In Winged Collaboration

I had the most amazing experience in Minneapolis last week, sitting outside on the deck behind my mother's place. We heard crows talking, talking really loudly for a few minutes and I sensed that it was an emergency.  I had heard a story and saw an iphone picture of a red-tailed hawk in the vicinity, that had killed a duck, by the back of the building a few days earlier.  There is a large swampy water area there with lots of wildlife- birds and ducks, four precious goslings and their parents, baby ducklings, rabbits, and squirrels- that we had been watching from my mother's third floor apartment and on the deck.  Listening to the crows caw caw caw, I thought the hawk must be back for another meal.  Sure enough, just as that thought crossed my mind, we saw him/her, huge, flying above our heads with four black crows circling around, escorting this bird of prey out of the neighborhood. The crows appeared small in comparison to the wingspan of the Red-tailed hawk, their body size maybe half that of the hawk, but together flying in cooperation, they made quite a stellar force.  I love them all, the hawks and the crows, all the winged ones; I could not take sides but just watch in awe at their aerial battle.  

A spectacle to behold for those of us living in condensed cities, it's rare to get a glimpse of these PBS type moments. I do not mean that in a flip way, but in reverence for nature and and the profound experiences we miss when we are stuck in traffic jams on freeways that are anything but free when we look at the high price of petroleum dependence.  I know I diverge but the crows made me think about cooperation and collaboration. This hawk could easily take on one of the crows but not four at a time.  Together the crows were keeping their neighborhood alerted to the danger approaching and as a team they worked to pilot the hawk from the area.  

I am reading the book Moral Ground now, a compilation of essays by some environmentally conscious folks.  A few of my favorite writers and many more names I am unfamiliar with, all writing about the climate and the pressing need for us to come together in solidarity around the daunting challenge to amend our ways. Barbara Kingsolver in her essay, How to Be Hopeful, says, "in the awful moment when somebody demands at gunpoint, "Your money or your life," [it's] not supposed to be a hard question."  We could choose life. The Dalai Lama says in the same book, "[t]o counteract ... harmful practices we can teach ourselves to be more aware of our own mutual dependence.  Every sentient being wants happiness instead of pain.  So we share a common basic feeling.  We can develop right action to help the earth and each other based upon better motivation."

Certainly, I hope to live to see change.  I hope to live to see humanity work better together, in collaboration like the crows, to adjust our ways and alert to danger approaching, transform. 

Red-tailed Hawk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=McIg8fT4mck