A meditation on the encounter between human consciousness and the wholeness of the natural world, told through the circling of a crow over a forest valley. This piece weaves ecological immersion with mystical reflection, moving from the crow’s presence, to the human condition of separation and back to the possibility of wholeness. It explores the seer’s vision, the language of birds, trees and rivers and the question of what it means for humans to return our wholeness to the Earth.
The Circle of the Crow
Above me, a crow circles, tracing invisible thermals through the morning forest air. She draws graceful arcs across a soundscape of birdsong, her black feather tips brushing the sacred chorus of their dawn prayers. I had called to her before I came, asking her to show me her ways, to share her vision of the world. And as I summitted this peak, she was there in the sky within minutes of my arrival. Her feathers shrilled as she brushed overhead, within metres of where I now sit to write. Then, she glided into the chasm of river pools and canopy shadows, toward the hidden perch where I’ve returned, year after year, to remember the wholeness that waits in the peace of nature.
She swoops and soars, gliding above the forest canopy, her eyes gathering the world into herself like reflections on black water. She turns in another arc, slicing through the still morning air and our eyes catch each other’s as she passes again. In that moment, there is a recognition, of our shared flesh, our entwined psyche, the unity between the seer and the seen.
The sun rises steadily, filling the cauldron of this forest valley. Birdsong pours from the canopy, punctuating the silence that gathers below. Soft clouds drift across the sky, tempering the new light. There is stillness here and that stillness settles within me. I look again at the crow, silently sailing across her domain and I wonder what it must be like to see the world through her eyes. She is a mirror of the world, a keeper of its breath from her lofty view. It feels as though she is always watching, observing, weaving the invisible fabric of this place inside herself. A resonant symbiosis: Life looking back upon itself, a breathing wholeness travelling within its own body. The crow is the vision of Mother Nature, the eyes by which She gazes upon her own wholeness. This is her role: To be the seer, the watcher, to carry the whole world inside her belly, and to breathe life back into it through her vision.
In the old days, it was the seer who entered the crow’s vision to glimpse beyond this world. Entire cultures were attuned to the wholeness of Nature, to the living mind of Mother Earth. Through the crow’s eyes, the seer could journey across realms, fetching sight from places both real and mystical. It is said that all crows still carry this ancient relationship in their memory. And I wonder how much we have lost, now that this bond has been forgotten.
She watches in silence, cawing now and then in a language we no longer understand. She knows every tree, every rocky outcrop, the valley floor, the bend of the river. She sees the world and holds it as her own body, an inseparable wholeness of this place. She is a single note in the song of creation: In the chorus of forest birds, the hum of insects, the meandering stream that winds its way to the ocean.
Around me, echoing the crow’s mirroring, I settle into the connective tissue of this place and observe. A sunbird flashes vermilion feathers, sparkling in the morning light as it dips its long beak into a waiting flower. A bumblebee buzzes awkwardly past, pollen baskets heavy with golden treasure. Beneath a stone I turned over, a black scorpion sits motionless, incubating in the shadow of daylight, waiting for its chance at a meal. The first signs of spring flowers colour the green forest in pink, red, purple, yellow and orange. Overhead, noisy Egyptian geese erupt in their clanking flight. This place is a meditation of rhythms and cycles, of life’s unfolding wholeness.
Beyond what I see are the forest calls: A troupe of baboons barking orders and chattering far away, the subtle hum of the stream falling over rocks below and, further still, the raw bite of a chainsaw. Yet the crow continues circling, gliding, cawing to the trees below. She watches the day unfold, the flowers opening to the sun, the leaves drinking in the light. And nowhere in her bearing is there boredom, nor any search for meaning. Her whole body embraces the totality of simply being alive: A living testament to sentient wholeness. She is free from the burdens humans have made for themselves. Her secret is simple and profound, she does not do in order to be. She is simply the crow. She does not need meaning. She is already within it.
By contrast, we carry the weight of self-awareness, gift and burden both. It leaves us feeling apart from what we are and so we make the world an adverse place by believing ourselves separate from it. This is our human lot: To bear the sense of estrangement from Nature, even while our bones and blood know we are Her body. We have been imbued with the mysterious power to create whole worlds within this world, a psyche of separation. And yet, those who descend into the depths of self-discovery, into individuation, reclaim their wholeness again.
We are a journey: From wholeness, into separation and back again. We leave the circle only to experience the confusion and agony of separation, so that one day we may rediscover and return. This, perhaps, is our greatest gift, our unique presence in the world. The birds remind us of it constantly: That creation needs our consciousness, a certain quality of being, to be present within the song of life. Perhaps the greatest offering a person can make is to return their wholeness to the world.
The seers of old seemed to know this mystery. Through initiation into the depths of their own psyche, they uncovered an innate wholeness where ecology and psyche mirrored one another. In this chiasmic crossing, the barrier between species dissolved. They learned the language of birds, of trees, of rivers and skies. They could enter the crow’s eyes, become the budding medicinal flower, call down rain in conversation with clouds. They knew the Earth to be a living, reciprocal entanglement of consciousness, a fractal touched at any point to reveal the whole. Her body is the holy sacrament, the medicine returning us into her embrace.
So when we sit in Nature and enter into Her mind, the Tao, we become the conscious wholeness of Her being. That is the gift of human consciousness: A wholeness given back to the Earth, for the sake of the whole. We leave the centre only to discover it again, in the work of participatory restoration.
The breeze stirs gently as the wind off the southern ocean sighs onto the land, carrying a new fragrance through the forest and shifting the day. Ocean and wind begin their chorus, as if Nature herself takes a deep breath and the morning rituals draw to a close. The air shifts; the mood shifts. The sun burns brighter, my shirt comes off, the page I write on seems whiter. The birds pause their singing, listening now to the wind’s music in the leaves, absorbing its scents, attuning to the stories it carries.
Only the chainsaw misses this stillness, oblivious to the symphony. Its grinding roar enslaves the day to time, tempo and labour, detonating the silence with its single-minded intent.
After a while, the birds begin to sing again, this time with the wind. Their song rises as a respectful gesture, welcoming the ocean’s breath into the forest. The air swirls with fragrance and music, leaves and branches moving in chorus. And then the crow glides past once more, tracing her circle of dominion. Watching. Present. Unbroken. Here. In her steady circling I glimpse our own return: A reminder that separation is not the end of the story, but the path by which we rediscover the wholeness we never lost.
And as she circles, I realise she is not only watching the valley, but watching me. Watching us. The crow does not ask for meaning and yet she offers it freely, her flight a reminder that life itself is the circle, whole and unbroken. Perhaps our task is not to escape the burden of self-awareness, but to bring it home: To remember that we, too, belong to the song of the Earth. The crow carries the world in her belly; we carry the gift of knowing. And when the two meet, in silence, in stillness, in the breath between bird and human, wholeness returns again.
