitious guy but it is getting a little creepy.

I know that Crows and Ravens are very intelligent birds with strong linguistic skills and tool using abilities and that a group of crows is called a murder. I am also well aware of their prominence as harbingers of MISCHIEF, MISFORTUNE and DEATH in myth and the occult.

Because Crows and Ravens are big, black birds they have osmotically inherited all of the superstional mystique that surrounds it. Black absorbs all frequencies of light (electromagnetic energy) in the visible spectrum so it has come to be highly prized by Psychics... Black apparently has a metaphorical correlation to the abyss of infinite knowledge.


When I worked on a survey crew in Northern Manitoba in the 70s (I was a Rodman) the crew would sometimes drive through the garbage dump to look for fox or bears...but there were always huge numbers of Seagulls (air-rats) and Ravens. If you stuck a metal object (like a gun barrel) out of the truck the Gulls wouldn't notice, but the Ravens did.
Even if you poked something out a few inches, poof!..
the Ravens would vanish!
Honest. I'll never forget that.

As far as birds being a portent of Death I do have one eerie story..shortly after returning with us from a trip to Disneyland in the 60s my Grandmother awoke to see an Owl sitting on the window sill the night that my Grandfather died...I find it hard to forget that story either.

Ravens have appeared in folklore as far back as the 3rd Millenium BCE in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Chaldean Flood Myth that was the template for the story about Noah. In Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim releases a dove and a raven to see if there is any dry land..the dove circles and comes back..the raven never returns giving him his answer.

Now I do have a birthday coming up and maybe in the back of my mind....nah...perhaps this coincidental Crow has mistaken me for a neighbour who may have been feeding it.
Whatever the reason it is creeping me out when it hops along the garage a few feet from my head while it is squawking at me. Then it flys from tree to tree as I walk to and fro to my son's school ...but I never see it when my son is with me?
Does that mean anything?

Does anyone believe that this is some symbollic gesture from the great beyond regarding my future transition to an afterlife (of which I have serious doubts about btw) or is it simply a channeled message (hello I am an empiricist!) from Thoreau who said that Crows "represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all men have"
Is all of this Crow crazytalk just Poppycock?

What I do know is that I'll probably step out in front of a bus because I am too preoccupied watching this f*cking crow! As a rational empirical skeptic this is all very embarrassing but so help me if an Owl shows up on my window sill I am going to freak out!

What should I do?
Sincerely,
Donn CAWppens

CROW-A-TREE POETRY,

BECAWSE I CAN

Every so often I feel the urge to express the magic of the Dinosaursian descendents, the Birds.
Okay Okay, so I've done it twice,
here Wholly Crow and here Bird Droppins.


This morning a caw-cawphony overhead really cawght my attention.

I witnessed an amazing scene.
A solitary Owl, beset by dozens, a "murder", of Crows, flew a few feet overhead and sought refuge from it's tormentors in a tree across the street.

I ran into the house to retrieve my camera but ultimately failed to procure a decent shot of the beleaguered, yet wise, old bird.


I was startled yet thankful that this metCAWphorical imagery didn't just "go over-my-head".






















DEEP eh!?

Despite my "pun"ishing style, once-in-a-while it's fun to put the TRY in Poetry...innit?

BIRD DROPPINS
by Coppens

Some days BLOGGING is for the birds.
You get up before the cock crows and the cuckoo clock strikes six.
The early bird gets the worm.
No easy task for a nighthawk.

Sometimes you are cocksure that you won't post a turkey.
You have taken to BLOGGING like a duck takes to water and you are ready to soar like an eagle.
You get goose bumps just thinking about it.

You usually wing it, try not to parrot others or get pigeonholed.
You are a bit of a culture vulture and you try not to ruffle too many feathers.
Yes the eagle has landed and it is ravenous for a bird's eye view from the crow's nest.

Even though it started out as a lark, now you fancy yourself as a bit owlish.
With eyes like a hawk you swoop down on others with a swift wit and sink your talons into their funny bone.

But still...some may think that you are a quack, a bit of a loon.
Others may think that you are strutting around like a peacock.
Some find you too hawkish even though you are really a dove.
Hey what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

But what is this ..you don't hear a peep and there is a goose egg in the comments. Don't birds of a feather flock together?
....so you start squawkin.
BLOGGING is for the birds!

Did you just post your swan song? NO.
When the chickens come home to roost this albatross may have you eating crow but you are not as dead as a dodo.

Commenters are a migratory species.
Some of them may fly south for the winter and others may flock off for good.
Like water off a duck's back you have to let it go.
Keep building your nest egg and lining up your ducks in a row.
Stop brooding.
Nobody else can clip your wings!

Birds of a feather will always flock together.


Have a great weekend.

INCLUDE ME OUT
Movie Mogul Samuel Goldwyn's famous malapropism would make an excellent motto for me in regards to wasting my time (and theirs) perusing the vast majority of the 70 Million Blogs out here. Don't get me wrong, I love variety and finding 2 new Bloggers to read every week is sheer delight.

Have you ever just clicked on the NEXT BLOG link at the top of the screen..
don't do it unless you are prepared to surf for a while!
Like the Ocean, most of the Blogosphere looks great from the Crow's Nest, but just below the surface it is quite empty of Living Creatures.

I just clicked through 30ish and found the following:

19 of the 30 (65%) are sparsely posted North American Family Blogs featuring plenty o' pictures of deleriously happy Newlyweds, adorable Pets, or reluctant participants at Family Gatherings where the snapshots of sourpussed rellies look like they are at a wake even though they are opening gifts in front of a Christmas tree.
No doubt most have prolly moved on to Facebook by now.

7 (24%) were glittery Tweenie girl sites (half in Spanish) all disasterstrously plasterred with doo-dads and what-nots and one-line postings about how cool Miley, Jonas Bros. and Britney are...their blog looks just like their bedroom..which is easy to figure out because they take an arm's length picture of themselves every day and post it. I am certain that their parental units have no idea that their little darling is out here chumming the water for cyber-creeps.

The boy version features stuff, I mean crap, about first-person-shooter Video-Games, toys, atleast one poster of Jessica Alba and several others displaying nekked chicks. Mommy and Daddy don't know about these blogs either.

3 (9%) the biggest surprise, was that there were so many Fundie Islamic blogaganda sites! One with a very inapropriate remark about what to do to Zionists which I tagged, and will prolly have a big juicy Fatwa stapled to my ass by morning. Honestly, some peoples' kids eh?

2 Poetry/Photography combos. Lots of pictures of Stars, Symbols, Seascapes, Squirrels, and Sunsets, very relaxing and well appointed...most likely to revisit and read.

Which brings me to the following summation..this little exercise made me insanely appreciative that all of YOU fantabulous cyberfolk that I follow (as best I can) are intelligent, funny, curious, free-thinking, open-minded, tolerant, and fearless and confident. I love it. How could I be so lucky?

Thank You.
No really.
THANK YOU!

Now if you can possibly manage the time add your link to Follow This Blog and then go add two NEW blogs to your site. It's the eaasiest way to keep track of your cybernauts...and MAN UP Lurkers!

What goes around comes around.

S.O.S.

After another busy day spent rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, most of the unsaved souls are sound alseep as the ship torpedoes towards the iceberg. The cold abyss of fate quietly prepares for the rendezvous.

Captain Pride is fast awake, lost in his daydreams of acclaim for having set a new speed record. Drunk and full of himself, he stares at the image in the mirror. Congratulations Sir, for effortlessly mingling above and beyond the call of duty with the guardians of decorum and priviledge.

First Mate Avarice has abandoned his post and is off to quench his lust for a young debutante in his cramped quarters. A conquest such as this may well advance his career and the reward is well worth the risk.

The vessel races into the foggy night, full speed ahead. The con is left in the care of younger even more ambitious lads. They disregard the valuable maps still nestled in their sheaths, they will chart their own course.

The Preacher hands the tearful cabin boy some silver before he races down the long, dark, hallway before him.

Meanwhile, far beneath the Captain's chair, the great unwashed sleep. Confident in the skills of the crew above them, the hopeful huddle for warmth and dream of a better tomorrow.

Far above it all in the crow's nest, one lonely, exhausted, frozen lookout battles his mind, his soul and the elements of Nature. Ducking out of the wind to light a cigarette he stares in disbelief at the whispers of his last match.
The Solipsist Soliloquist sending out an S.O.S....