Raven Stories
My relationship with raven began early in my life. My parents died when I was three. I was at my grandparents home, a large former farmhouse full of people of various generations. I was outside on a bright late spring afternoon and pushing one of those rickety little iron doll carriages that were so common then. I was pushing it across some gravel by the chicken coop, blissfully unaware of anything but the warmth and comfort of the spring sun. Suddenly, out of apparently nowhere a raven lighted on the handle less than a foot from my face. I was a small child and it was a huge bird, and yet I felt only a gentle curiosity. The bird, making no sound but a gentle sound, once, deep in its throat, looked directly into my eyes and I, enchanted, stared back. We had a moment that raven and I, until people came streaming out of the house, yelling and rushing to me and grabbing me up, as the bird audibly snorted and flew away. They were quite alarmed when they saw the bird so close to me, but I was merely disappointed at having such a wonderful moment interrupted. For that entire summer when I was outside, that bird would be at a small distance from me. Sometimes he chattered but mostly he was silent. When winter came he disappeared, but I have never lost my fascination for ravens.
When I was in my forties, huge crows, relatives of, but not ravens, came to Burlington, Vermont. Apparently with the increasing encroachment of development on farmlands they came in from the countryside to scavenge in the city. Once, while in a one of the city's New England, small town scale neighborhoods I took a nine p.m. walk to the store. It was in spring. I felt eyes watching me, then suddenly a nearly deafening noise of so many crows, They had developed a rookerie in one of the trees and their numbers were immense. I arrived at the store and on my way back, hurried as quietly as I could down the other side of the street. I really concentrated on being quiet and I did not once glance in their direction. I didn’t dare, I was afraid that even glancing at them, they would feel me watching them. It was the only time in my life I have ever felt anything akin to primal fear. In days and weeks and seasons after that, my large tomcat would try stalking them. They would lead him out onto the limb of a tree. There they would converse, taunting him. He was so aggressive a cat he would keep trying to get further out onto the small end of the limb. They would sit just out of reach at the very end and squawk at him – egging him on as the branch began to give under his weight. He would finally go too far out on the delicate end and he would fall and the bird would flutter and squawk.. and alit again in the tree.
When I arrived in Alaska in 1997, I was fortunate to get a cabin just a narrow lane away from Kotzebue sound. It was a small but tightly built log cabin consisting of two rooms, one of which WAS the bed, with a full efficiency kitchen and bath and luckily, running water. It cost quite a bit by any standard; $800 a month. Utilities were not included and it was heated by a small monitor stove that for the first two years nearly asphyxiated me, and often ceased to work, generally around midnight. Nevertheless I loved that place, not for its interior but for its proximity to the ice. In the nine months a year it was frozen, I could watch the snogoes come in from villages up river or across the ice, their lights bouncing up and down as they hit ridges and ruts in the ice. It was there I saw the northern lights and danced beneath them on the ice. Being directly under them with nothing but the big ice on three sides is an experience that is hard to describe. I almost felt that as I craned my neck back to look up a them, that I was being lifted, pulsating in tandem with their rhythmic movements. Walking that narrow fragile gravel spit in the dark winter mornings, I saw snow that sparkled like diamonds, and I saw the ravens too. They are immense birds. I once saw one flying with ice on its wings. The sound of their wings cuts through the silent winter air with a quiet but powerful awe-inspiring drone.
It was one spring day there too, when the ice was still tight and the snow berm formed by plowing lined the sides of the small lane that separated me from the sound, that a group of adolescent ravens were sitting on the berm. A small yellow dog, a puppy really, came nosing his way down the lane and the ravens began tormenting him. There is no other word that will do. They would take turns dive-bombing him and flying to within a hair of him and when he frighted and ran the other way - another raven would do the same but from the other direction. After each of these dive-bombing missions, they would rejoin the cluster of ravens on the berms and rub shoulders with them and they literally shook their shoulders as if chuckling. This actually went on for some time. I watched with fascination. They soon got bored and went on their way. I saw that dog for another year or two and he always remained skittish, rarely willing to go anywhere with out the man who owned him.
Some years later I moved to " the valley"> Matanuska Susitna valley, to live in old Knik. Sunny Knik, so named for its microclimate, is inhabited by many end of the roaders, dogmushers, recluses and other odd folk. IN fact I moved into a dogmushing household. The ravens hadn't been here before then but arrived the second season of my living there. They would squawk and gurgle and I learned how to talk back. We had fun. They began to pick on our dogs and the neighbors dogs. They would sit up in the trees near our dogs and bark at them. At first the dogs found this hugely annoying and barked and barked back. Gradually they simply ignored the ravens, resigned I suppose to their proximity. It was not just parroting, the sarcasm is unmistakable to me and I suppose the dogs know too that these blackwinged creatures are mocking them but also knew they had been bested by the ravens. One raven particularly to this day likes to tease one dog in the neighbors dogyard. The dogs are sleddogs and tied to a stake that allows them to run in circles and get into their houses when tied up. One raven struts just barely out of reach in front of this one dog. At some point the raven will cross some ill-defined line, and the dog will lunge at the raven. The dog lunges with great force and is jerked back by the end of its chain as the raven skips a step or two out of reach.. then audibly chortles. The dog becomes dejected after some time and it takes longer for the raven to get him to lunge. Sometimes the raven's partner, (they tend to travel in pairs and sometimes with young children. The adolescents form medium to large groups until they pair off) sometimes this particular raven will have his partner watch and they trade comments, about the dog I suspect. After tiring of this and facing an increasingly dejected dog, they fly off.
Not last fall but the one before, a small but vocal chocolate point Siamese cat arrived at our door. She was loudly insisting just outside our door and so we opened it and in she came. That first night she slept between our pillows, on her back with her dark chocolate paws stretched out over her head, her beige colored belly bared to the world. I just knew she had to be someone's baby but we never could find who owned her. We named her Baby. Shortly after that, two other cats showed up and they too were absorbed into our household. Baby and one of the others turned out to be pregnant, despite his name of Mr.Stripes. I can explain simply by saying the cat is very fluffy and it seemed impolite to poke around. It wasn't until Mr. Stripes became suddenly pudgy that we realized our misnaming. Mr. Stripes is now Miss Flopsy-Mopsy, so named for her habit of flopping down. At any rate we survived the kittens, found them homes and had all three cats fixed. They do not use a litter box and this requires someone to always be on standby call to act as Chief of Staff for the cats. Most of it is door duty. They meow to go out and they meow to come in. With the exception of Baby who, being Siamese, talks a lot, they are otherwise silent. They are mighty hunters and have pretty well done away with the shrew population. In the summer we keep the doors open to cut down on our Chief of Staff duties. This results in having to dodge the occasional live bird they bring into the house. They hunt, play with, kill and occasionally eat the shrews. Usually though they leave the dead bodies around, either whole or partially eaten. This I suppose has attracted the attention of the three ravens who live among and beside us. I also suppose the ravens have heard the cats meowing to come in, which is when they are most likely to leave dead shrews on the deck. One morning this May, as I was lying in bed listening to the many songbirds that twitter in our yard, I heard the raven again. This time he was real close- if not on our deck. He was saying in his unmistakable mocking way, auk MEOW, auk auk MEOW. I just started laughing.
I emailed a few friends about the incident. An elder from up north (Inupiaq), gave me a word of advice, telling me not to mess with the ravens She told me that their tradition is that if you abuse ravens you or your family members will have very bad luck or misfortune. They are a very smart species. Also the weather turns bad with very cold west winds, etc. She ended by saying that I should just enjoy their unique performances, etc. I wrote back to tell her a little of my respect for ravens and fondness for them really. She wrote again to tell me of a time when she was out in camp and some movement outside caught her eye. It was a raven sliding done a piece of snow-covered board tilted at an angle. He would slide down then get up and do it again. all of this has turned into this long story. I know the interior people the Athabascans, believe Raven is a spiritual being who gave us light and is known as a trickster, Likewise the Irish too have ideas about Raven. He is a major totem of the old druidic goddess Bride or Bridget. What scientists now know is that Ravens can make 64 separate sounds, only some of which I have learned. The startling thing to scientists is that they can also create language and teach it to one another. This was never thought to be something birds did before and now it has opened entire new fields of scientific study. Scientific study is fine, even if a little silly in its shortsightedness. Any one watching these birds has to know some intelligence is at work there. Humor is a sign of intelligence and these birds certainly have that! The older I become the more I think of that first bird that lighted on my doll carriage handle, the moment we had and the fondness that remains with me to this day.
