How I Buried a Crow

Soupy Sales and I were taking a walk around the block. It was a strange walk. I found myself becoming progressively fuzzy-headed with each step. It was as if I was falling asleep as I walked. It became so overwhelming, this sense of sleep-walking, that I thought I would spread a blanket out on the grass when I returned home and stretch out under the sun to nap.

As we came down the final stretch of our walk, I spotted a dead crow on the road in front of my next-door neighbor's house. I squatted down to look at her. I reflected on this life, now lifeless, and was filled with sorrow and gratitude.

I put Soupy inside the house and pondered how to bury this crow.  I needed something to wrap her in. I discarded my immediate thought of a plastic bag in deference to a piece of fabric. Red, I thought. So I went to my store of fabric and found two pieces of red. I chose the brighter of the two. What else did I need? It occurred to me that it would be nice to have tobacco and cornmeal, neither of which I had on hand. I don't know why this occurred to me except that it is the sort of thing offered in Native American rituals. I considered going to the store right down the street from me to purchase these things. But it seemed to me that I needed to initiate the burial immediately and not when certain conditions were in place.

I scouted a spot in my back yard that I thought would make a nice burial site for the crow. I gathered a bundle of sage, a candle, which I lit, a seashell and a stone to leave on the grave, and took these to the burial site. I then prepared to gather the body. I thought for a moment about taking a feather from the crow. And then I wondered if that would be disrespectful. I would like to have the feather in case I needed to include it in a dreamcatcher I might make for someone...someone who might need some crow medicine.

In Native American traditions, Crow is the keeper of sacred law. Human law - including the dictates of any orthodox religion - is all an illusion. Crow sees that there is a higher order of right and wrong that guides us. This does not match the laws created by human beings. Crow signifies that "all things are born of women." Crow sees inner and outer reality simultaneously. Crow merges Light and Darkness. Crow empowers us to follow our inner sense of harmony and justice in our daily lives.

I decided that if I cut off a lock of my hair and give it to Crow, then I could take a feather in good conscience. So I grabbed a pair of scissors and removed a thick lock of hair. I placed it in the red fabric and went outside to collect the crow's body.

I knelt down and put the fabric around the crow. I held her for a moment and admired her beauty. Her talons, her feathers, her face. Then, I noticed a feather, a solitary crow feather, on the road next to the curb. A tiny bit of blood was inside the tip. I paused with gratitude. I would not need to pluck a feather from the crow's body. I wrapped the red fabric around her, completely enclosing her body, and carried her to her burial site.

There was a wooden step that had come loose from something laying beside the burial site. I laid the body on it while I dug the grave. In preparation for digging, I lit my bundle of sage by the candle and allowed its rich smoke to permeate my senses. I waved the burning bundle around the area where I was about to dig, around myself, around the crow.

I dug the grave. There were no tree roots in the area I had chosen. The soil was damp and soft. The grave was dug quickly and easily.

I re-lit the sage and held it down inside the grave, allowing the smoke to waft up along its walls. I encircled the crow's body with smoke from the burning bundle as I thanked her for her life. I thanked her for her beauty and her wisdom. For her guidance. For her mystery. For her medicine.

I felt tears welling up inside me. My inner editor said it was silly to cry over a dead crow. I allowed myself to ignore the inner editor. I allowed my tears to flow. I said to the crow the Ho'oponopono mantra: I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank-you. I repeated this for myself and for all humanity.

I placed the crow's body into the grave. I took a handful of earth and sprinkled it over her body. I did this again and again, breaking up dirt clods with my fingers. I found a rock the length of my hand in the pile of dirt. I brushed it off and set it aside. I found another rock that fit into the palm of my hand. I set it aside. After all the loose dirt and been piled on top of the crow, I placed the larger rock at the crow's head and the smaller one at her feet. I placed the shell with the stone inside it on the middle of the grave. I left the bundle of sage to burn out on its own. And that is how I buried a crow on a sunny afternoon as my mind went from fuzzy to clear.

The Craft of Witchery

When I was your age, I started making potions. Witch's brews. No one taught this craft to me. It was a knowledge which seemed to have been imprinted in my DNA.

Remember that song you sang in Kindergarten? Stirring and stirring and stirring my brew, OOOOOoooooo! I sang that song, too. And it meant something to me. It stirred a longing deep in my chest. And then I heard - from who knows where - a Shakespearean couplet: “Double, double toil and trouble: fire burn and cauldron bubble.” I knew that sensation – that fire burn and cauldron bubble sensation. Innately, I knew it.

I would go to a secluded part of the woods and set up next to a creek. I dug my fingers into the rich black dirt creating a hole big enough to accommodate a standard mixing bowl from my mother's kitchen - one which I had taken for this purpose. The bowl was placed into the earthen pit. And then I gathered my ingredients.

I collected creek water in a cup, ceremoniously walking down the bank to the edge of the water, filling my cup, walking back up the bank and emptying the cup into my “cauldron.” I repeated this process until there was enough water with which to create my base. I added soil, which I stirred in sweeping circular motions with a stick. Stirring with a stick was elemental in the process. Sometimes the brew was thick, sometimes not.

I gathered ingredients as they spoke to me: the prickly sweet gum balls, which looked like futuristic modular housing for alien beings. These would invoke a higher knowledge, one with which this world is not acquainted. The seeds of maple trees resembling tiny fairy wings would, so I believed, imbue my potion with a bit of fairy magic: part mischief, part delight. The flower petals from the tulip poplar tree - sometimes whole blossoms - would be included. Bits of moss. Oak catkins, which when intact, resembled stringy green caterpillars. But I crushed the stamens releasing the granular bits of pollen and stirred them into my brew.

When I had been jolted out of a synergy, whenever I felt displaced or disconnected from everyone around me - but most importantly, from myself – I would make a potion. It wasn't even a conscious decision. I just found myself going to the creek bank and setting everything up. The potion's purpose, which was not known to me at the time, was simply to bring myself back to my core, back to my heart and spirit. It was to reunite me with magic and hence, with life.

Considering circumstances that arose when I was six, it makes sense to me that I would embark upon this practice of making witch's brews. I was deeply injured by someone I trusted. I was violated in a way only a woman can understand. I sought justice from my parents on this occasion but it was to no avail. Some things are better swept under a rug when you are a working parent, exhausted from long hours of a thankless job. It takes less effort to stifle a child and pretend nothing happened than to confront a wrong and stand up against it. I completely understand their perspective now. But at the time, I retreated to my own world of making something new from preexisting crap in an attempt to order my world, to make sense of it all.

Soon after that, I began to make potions. I cast spells of wellness out into the world. Spells of justice, of making things right. As I meticulously selected my ingredients, I felt a personal sense of well-being. I felt right with my world. As I combined my ingredients into the basin I'd planted in the earth, I felt my sense of wellness being projected out into the universe. I felt a powerful force field growing larger around me. I was creating a charm of protection, of self love, and of well-being. I see this now. Back then, I acted on impulse.

As I grew older, I fell out of the practice of casting spells. I followed in the footsteps of those who had come before me. I found employment in order to make money. I married a man. I gave birth to two children. The wildness within me was tamed. I stayed in a small box of acceptable behavior. And this box grew tighter and tighter, compressing me, stifling me.

My daughter began making potions around her sixth year. She gathered rainwater and rich black dirt from the woods. She too stirred her potions in a sweeping, circular motion with a stick. She selected tree bark and acorns, pine needles, leaves and rocks to go into her brew. One day, she found a dead bat in her brew. This was both alarming and mysterious. But we are taught by our Native Ancestors that bat medicine signifies a rebirth – the end of one way of life and the beginning of another. We were getting ready to move to a different state, away from the only home my daughter had known. And so it seemed that the bat had found it's way into the brew for a reason. I cried the day my daughter found the bat and I did not understand why.

In time, I reached a point in which I could no longer breathe. I could not speak. I felt a heaviness in my heart. It became necessary to break out of my small box and to set my heart free. I planted seeds and pulled up weeds. I caressed earth worms and carried water to my plants. I again experienced the sense of well-being that I had known as a child. I grew wild again.

We have a wild streak that should never be tamed, you and I. You will notice when people try to tame you. They will tell you that you can't do something that you want to do. They will tell you that you do not have the wisdom to make choices for yourself. They will tell you how to behave, how to dress, how to manipulate your face and hair to fit their definition of acceptable beauty. They will not see the beauty of your heart. They will not see the beauty of your wildness. It will be hard for you to keep your wild heart alive. But this is necessary to your survival.

When we lose our connection to nature and our urge to create, we lose our life force. We begin to feel sad and lonely, or strangely empty inside. This is because we are neglecting our wild and magical nature: that which creates a desire to dwell among forests, mountains, oceans and rivers, to interact with all living creatures and to make things.

This is why magic is necessary for you to practice. This is why you must make your own potions. It will help you to put order to a world which makes no sense. It is necessary to invoke the help of our Mother Earth because her strength cannot be conquered. Through Mother Earth, we experience the mysteries and wonders of nature. Through her, our urge to create grows strong.

The knowledge of crafting witch's brews can take many forms. Sometimes it is in the form of paint on paper. Sometimes it is in the form of a mask one paints on one's face. Sometimes, it takes the form of words on a page. It could be a cake you bake. Or a song you sing. You must find your own means of crafting a witch's brew. And you must hone your craft well. Do this for your own protection. Do this for your own sense of well-being. It is up to you to carry on the tradition of magic-making.  

Joe

B.B. Russell shot himself in the heart. His wife found him in the back yard before he'd fully died. Joe received a call and went straight over. He arrived to a circus of emergency vehicles, police officers and Laurie standing in the middle of it, in shock.

Another of Joe's friends slit his wrists this week. He was found lying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. He survived his attempt to end his suffering. If you can call that survival.

Joe's Dad is in the hospital. Whatever he's got, it's serious. Joe's family is waiting. Waiting for test results. Waiting for a diagnosis. Waiting for a prognosis. Waiting for some certainty.

Certainty never comes.

In the midst all this, Joe was abandoned by the woman he loves.

Joe is my friend. I love him beyond measure. He writes songs that pierce your heart and sings like it's his last day on earth.

Joe and I have a lot in common. We constantly fuck up. And then we spend a lot of time and money trying to recover from our bad choices and depression-induced avoidance of material world obligations. We are both too sensitive for our own good. We perpetually try to make sense of senseless matter and drive ourselves mad doing so.

The first night Joe and I hung out together was the sort of all-night excursion that takes on epic proportions. I worked at The Garage back then and usually wrapped up my evening around 4 a.m. Joe tended bar across the street at a joint that happened to have a pretty nice coffee machine. I would often stop in to grab a cup of coffee to help see me home. One night, Joe needed a ride home and so I offered my services.

That night I learned that something as simple as a trip from point A to point B turns into a labyrinthine adventure with Joe. We wound our way through the countryside surrounding Walkertown, dropping by this place, checking on that, talking til dawn.

A silvery mist rose in the predawn light as I navigated curvy country roads. The asphalt's mundane aspect took on a mystical sheen. And suddenly, we came upon a magnificent hawk standing motionless in the middle of the road. I slowed my car nearly to a halt and inched ever closer to this creature. It stayed fixed atop its fresh kill - a large rodent. I finally stopped my car completely. Joe and I stared in silence at this tremendous bird, standing so close we could see its eyes, its talons, the texture of its feathers.

Joe finally broke the silence.

"It's a hawk!"

I corrected him. "It's a magical hawk!"

Joe agreed. "It is a magical hawk! I wonder if it'll let me pet it!"

"I don't know, Joe. He might think you're after his food."

"I want to touch him!"

Joe reached for the door handle. And as soon as he did, the hawk flew away, carrying his kill in his talons. Joe and I sat in stupid silence for several minutes. There. In the middle of the road. At the break of day. We had just seen a magical hawk.

I reminded Joe of this story tonight as I tried to comfort him. I told him that in the Native American tradition, Hawk carries our messages to Great Spirit and Great Spirit's messages to us.

Joe feels abandoned by God. I told Joe that he doesn't have to believe in God. But the magical Hawk is real. He can hear Joe. And he can carry his messages on his wings as he soars through the sky.

I don't know how to help my friends when they've reached their limit. I know how it feels to reach that point. And still, I don't know how to help others once they've reached it. All I know to do is hold them, either in my arms or in my heart. Just hold them.