Author Archives: Andrew Lewis

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About Andrew Lewis

I am alive. And well. And thinking too.

Truth & Amanda Knox

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I’m not an Amanda Knox watcher.  Although I did read the first lurid account of the murder (sex orgies, drugs, good girl gone bad while abroad in Italy, etc.), I haven’t followed it since.

But yesterday I happened across the Rolling Stone article on her appeal.  Juicy, juicy, juicy. And alluring and sad.  We don’t know what the hell went on in that flat that night in 2007, but by any measure there’s more wrong with the prosecution’s case than is right. What’s more cogent a story: naive well-mannered girl from Seattle wrongly implicated in her roommate’s murder, or that once out from under her parent’s wing she fell under satanic influence and partook in drug fueled orgies?

All other friends of the murdered girl lawyered up and left the country.  Knox blithely stayed to answer questions.  She became the object of a muddled interrogation.  She signed a typed confession in Italian (which she could barely understand).  No evidence linked her to the scene of the crime.  A convicted perpetrator has confessed to the murder and stated that she wasn’t present.  Accusations of satanic ritual have come from a prosecutor who has charged defendants in three other cases with having performed satanic acts.

And then you have the tabloid industry that has fed tirelessly on the girl (and sold tons of pulp as a result).  And the British sport of maligning Knox speaks more of a general anti-americanism and displaced anger at our role at sinking the global economy.  Woe to Knox for deciding to go abroad just when the market began to crash.  We in the world want blood and, in the last few years it seems, we’ve been dining on hers.

If only Arthur Miller were alive today.

As I read the article though, I thought too of my own daughter, and even myself at 19- at my proclivity to sing out loud or at times be inappropriate – and how easy it is for someone young to the world to wander into a situation that is far out of their league.

And this thing we call justice is less about truth, and more about martial campaigns to twist the sentiments and perceptions of a jury or judge and spin a narrative that will inflame the imagination.

Knox’s family is on appeal.  They’ve hired a new legal team.  And also a media manager.  Coverage in support of her is ramping up.  God help them.

Analog

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Interesting © Kerry Hardy

My problem with our species?

For all our gloating about our big brains, we still are largely only able to comprehend two states of being at once.  Good and bad.  Black and white. God and the Devil.  Republicans and Democrats. And then we often try (very hard) to reduce them to only one.  That’s about all we can handle.

Like good sound recordings though, the the universe is not binary, but analog.  There exists a whole range of states, meanings, perspectives – a vast heterogeneity of experience.  How could we possibly distill something to being solely good?  Or solely bad?  How about something in between and open ended, something like…”interesting”?

So what brings me to this?  Ravens, of course.

Yesterday morning, Kerry and I together went through the wash routine with the birds, now down to three (or really just two and a half).  I swaddled Poe (we’ve now identified Broken Wing as him, partly due to his consistent aloofness from the other two, his blazingly independent cross-desert walks, and his consistent backward twisting of his head when we feed him), and we led the other two across the desert to the trees in the wash.  Once there, we all settled down in the shade:  the ravens to play, Kerry and I to talk.

What a wonderful gift to observe these creatures at such close range.  And how sad that many of our neighbors continue to miss the opportunity, just because they’ve chosen to label them a nuisance.  Even more ironic, we’re pretty certain that one of them is (intentionally or unintentionally) responsible for killing one bird and injuring the other.  Without his engagement, we’d now have four ravens flying freely out in the desert essentially minding their own business.  Instead, Broken Wing Poe still depends on us for feeding and the others routinely come back to hang and visit with him.

We all had some nice doings out in the wash, though.  Never and More played tug of war with sticks and grasses.  More found some meat scraps and tried several times to cache it in the sand.  We observed More, as always far more quick on the wing and the first to grab stinkbugs and treats when he spies them.

We watched the birds hunt insects.  At close range, you can also see their eyes can be directed forward and hence may be capable of stereoscopic vision (a hallmark of predators).  Which suggest that these guys may not be just scavangers and feeders of carrion. They may be able to hunt lizards and small animals, putting them in the same hallowed space as eagles and hawks.

Poe, meanwhile, hung in the shade, tested his wings, knelt in a cooling position, and sometimes talked.

And in all, very, very interesting.

Disaster’s Playing Field

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Two nights ago, I lay awake at 2 am listening to the howling wind. It was hot and dry, and blowing at night no less. Usually the winds die down by dusk. Even more importantly, this stuff is supposed to be done with by the middle of May. This year, we’re coming up on July and the wind is still blowing relentlessly.

If this is just an abnormal year, that’s totally fine. Abnormal means we have a normal to return to. Some year’s it’s hot. Some it’s cool. In the end it all works out. But if this (or something like it) is the new normal, I believe we may be in trouble. Here, unless you’re really good you can’t successfully dry farm under these conditions.

Dry farmers in this part of the Plateau depend on the pulse of moisture that arrives in January and February. If you’re lucky it soaks in and permeates deep layers of clay. If you’re even more lucky, you get a light pulse of rain in April or May that will jump start the seeds when you put them in. Even when the winds hit in May, the corns are well enough adapted to withstand it.

But when the winds blow through June, you can’t even get out there to plant. And if you do, the old moisture is evaporating so quickly out of the soil that the tap roots may not be able to chase it down fast enough. And if the winds blow through July, well, hardly any plant can survive that.

Or rather, they can if it comes upon them slowly. Technically speaking, dry land farming is, in part, about applying gradual selective pressure to seed stock so that over time it can evolve to withstand extreme environmental conditions. But that’s not what’s going on. Last year, the winds quit at the beginning of June. Now it’s four weeks later. Plants may not be able to adapt quickly enough.

If this is the first sign of our agriculture being suddenly bludgeoned to death, we can’t stand on the sidelines. Now’s the time to jump onto the playing field. Why? Because extreme conditions breed extreme diversity. You see it in edge ecologies – biomes that exist on the edge of a stable ecosystem evolve much more quickly with far stranger and exotic and powerful results.

This morning I was out hoeing and I caught sight of my Hopi neighbor watering his corn. It’s pretty much a daily routine for him, almost to the point where you might as well consider it aquaculture. I have to hand it to him, though. One, he’s farming. A lot of people are not. Two, he cares enough to keep his stuff alive at all cost. Three, he’s been maniacal about keeping his yard clear of ragweed and Russian thistle (which few people do around here). I’m highly allergic to both and his house is upwind of mine, so he’s graciously saving me from a huge autumn headache.

We’re growing for completely different things, though. He’s growing for corn. I, on the hand, am growing for resilience and strength. I don’t need a hundred ears. I just need few. In general, I’m not watering. On the worst wind days I’ve applied a cup or two of water just to keep a few of the plants alive. I don’t even necessarily want to keep them all alive, just the strongest. Let the environment dish out everything that it can. The few plants that survive, why, they’ll be the ones. I want something capable of a deep taproot and extreme resilience in the face of catastrophic wind. Overall, this kind of farming/gardening is a terrifying tightrope to balance.

Hopi corns are very smart. Smarter even than a lot of people I know. It figures out conditions quickly and responds physically just as fast. But even so, I fear the conditions may be changing even faster. I need to goose my plants just enough for them to stay alive, but not too much to drive them out of the race.

In the face of a looming disaster, our human lives may depend on it.

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Yeast Shit

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Call it what it is. Fermentation is basically what happens when certain yeast cultures do their thing. They eat, they breath, they shit. Yeast eats sugar. When it breathes, it exhales carbon dioxide (the stuff that makes bread rise and beer fizz). And when yeast defecates, it shits out alcohol.

Which, it turns out, humans actually like to drink. Kind of gross isn’t it?

And that brings me to Colorado spirits. Back in the day there were lots of small scale yeast farmers. Practically everyone did it. Picture the toothless guy making his hooch in Appalachia. Then it became the exclusive provence of industrial distillers: factory farms for yeast and yeast crap.

But now we see the resurgence of small-scale local artisanal distillers. And the San Juans have become a hotbed. Maybe it’s the remoteness or the mining past (when any three block town sported six saloons and as many cathouses). Or maybe just chalk it up to southern Colorado wackiness.

Throw it all together in a copper still, boil away the vapor, and what’s left? Jackalope gin out of Telluride. Montanya Platino rum (big gold and silver medalist) out of Silverton. Telluride vodka (rated 92 by Wine Enthusiast). And of course Stranahan’s whiskey (actually out of Denver, but they count for wackiness).

So do you really need to drink all that yeast shit? Not really, though it’s all exemplary for smoothness and taste. The really BIG thing is that those gazillion defecating yeast are leading the way in the relocalization of our economy.

And as big oil falls apart, those little yeast (or at least their agricultural counterparts) will become literal lifesavers. In ecosystems, heterogeneity and diversity equate to stability. As does small scale interdependence coupled with relative self-sufficiency. You make the whiskey. I’ll grow the corn. And if you don’t come through with the whiskey, I’m still good for the corn.

Furthermore, when I get my whiskey from you, 80 cents out of every dollar remain in the community and are shared among us. If I buy from Diageo (the world’s largest liquor company) god knows where that money goes. And on top of that, both my corn and your whiskey create social currency – you and I have a relationship, we’re working to support one another. Relationships are uber-currency. They’ll support us when both the dollar and the euro fall apart.

Which leads to a great irony. All those abandoned silver towns high in the San Juans that have struggled for five decades? They’ve had a head start in trying to figure it out. And woe to those large cities that are still on petroleum life support.

I’m sure there’s some mountain rat who’ll drink to that.

Written in Mancos

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I’m not missing!

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I posted this picture last night and had to take it down. At midnight we started getting calls from drivers who thought they saw me.

Yesterday traffic was at a standstill on I-70. We were stuck in a narrow canyon in an endless line of cars beside the raging Colorado. I told Anna I could walk out of there faster.

Which I did. Which meant I hiked 6 miles out of the White River Wilderness area. On a freeway.  And with a little help in the end.

Anna and Mazie found me three hours later in the Glenwood Springs brewpub nursing a rootbeer.

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Raven Energy

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Raven Energy © Kerry Hardy

It seems our house sitter may be losing it.  She’s become scared of the dogs.  The ravens.  The spiders and creatures that may come into the house.  She won’t go to the wash because it’s too dangerous.  There are snakes, she said.  She’s basically feeling scared of wildness.

I talked to my friend Darron this morning.  It’s probably the raven energy, he said.  It’s powerful stuff.

Raven energy.  Now there’s something to think about.

Darron is one of the few Hopi who gets, I dare say identifies, with our perspective.  He works for Facilities at Health Care.  He was one who originally opposed the destruction of the native nest.  Wait, he advised.  Wait a few months and soon enough they will fly away.  At the time, he said that all things have a purpose, that there’s a reason those birds are here on this earth.

Which is to say that every living thing occupies an environmental niche.  Each has evolved to survive in a particular place in a particular way.  And the life and demise of every thing allows others to survive.  Each of us has co-evolved with the creatures around us.  Unmanaged, we together compose an ecosystem.

Which brings us to raven energy.

The universe (at least as we know it) is basically energy moving through a system.  There’s the energy and matter that we encounter in our daily lives:  speeding cars, a musical note, plants, granite fireplace stones, metal bowls, breaking glasses.  And then of course, there’s dark matter and dark energy which we don’t yet have the correct range of senses to detect.  That stuff composes 95% of the universe and yet we can’t perceive it.  And we don’t know what the heck it is.  We don’t yet fully understand what butterflies and dogs and horses can sense.  Perhaps they know of dark energy.  And if we spoke the same language or had the hearts to listen, perhaps they could tell us.

As for the scant world that we know of – basically things and movement and explosions and music – these are really just the suds floating on the surface of the “real” universe.

In that world – the world that us humans know of – there’s kinetic energy; basically energy released from it’s material form.  The rock rolling down the hill.  A vibrating violin string, Ichiro’s bat swinging through space.  And there’s potential energy that’s still locked into atoms:  Ichiro’s bat at rest. The stilled bow.  The rock resting at the top of the hill.  Or better yet:  Ichiro’s bat waiting to be burned. And even Ichiro himself, his flesh waiting to be consumed by our ravens.

Ichiro’s flesh consumed becomes raven energy.  It’s that life force that has become instantiated temporarily in the DNA and bodies and behavior and flight of the ravens.  In this form, it feels like old energy.  It’s fierce and keen and primeval.  We associate it with death because ravens consume death.  And there has always been death which probably accounts for why ravens have been around for so long.  But they’re also opportunists which means they figure things out.  They can be just as prone to eat life (corn), which is why we just as easily revile them.

Darron advised that we need to be careful around those birds.  They can probably even hypnotize you, he said.  Which may very well be true.  Five people now are following their behavior, tending to their needs, helping them be who they want to be.

Burn cedar, Darron advised.  Bless your house sitter.  Smoke the house.  Smoke yourselves.  Smoke the wheels of your car and even Mazie’s violin.  You need to heal this, he said.

He said that yesterday they came to visit him.  They were at the Health Care physical plant observing his movement and behavior.  He approached to see if they would land on him.  The ravens gazed, perhaps with interest, and flew away.

Born Free (sort of); June 22 evening

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A final dispatch from Kerry from yesterday evening.

Gotta go hiking w/ John in a few minutes, so I went down around 4 PM to collect Broken Wing. Halfway down who should I see flying up but Never and More. They went 3/4 of the way to the house, then landed for a quick tete-a-tete– and decided to come back down! When I reached the wash, Broken Wing gave me the same affectionate greeting as usual; ran right over and perched almost on my shoes.

We headed for home and then stopped halfway there for a little snack for everyone. You can see them in their usual places– BW closest, Never deciding it’s OK to come right in on the gallop, and More lurking in the distance– probably knowing that I’ll walk over and give him some. The two fliers just leapfrogged along with us, and everyone got one last bite once we were all in the yard.

It’ll be a slow weaning away from us.  Once Broken Wing is better and they can function more freely, I’m hoping we won’t need to intercede so much.

More Catches Up © Kerry Hardy

Born Free (sort of): June 22

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Kerry Hardy, naturalist at large:

The same routine worked well once again– Broken Wing as decoy, and this time the sibs even beat us down to the wash and were sitting there waiting (I daresay their pattern recognition skills exceed those of most of our neighbors). Broken Wing apparently has a favorite seat down there; he headed right for this elevated tussock and hunkered right down– until he noticed the one last scrap of elk that I was saving for bait to lure the others over. He hopped from about 20′ away and was just about to nab it (pretty good eyesight to spot the small red morsel among the black, blue, and green objects!) when I spotted what he was up to. Two minutes later, Never and More had joined the party, and were swilling away at the water dish and getting cozy in the elm’s shade. Not a bad setup.

I was talking with Shawn this morning and he said he’d gotten a ‘call’ (i.e. complaint) about the birds. I explained that we were doing our all to rehab and wildify them, and were making good progress. This relieved him– he’d done his job and told us, and now he was off the hook.

More flyovers from the resident birds, and (so far) no sign of hostilities, just curiosity. Never and More flew several hundred yards uninterrupted on their way to the wash, and actually landed about fifty yards from the big nest tree– which had several birds sitting in it– and spent five or ten minutes just wandering around there, so I think they’re getting a handle on the raven geography of the area.

Slow progress.

Broken Wing © Kerry Hardy

Born Free (sort of) June 21 evening

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Broken Wing is definitely the star today. I was pretty late heading down to get him tonight (owing to a flat tire on my bike ride), so I took the truck. About halfway down the road who should I see, gamely hopping back towards your house. Quite touching! and such a trooper. I picked him up and just held him as I drove; he was quite happy with it all (and even gave Lola a good peck on the nose when she got too friendly!).

The sibs greeted us enthusiastically when we reached the yard, and all three (successfully) begged a little nightcap of elk from me. I figure it’s good to keep that food connection strong so that they’ll follow me to the wash each day. Cindy was amazed (and relieved) that they had spent the whole day there, and I think she’ll be game to lead them there herself in my absence. All in all, I’d say really good progress today.

To complete the picture, the wash is a quarter mile distant from our house.  In order to reunite himself with his siblings and return to the ancestral roost, he made a beeline on foot for the entire distance.  You have to love the guy.

It also spotlights the importance of the intra-raven relationships as well as physical place.  They need to be on the ramada by nightfall.  It’s not willy-nilly choice, but rather a pit in the stomach as dusk advances and they’re not in a place considered safe.

The beauty?  When they are fully airborne and mobile and integrated, is there really any problem in a couple birds sleeping in our yard?

Here’s to Broken Wing.

Broken Wing © Kerry Hardy

Born Free (sort of): June 21

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And the odyssey continues:

This morning Cindy couldn’t get the ravens in the cage. No problem; with enough elk meat anything is possible. I just grabbed Broken Wing, wrapped him in a towel, and headed for the wash, feeding him tidbits as I went. The sibs couldn’t stand the thought of not getting their fair share, and they flew along quite nicely. Just left all three of them down there with water, and they seemed happy. Even more interesting is that at least four ravens did flyovers, and have perched just 100 yd. up the wash in the big cottonwood. Let’s hope that they talk today.

Today’s pix: #1 is the native birds settling in up the wash; #2 is a shot from the wash of that weirdo’s unit in Walpi Housing (what’s up with that guy and all the brush?); #3 is Broken Wing, my prize decoy, enjoying a well-earned drink.

Broken Wing is getting stronger and stronger; some very vigorous flapping today, apparently pain-free. Flying in 3 days? As I walked back up I was chuckling at the irony of your being at the bluegrass fest, surrounded by world-class musicians– and diving for your computer three times a day for updates on the ravens. I’m sure this will be used as evidence when they lock you away. . .

Native Raven © Kerry Hardy

Broken Wing © Kerry Hardy

Walpi Housing

The four wild ravens were either the other set of fledgelings or the two mating pairs.  Note the incongruity of our units in this setting (despite the groovy ramada).

And I’m fully ready to be committed on this one.  We’ve been encountering our share of bumps on the human side, starting with the forced removal from Health Care and continuing on to neighborly complaints.  But it only steels our resolve.  If we as a species are that removed from the environment around us, then it’s time to hone the edge and take it to the streets.  Time for us, perhaps, to reinhabit the wildness that is our own nature.

Born Free (sort of): June 20

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More from Kerry:

Another good day, with all three safely roosted in the yard at dusk. I went down to the wash just at sunset to round up Broken Wing, who literally came running to me in his best baby-like behavior. Wrapped him in a dishtowel and walked back up, with him calling himself almost hoarse the whole way.

The sibs were on the ramada; they heard us coming and got excited; they did a flyover when we were still 100 yd. away. I gave everyone a little elk nightcap to calm them down (almost as good as Stranahan’s).

Cindi’s going to try and catch them all around 6:30 and will call me when she has them– and she’s also going to ride down with me! I saw Gary in his yard so I brought him up to speed on our plan of a gradual separation– which seemed to relieve him. “All signs look hopeful,” as the magic 8-ball would say.

Roosting © Kerry Hardy

Key fact.  We’re dealing with autonomous individuals here.  We can’t dictate the pace at which they readapt to their natural environment.  This might take weeks or longer.  And even if they integrate with the flock in the wash, they still may continue to come “home” to roost.  Can’t fault them on that:  the ramada is a nice place to hang out.

Pleased to Meet You

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Poor More.  It’s the first time he’s met a human without arms.

Pleased To Meet You © Kerry Hardy

Scare Crow

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Baby and Parent Flyover © Kerry Hardy

I love this picture for reasons other than the humor.

The house raven feels comfortable perching on the scarecrow.  The wash raven doesn’t.

That suggests that the dang things learn.  And if they can learn one thing, they can learn another.  A wash raven has learned to fear and distrust the human form and so it steers clear of it.  The house raven, though, has grown up perching on our shoulders.  It associates those shoulders with sustenance. To perch on a shoulder is no biggy.

The wash raven and the house raven probably consider one another deranged.

But what if farmer and animal got to know one another?  More, meet Lloyd.  Lloyd, this is More.

As for the farmer (I’m talking to you, Lloyd), behavior is malleable.  In what way can we encourage good behavior?  Is it possible to both preserve the corn and coexist?

Born Free (sort of) June 19

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For those that have been following the saga, I’m providing Kerry’s notes, straight from the horse’s mouth.  If anything, they suggest the richness and nuances of the relationships, interspecies and otherwise.  Hurray for Kerry:

Big doin’s in the wash. When I took them down there, they got separated (because More freaked out a bit and got out of the cage) and were too skittish to recapture. So, I put the more timid of the two in the nest box which was about 150 yards away from where More was hiding in the sagebrush. I was pretty concerned about them finding each other, so a few hours later I went back down.

They were each exactly where I’d left them. I used water to coax Never(?) down out of the nest which he came to immediately. He seemed very affectionate, so I started squawking to him and walking towards More, and sure enough he followed– and meanwhile More was interested enough to fly and walk a bit closer, down into the cornfield.

My squawking brought two mature birds almost instantly; they did some real close flyovers.  Finally the two babies spotted each other– and I’ll tell you, it was quite touching to see them figure it out and hop together for a nuzzling. Palpable relief on all parts, myself included.

Then I walked back to the nest. Never followed along, and More did too at a safe distance. When we got back Never drank some more, and More almost dared to. When I gave Never some elk scraps and he went into full open-mouth-begging calls, More broke down and came over for his share too. So– they’re fed, watered, and both know where the nest box is, and they’re together (at least when I left them).

Lola and I sneaked away and they went off to explore the wash. Parents stayed in sight at all times– fingers crossed that they’ll adopt, rather than attack. Never even pecked and ate a bug at one point. If Broken Wing is still looking chipper tomorrow, I’ll take him down along with their breakfast. More heart-rending photos expected then. Enjoy these! A memorable Father’s Day, in its way.

Who needs TV.

Settling In © Kerry Hardy

Reunited © Kerry Hardy

Parent Flyover and Baby © Kerry Hardy

Parent Flyover © Kerry Hardy

Born Free (sort of): June 17

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The day that the fourth raven died.  Kerry pushed onward:

 I procured a 3′ long bullsnake that a friend had bravely bludgeoned with a 2 x 4 yesterday. I opened its belly and wove the whole schlange into the top of the chainlink fence with the two bravest ravens watching intently. . . and before I had made it to the road, they were both up there pecking, and seemed excited. One grabbed some intestine and flew down to the gravel roadway with it; the other joined him and the two of them danced around it like it was some great exotic delicacy. So there’s hope for them as ravens. . . of course, if the smell of day-old dead snake in 90º weather hasn’t faded out of the Prius by tomorrow morning when we go to Flag, there may be no hope for me. Hang in there, I’ll see what I can do tomorrow once we get back from Flagstaff.

Kudos to Kerry for doing the snake.  Although our house now resembles some charnal house with heads on pikes, etc.

Our wonderful house sitter is none too happy with it, though.  She’s worried that it’ll begin to stink and will attract flies and that the neighbors will go ballistic.  The whole thing is horrifying.  She asks to take the snake down and give it a respectful burial.  She also wants to take the remaining ravens up to the Cultural Center and leave them there where they can pick through trash.

Which summons a whole range of thoughts.

  1. What’s more horrifying:  a rotting dead serpent woven into our fence or a overweight man bludgeoning a harmless bull snake to death with a two by four?
  2. Why do we pay respect to things once they’re dead and not when they’re still living?  Living things (be they spouses or snakes) are messy and involved tangled relationships.  Dead things are simple.  They’re dead.
  3. Ravens are not solitary dumb birds.  They live in family groups and have extended relations.  This family group has been living at the confluence of the Wepo and Polacca washes for a while now.  A Hopi can’t live apart from Hopi.  A Hopi outside of the clan and village and this particular spot of land is nothing.  They exist in groups.  To an extent, the same holds true of ravens.  To send them up to Second Mesa, we might as well ship them to Siberia.  Furthermore, they’re adolescents yet and a huge amount of learning is to be had, ideally through the parents.

But our poor house sitter.  She (along with the rest of the neighborhood) are under the impression we want to keep them as pets.  Time for a massive media campaign.  Perhaps through a blog or something.

Trust © Kerry Hardy

 

Born Free (sort of): June 16

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The ravens are returning to the wild.

We’ve waited until they’re confident in their flying and they can safely evade predators.  Unfortunately, I’ve been away for the reintroduction and it’s fallen on Kerry Hardy’s shoulders.  Don’t get me wrong.  Despite his shameful and perennial unemployment and his poor standing in his wife’s eyes, he’s capable enough.  He’s from Maine, after all.  But what an opportunity to miss.

High wind day at Hopi.  Kerry went up on the ramada despite it all and removed the straw bale windbreak and the nest.  Two  of the birds pretty much  out and about for most of the day while the other two stuck to the yard.

Prison Yard © Kerry Hardy

 

Killing Prejudice

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Hanging © Andrew Lewis

I think I’ve had it.  Forget this abortion we call civilization.

A few days ago our house sitter called all in a panic.  The vibe in the neighborhood was getting bad, she said.  The neighbor was upset because the birds were going to get his corn.  And they were loud.  Another was upset because they were flying to his house and shitting in his yard.  Another complained that one of the birds was calling outside her son’s window in a threatening way.

They’re birds.  Simply birds.  And they’re beautiful.  Beautiful when they squawk.  Beautiful when they fly.

They care for one another.  They don’t sell meth. They don’t kill their spouses or their young.  They don’t watch TV.  How many ways can I count my love for thee?

The following evening our neighbor returned one of the ravens to us.  It was threatening his corn, he said.  Never mind that his corn is only a couple inches high and that the birds don’t yet feed themselves.  

The bird was injured.  He wouldn’t take food and he couldn’t move his wings.  By the next morning he was dead.  Our house sitter buried him in the desert.

Every Hopi who’s heard of our raven adventure has expressed aversion.  Not just surprise, but something close to downright disgust.  They’re ugly black birds.  And they eat the corn.  I might as well tell folks that I’m raising rats.  

Last fall I found a bag of shotgun shells and a bottle of soda beneath the wash nest.  A farmer had perched on the bank and set to taking pot shots at the infants.  In talking to farmers here, they here don’t distinguish between the young and the adults.  They don’t even distinguish between the ravens and the crows.  How can they set to killing them? 

A farmer once told me that he crucified the “crows” in his field because, he said, “Crows are like Navajo. They’re afraid of their own dead.”

Funny.  True on some counts, but not on others.  First off, the things hanging in his field are ravens and not crows.  Secondly, I’m sure the ravens can recognize their dead.  And they probably know to steer clear.  But isn’t that a sign of a higher intelligence?  And shouldn’t intelligence of any sort be respected?  And then there’s the likening to Navajos. In contemporary Hopi culture, they’re seen as raiders and thieves.  I can’t speak for the Navajo, but the ravens out there are as much a part of the ecosystem.  And though Hopi trump all other human occupation on the plateau,  the ravens were here long before the Hopi.

But in some ways I get it.  Crucify the bird.  Set an example.  But do it with prudence.  And attention.  And thoughtful care.

I transplanted vegetable starts last week.  Within an hour the chickens had decimated them.  Chickens and children willfully trample our gardens.  But our first instinct isn’t to haphazardly kill them and hang them in a corn field.  

And christ, if you’re going to kill it, at least know whom it is you’re killing.  Know it by it’s name.  

No.  Our first option should be to figure it out.  In the garden incident, I erected a small chicken wire barrier around the vegetables.  In another, I might discuss the matter with the child. 

Isn’t it our responsibility to protect without killing?  If not, what are we then, but beasts?

Crucifixion © Andrew Lewis

What Good Are These Damn Birds?

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Easy enough.

In recent years, what have we learned about them?

They may have more distinct vocalizations than any other bird.  Some believe they may have a highly developed language.  Although they’re frequently confused with crows, they are distinct both in a behavior and appearance:  they’re larger, have longer more pronounced beaks, a bearded tuft beneath their chins.  They raise their young for up to two years.  They have extended family units and complex social networks.  They can distinguish friend from foe and can share this information with other ravens.

They’re omnivores, but primarily feed on carrion.  That means they keep things clean. They eat grasshoppers and rodents that feed on corn.

But them just things I’ve heard.  What have I personally observed?

At times when I’ve approached a nest filled with fledgelings, the male (I assume) has shadowed close (within 15 feet) making loud distress calls.  The female remained in the nest guarding the brood.  At other times, both would follow me with loud calls, chasing me away from the young.

Over the years, as I’ve worked in the yard in the early mornings, the mating pairs have settled on light posts and observed me.  When I’ve called to them, they’ve responded.  Some mornings they approach and call out during their flyover.

When we first placed the young ravens on our ramada, the parents responded to their distress calls.  Since then, they’ve made multiple flyovers, seemingly observing their young.

The parents have relocated to the wash and have joined the nesting pair there.  At times I’ve seen all four perched in the cottonwood, collectively staring toward our housing a quarter mile distant.

The young at our house each have distinct personalities: Poe, the recluse.  More, the insistent.  Never and For hunkered together like twins.  They display affection toward one another and toward us.  When spoken to, they respond with vocalizations.

They’re curious.  And keen observers.

But there’s more.

Serendipitously, they’ve also provided a new lens through which to observe the world. Through their personality and behaviors and all they’ve summoned, new realms, ideas, relationships, phenomena have risen in sharp relief.

So listen for them.  And observe.  Perhaps the best we can do is to follow their call.

Raven Dusk © Kerry Hardy

Biodegradable

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I just gave some money to Greenpeace. Why?

  1. Because it’s Father’s Day.
  2. Because my daughter will need to contend with all the environmental havoc that her father and her father’s father have wreaked on the earth.
  3. Because the young canvasser and her young mates receive so much rejection and someone from my generation should give them a bump.  Even though she told some white lies to get my donation.
  4. Because they take direct action. And direct action will be needed to help shut this baby down.
  5. Because I could get away with only giving my name and so I won’t have to get any crap from them.
  6. Because they gave me a nice sticker. And it’s biodegradable.

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Industrial Feeding

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Mazie and I drop into Sam’s Club before leaving Flag.  We need cheap food.  Some for the ravens, the rest for a catering event.  

This cavernous place feels disconcertingly inhuman.  No, inlifelike.  In a strange way, it’s our contemporary Versailles or Great Pyramid, intended to inspire awe or even drive us into submission through sheer scale and illusion of abundance.  The far walls are not even visible.  Gargantuan piles of frozen meat stretch out into the distance.  Anonymous product is stacked 20, 30, 40 feet in the air.  Even the carts are obese. 

But note the corollary: in a living or social system, quantities such as this can’t exist without foul play.  This huge amount of product must come from an equally huge place. And it requires not just massive organization; to do anything at that scale requires fundamentally the mechanization of not just things, but people and life.  I suddenly get the willies.  Sams Club can only exist through the mechanization and enslavement of living systems.  The thought makes me feel dizzy and I can’t breathe.  I grab my daughter (along with three boxes of frozen potstickers) and we head for the door and make our escape.

Safe Way

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In town, Mazie and I drop by the Safeway to get some expired meat.  The nice lady behind the counter says they have plenty.  But she can’t give it to me.  If she did, she would get fired.  Fair enough.  I exit and circle back around to rifle through the dumpster only to discover that it’s hermetically sealed and accessible only via a closed chute that leads in from the store.

Yet again the ravens have provided a new lens through which to see the world.  Without them, I wouldn’t know this wonderful fact about Safeway.  As my friend Kerry pointed out, “it’s safe.”  We can’t get expired meat there.  Or rather, meat that has passed “the date”.

And what is this thing about the “date”? It’s basically a random number designed to keep the store “safe” from liability.  How often have we purchased food that’s bad before the date or stays fresh for weeks after?  But we often treat the “date” as gospel.  Despite the reality that truly good food has no date because a) it comes fresh from a field or animal or b) is so unladen with preservatives that it will of course turn immediately.  

The nice lady behind the meat counter, though, gives me her husband’s phone number.  He works in animal control.  Basically kills raccoons and things that bother people.  Nice.

We may be able to use the rotting carcasses, however.  He says he’ll get back to me after he checks the regulations.

God knows.  They’re dead.  We’re not.  All safe.

Thought Full Raven © Kerry Hardy

Learning is Fun

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Three ravens came down from the ramada today.  One takes to drinking water from the bird bowl. The others pick and pull at cardboard, straw, bread scraps in the yard.  They peck at loose material with their beaks, feeling their way through the world, learning about different materials. 

We learn through play and exploration.  We take flight, not because it’s time to feed ourselves and wing flapping will help us do so.  Sometimes we fly out of fear like Poe did yesterday.  But mostly we take flight just because it’s fun.  We learn through play.  We also learn from our peers.    One raven left up top, calls out yet to the others, afraid to make the leap.  Their presence down below goads him. I can’t help but think that they’re also observing the other birds and picking up something of how to fly.  Self-feeding is learned behavior.  I wonder too about flying. In the absence of true parents, how quickly will they learn what to do?

They will be left to learn only through play.  Feral, without society and species context, what new world will they discover and invent?

Self Feeding © Kerry Hardy

 

 

First Flight

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© Kerry Hardy

Raven Heir © Kerry Hardy

Richard from the radio station and Tony Dukepoo over to see the birds.  We see Poe in the distance walking out in the desert.  We approach him, and though he’s fine with me alone, the three large mammals unnerve him.  He struts away quickly, stretches his wings and soars low over the scrub and then high into the air, alighting on the neighbor’s house.  He did it.  His body knew exactly what to do. 

—

The next day the hospital pair and the wash pair appear to circle above the ramada.  But no!  It more likely seems to be the adolescents, the four children of the wash pair, flying and exploring.  They soar at a distance, mount on the light posts, and look this way.  They call out to our young ones. who fail to respond.

—-

On Saturday afternoon the winds pick up.  The four wash fledgelings fly confidently now.  They circle above, leaving our ravens look out at them.  I wonder if they feel longing or curiosity.  I fear they may not see themselves as like those birds that can take to the air.

Later the parents sit right outside the fence.  When I step outside, they quickly take loft and circle over the young ones, calling.  Take flight, they seem to say.  Please take flight.

The next day at dawn, only two birds remain in the nest.  Poe and More are gone.  Later I find them atop a house across the street.  They watch me plant in the yard and weakly soar back, still learning to use those wings.  I reserve my greatest affection for Poe.  He stands apart, aloof or independent.  He doesn’t ask for much.  He leads the way, the first to explore and learn to use his beak.

I’m so proud of them all though. They’re so prehistoric.  They were dinosaurs once and the big rock hit and most of the other’s died, but these ones, they survived.  They figured it out. They are emissaries from the past, from that horrible day that took out most life on this planet.  But it did not take them.  Their ancestors took flight, and disappeared into and became one with that black smoky apocalyptic night.

 

Trust

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Our neighbor worries that the ravens are eating his corn.  We try to ease his concerns.  The ravens are too young yet.  They can’t feed themselves.  They’re carnivores.  They don’t give a rip about his corn just coming up.

But preconceptions and prejudices are hard to break.  

Hopi don’t like black looking birds because they supposedly destroy their crops.  There’s a simple solution, however.  The best Hopi farmers plant extra for the rodents and birds.  In a resource rich environment predators cease to be a problem. 

In which case perhaps we need to unlearn our distrust.  Trust and distrust, afterall, are also learned responses.  Ideally we first learn trust.  When we come into the world our mothers and fathers greet us with love and caring, food and nurture. 

But if a harsh world greets us, we can just as easily  learn distrust.  A scary dog chases the chickens and they learn to fear dogs.  A farmer shoots ravens and they learn to steer clear of the farmers.  

More comes down yesterday on the other side of the fence.  Chester, the stray pit, ambles up and nuzzles him.  He’s already shown something like affection toward the birds.  I note the variety of species running and flitting about the yard and getting along.  Two varieties of chickens, hummingbirds, doves, cats, dogs, wild birds, ravens, humans.  We all largely mind our own business.  We’ve all learned that this is a resource abundant, safe environment and we respond accordingly.  Introduce hunger though, and hunger will breed desire, desire begets aggression and soon we’ll all be going at each other.

The ravens sit on the fence and I talk to them. They listen and respond with their murmurs.

My heart goes out to Heinrich, and I appreciate (just a bit) the difficulty of observing and being with something that is supposed to exist in the wild.  Even our remote presence or insertion of a variable disrupts the process.  At this point, we don’t have wild fledgelings; their behavior may in fact be some weird hybrid of raven, people and chicken.  What ill-equipped monsters are we creating?

This is a terrible thing.

I still can’t help but talk to the ravens though.  They can trust me, I tell them.  They can trust Pearish and Kerry and the others that feed them.  We won’t hurt them.  But they can’t trust anyone else.  They can’t trust the world, I tell them. The world will hurt them.  Most other humans will hurt them.  I feel a sudden sadness in this recognition.  That’s what we are as a species:  the ones that hurt others.  We will eat anything in sight.  We disdain a creature just because it shits in a plot we consider our yard.  We will kill other living things just for the sport of it.  Sometimes we gain pleasure in hurting.  We’re sick.

Emancipation comes in honoring another life over your own.  Curbing your own appetite so that another may live.

I want the ravens to stay with us.  I want them as friends.  But that’s my selfish desire and I can’t impose it on them.  The day may come when I will have scare the bejesus out of them.  They may have to become terrified of us.  Just so that they may live.

© Kerry Hardy

 

Cages

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A recent visitor asked what sort of cage he would need to keep a pet raven.  What to say?    Except that we can’t own another living thing.  No animal.  No plant.  Not even our children.  I was about to say “our own children.”   They are autonomous forces moving freely through the world.  A raven was born to fly.  Humans were born to walk.  Not live in cages.  Not stay at home forever.  Would we consider caging our own children?  How then could we do that to a raven?

Let’s be honest though.  How is our raven experiment truly any different?  The ravens stay at our house even though they’re not caged. They may end up staying because we feed them. Or because they sense this a safe place.  Or worse yet, because they are learning to be with humans and not their own kind.  In which case we will have erected a far worse cage – the one that exists in their own mind.

By extension, what cages have we erected about ourselves they keep us from doing things?  The should’ves.  The have to’s.  The “it’s easier”.  Or more comfortable.  Or we don’t know any different.  Or “it’s what everybody else does.”  Or it’s always been that way.  Or the huh – I don’t know.  Never thought about it.  Or I’m scared.  Or the I don’t know how to.  Or my own kind vs. their own kind.  Or my ideas.  My own mind.  Your own mind.  Us.  Them.

Categories are learned behavior.  Other learning would result in other categories.  We often pass learned behavior off as knowledge.  But this knowledge doesn’t exist a priori as an absolute truth.  It’s the framing of the universe through the senses and experience and information available to us.  Other species with other sense organs or physical experiences may perceive it entirely differently.  A raven raised in a yard only knows the yard.  The ravens in the wash, why they’re wash ravens.  Their neural pathways, if only slightly, will evolve differently.  If even in that a wash raven doesn’t trust us.  And the yard ravens do.

I’m scared.  We need to make them go.

© Kerry Hardy

Food

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We continue to teach them to feed.  In medieval Europe they foretold death. They would recognize approaching armies and flocks would fly ahead in anticipation of the carnage. 

In the times to come, these birds may be our harbingers and beacons.  Watch carefully and they may serve as guides.  In payment they will dine on our flesh.  And pick out our eyes.

They need to learn to feed. On other things and then one day on us and then we will see again and our bodies will soar.

© Kerry Hardy

Feeding

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The ravens are learning to feed themselves.  Kind of.  You would think that feeding would come naturally to any living thing.  But with these birdies, perhaps most birdies, it’s different.  As young fledgelings, they call, you drop food in their gaping gullets and they’re happy.  You put food down in front of them, however, and they don’t get it.  They don’t pick at it, they don’t look at it, they walk on it, walk past it, do just about anything but recognize it as food.

Kerry thinks it’s a cognitive thing.  Food is something that is dropped in your mouth, it’s not something lying about.

So now the new method.  Dangle the meat in their mouths and slowly lead their beaks down to the nest and drape the food on the branches.  Hopefully they get the idea and pick it up themselves.  After a few tries, they mostly get it.

Poe, oddly enough, seems to have the most difficulty.  He’s the first to take flight.  Most mornings he’s perched on the fence or the roof or the hammock, or across the street on someone’s car.  He’s figuring out the wing thing pretty quickly, but when it comes to food, he can be starving, but won’t approach to grab the meat. You have to go to him.  And he has a heck of a time positioning himself properly, in some cases twisting himself into an avian pretzel.

But you have to have faith. Earlier I’d watched one of the chickens eye the bird feeder hungrily.  After some consideration, he followed the example of the finches and hopped to the top of the fence and commenced to feed with them.  Fortunately for us and for chickens, if hungry enough, even a dinosaur can learn to fly.

Later from below I watch Kerry dangle a strip of flesh above a waiting beak.  Who’s training who?  I see us doing this day after day.  In this sparse environment,  I suddenly understand how invention leads to habit. Habit becomes ritual.  Ritual, ceremony.  And ceremony becomes religion.  Each spring, legions of our descendants will ritually feed a captive raven in the spring.  It will symbolize stewardship and love for all creatures.  We will have forgotten how it all began in the first place.

Feeding © Kerry Hardy

350

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That’s the maximum number of CO2 parts per million that the planet can tolerate and still sustain life as we know it.

We are presently at 392.

I heard Bill Mckibben speak (for the third time) yesterday. I was reminded of why he was once such a hero of mine.

I remember when I read his first climate change article. Vermont. 1997. The Atlantic. Presaging Elizabeth Kolbert and Al Gore by a decade, he observed that something serious was happening to our planet, that if we didn’t act soon to curtail carbon emissions we would soon pass the tipping point.

His current message: we’re too late.

In the last few decades the global temperature has risen by one degree. 2010 was the hottest year on record. Last year we experienced cataclysmic drought in Russia leading to massive crop failure.  Last year grain prices spiked 70%.  Similarly Australian agricultural production has been decimated by severe drought and flooding. As the atmosphere warms, it holds more moisture.  Dry places are becoming drier.  Wet places face super storms.

All that is the consequence of one degree. We have enough carbon front loaded into the system that in the coming decades we will face another degree increase. Nothing we do can stop this. The consequences won’t be pretty.

If we don’t stop mining, pumping, and burning, the atmosphere will increase a third degree. That’s when things, as far as homo sapien civilization is concerned, will probably come to an end.

I won’t live to experience it. My daughter will. This I know.

What can I do now to help her?

1. Push back to 350. That means I have to stop adding carbon to the system. The effects of this action made today, though, won’t be felt for another 25 or 50 or 100 years. It’s a longterm play, and a small hedge at that.

2. Push for political action . Five weeks ago our congress passed a resolution denying the existence of global warming. The current administration may soon approve large infrastructure development to support the mining of tar sands in Canada.  McKibben calls now for mass action and civil disobedience. Especially by older people. Without even thinking we and our parents created this damn mess.

3. Community. Courage. Connection. These are from my friend Amy Levek. To that I would add compassion.

We’ve come to rely on very complex technical systems. If those fail us, what will sustain us? Human relations. Along with the courage to act. And the courage to face that which we fear most. And connection to a single place. If we feel that connection, if we realize that the place is us, then we won’t violate it. We can’t. Lastly compassion, the opening of the heart. We all will suffer. Some more than others. We all will need it.

Happiness

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Morning words from directors Tom Shadyac and Roko Belic:

A biological system that takes more than it needs is dead. By definition it is deadness. It is cancer.

What is this thing that we have created? We relentlessly mine the earth for everything we can. Taking taking taking. Mine, mine, mine. Then we dam the rivers, not to harness, but to steal the life energy of the water. Dam the river. Kill the water.

This is what we’ve become. Mine, mine, mine. Damn, damn, damn.

Time to stop.

Zero is where the fun starts. Everything else is too much counting.

Inspiration

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Picks from this afternoon’s screenings:

Barber of Birmingham. Simple men and women standing up. And being beaten down. And standing up again. And crossing that bridge on Bloody Sunday on the march to
Montgomery. And a delicious reminder of the euphoria of that 2008 election.

A Time Has Come. Six Greenpeace activists scale the interior of a coal power plant smokestack and effectively shut it down in the belief that the emission of CO2 is a crime against the planet. A story which, in this town and at this time, can only be received in the context of Tim DeChristopher (aka Bidder 70) who singlehandedly halted oil and gas development in parts of Utah by making fraudulent bids in a public auction. He now faces 10 years of jail time. And he has said publicly that he is happier and more at peace than he has ever been in his entire life.

What action would we give our lives for to make the world a better place?