Omens and Portents

First, I'll talk about the Omens (For the purposes of this post; omens will refer to "real and verifiable" events, and portents will refer to subjective events such as dreams, hallucinations, and inner thoughts). Then I'll look at a couple of Portents.

Omen #1) The disappearance of the crows. As anyone who has talked to me on the phone when I am on my deck can tell you, the crows that live in my neighborhood are as much a part of the local soundscape as the reggae-jazz-blues-country-pop-triphop jukebox that is my computer and the playlists it uses to satisfy my need for music. Well the other day after work , I was enjoying a very peaceful beer and cigarette to the tunes of Count Basie, when I noticed that something was a little off. It took me a while, but I finally got it: no crows. The crows around here are constantly bickering about some shit that matters only to them. Like old queens who have lived together for far too long, there's no real argument; its just the way they talk to each other. After a little refection, I realized that the crows had been gone for a couple of days. Like the demise of the Anasazi, the disappearance of the crows raises questions. Why did they leave so completely and suddenly? Where did they go? Is there something they are aware of in the future of our area that humans cannot perceive? Were they banished from our area by some frightful avian Deity? Will they be back? (They are back, but fewer and quieter than before the Exodus.)

Omen #2) The four needle bundle. A day or so after I noticed the absence of the crows, I was enjoying my usual after work outdoor idleness with the requisite soft core drugs, when LO! into my lap fell a pine needle bundle (a pine needle bundle refers to the way the needles are attached to the tree: there are two, three, or five needles to a bundle, the needles are held together at the top [tree or branch end] by a wrapping of bark like material). On a windy day any number of such bundles are blown off the trees and fly about a while before coming to rest on the ground, where they stay until they rot. The cover of pine needles on the forest floor is essential in helping the soil retain what little moisture it gets from rainstorms. Once again, I digress. What qualifies this needle bundle as an omen is that it consisted of four needles. I have pretty good success at identifying the trees around here and I have never seen a four needle bundle before. I am in my sixties and have already forgotten more than most people will ever know, but the idea that there was a tree that I didn't know in my stomping grounds intrigued me, so I dug out my copy of the Rocky Mountain Tree Finder by Tom Watts. Well, turns out I was right. There are no pines in the Rockies that produce four needle bundles (or anywhere else as far as I could determine). More questions: Are four needle bundles like four leaf clovers; rare but not unknown? Is there a mutant tree in my area? What are the odds of a four leaf clover anomaly flying around on a fairly calm day during an exodus of crows and dropping out of the sky right into the middle of my lap? This has got me puzzled, but it's not freakin' me out. (yet)

Portent #1) An audio -visual hallucination. One week ago today, I was looking through my email and just generally piddling aound on my computer when I heard what I thought at the time was some one walking by outside the window across the room behind me. Then the sound seemed to be at the window itself. I got up to see what was going on. As I rose from my chair and turned toward the window, which is next to my bed, I saw and heard what appeared to be a small cat or ground squirrel run out from under the bed and then back again. At this time both the the front and back doors to my digs were closed. The bathroom window was open, and it has no real screen. What it does have is a mesh of spider webs (being the only way in or out for insects it is the perfect spot for a web, and the two spiders that live in the window frame reap a rich harvest). Anyways I looked high and low for the animal that I had seen. Not a trace. Spider webs intact. My living unit is tiny. If anything larger than a dormouse was in my apartment I would be able to locate it in less than five minutes. I searched for half an hour for the critter that I was certain I had seen. Now, in my younger years I have taken many mind altering and hallucinagenic drugs, some of which could pruduce vision and sounds that could easily mistaken for reality. So you might say that I am on speaking terms with things that ain't there. This was different than a drug induced vision. I may just be going nuts. If I am, it's a very subtle process.

Portent #2) A dream with a voice-over at the end. I had a dream a day or two before I noticed that the crows were gone. In the dream, I was given (by whom I know not) a series of puzzle-like tasks to complete before I could rejoin my visit with a woman I had been learning some semi-magical skills from earlier in the dream (she was also introducing me to people that it was important for me to me to meet). Since I like puzzles and enjoy solving them the dream was not at all distressing, but every time I thought I had completed the task more puzzles would be presented. (I know, I know, Nothing more boring than other people's dreams.) Now for the portent: my alarm went off to wake me from the dream. Then when I was fully awake and getting out of bed to go into the kitchen and make coffee, I heard a voice (not mine I assure you) say, "you've got 'til (I'm not gonna publish the date) to figure this out, or we're all in deep shit!" Who can imagine what that's all about. As ones gets older do dreams persist into wakefulness? Am I hearing angels finally, after all my years of self denial and piety? Somehow I doubt it.

There's more, and lots of it, but some is too personal and some is just too fantastic to put in this blog. Let's just say that I have reason to believe somethin's up but I'll be damned if I can tell you what it is.

Todays music pick: Serve You Right To Suffer by John Lee Hooker. Just great blues!

Today's recommended read: Find some more of Jim Harrison and read it. I guarantee you won't be wasting your time.

Today's Quote:

The moon comes up,
the moon goes down.
This is to inform you
that I didn't die young.
Age swept past me,
but I caught up.

Excerpt from Jim Harrison's poem " Barking "

Thanks for stoppin' by.

The Lizard's Funeral

Here it is finally; the story of the lizard's funeral.
As a custodian in a rural elementary school, I take care of about half the school (head start, kindergarten, first grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade plus some other stuff). When working around kids this age there is always something new going on. As I have mentioned elsewhere in this space, I don't have any kids myself, and I have only been at this job for one full school year. The younger kids are really a trip. They have not yet been molded into a uniformity of thought and action that destroys spontaneity and imagination. My favorites are the kindergarten tots. In some ways they often seem, to me at least, like willful little adults who haven't yet learned to read or reason, but nevertheless have their own agenda and are by golly stickin' to it. I found one little girl carrying a book back to the library, very upset and on the verge of tears. I asked what the trouble was and she replied (as close as I can recall) that she had mistreated the book and had to go to the librarian to face the music and dance. Well, I have had some experience with this girl when she found herself on the wrong side of the rules. She was the sort of kid who thought misbehaving, and the consequent punishment, was all a part of going to school and took her "time-outs" with good cheer. This episode with the library book was different; she was in genuine distress. So I had to ask her what the big deal was. Her reply "*teacher* says my mom may have to pay for the book and (here come the tears) I know she just doesn't have that much money!" Now in rural southwest Colorado there is plenty of poverty to go around, but I didn't think this girl's mom was in dire straights. I asked how much she thought the book cost. She said "I don't know, but it's a whole lot! Look!", and ready with more tears showed me the back of the book and pointed to the ISBN number. A very large number indeed! I explained that the number she was looking at had nothing to do with the price, and that the book almost certainly cost less than ten dollars. The girl seemed doubtful, but her usual good cheer returned in an instant. That's how she is. Gloom has no chance against this kid.
But I digress. One of the kindergarten classrooms had two pets. One was a hermit crab named, oddly enough, Hermit. I don't know if anybody reading this has ever had such a pet, but I will tell you for nuthin' that a hermit crab is not the most active of pets. He lived in a dry aquarium with another empty shell (his second home ((they're very popular in this neck of the woods)) ), some food, a couple of rocks and some water all on top of an inch or so of sand. I never saw him move, and I was in that room at least three times a day every day of the school year, and I always checked. Never a twitch. He did move about though. He would be in different places and some of his food got eaten. The main evidence of his motion though, was the lovely track he left as he traveled, a series of identical half circle ridges in the sand about a quarter inch deep. I know not whether he took any pride in the perfection of his trail.
The other pet in that classroom was a lizard with the astounding name of Mister Lizard. I don't know Mister lizard's origins , but I suspect that he originally lived outside on the school grounds or somewhere close by because lizards of his type are quite common in the high desert. He was a sand colored specimen about ten inches long, about half of that was his tail. Compared to Hermit, Mister Lizard was a real live wire. He lived in very similar digs to those of Hermit with the addition of a small branch to climb on and of course, crickets. (Crickets are kind of a minor plague in our school. I'll bet I have vacuumed up about a half bushel of cricket husks this summer. They are everywhere in the building.) I would check on the lizard when I checked on the crab as they lived next door to each other. I actually saw M L flick his tail a few times and every now and then I would catch him bobbing his head (I think they do this to enhance depth preception).
One day toward the end of winter (I believe it was early March) one of the kids from this classroom came to the door of my janitor's closet, which is right across a tiny alcove from the classroom door, and announced that she and her classmates had a big favor to ask of me, and would I please come into the classroom for more details. I assured her that I would try to help if I could, and showed up a few minutes later as promised. When I arrived there was a tumult. Voices of four and five year olds in a babble: "Mister Lizard died!" "His head caved in!" "His eye popped out!" "We have to have funeral!" "Yes, Mr Birch, will you make a funeral?" and more along those lines. At first, I was kind of dumbfounded. Then I realized the logic of it. Who better to be the grave digger than the custodian. In for a penny, in for a pound. I agreed to dig the grave, lead the procession, inter the casket, and come up with a little ceremony. The teacher and I agreed that the ritual would commence at about 10:45 the next morning.
After a little thought, I decided that Mister Lizard's mortal coil should moulder beneath the creaky limbs of the apple tree that the the kindergarten adopts as its own every fall. This tree is quite old and gnarly, its untrimmed branches are a confused tangle, and its bark is scarred and scaly. It does however produce an abundance of fruit, probably because it sits near an irrigation ditch. All in all this tree is a pretty fair example of heaven's generosity and the toughness of things that survive in the high desert. So I picked a spot and dug a hole about a foot square, and about a foot deep. I then gathered a bunch of small stones about three to four inches in diameter. The next morning at the appointed time I arrived at the classroom to find that Mister Lizard had already been sheathed in a Ziploc bag and, along with letters of farewell and sorrow placed in his cardboard casket. Let the funeral begin. I led the way with the pall-bearer behind me and the rest of the class following. We crossed the service driveway and went up the small rise to the apple tree. There we all gathered around the grave: seventeen or so young children, their teacher, and an ersatz funeral director, to mourn the passing of a reptile. I took the casket from the pall-bearer, placed it in the hole, and covered it with about one fourth of the dirt I had taken from the hole. then I asked the kids to all take a turn putting more dirt in the hole, and once the hole had been filled asked each one step on the dirt to tamp it down. Then the stones I had gathered were passed out and the children used them to build a little cairn as a grave marker. As the class went about these activities, I talked a little about how what we were burying was not a lizard at all but the stuff that remains when the life leaves a lizard and the lizard is no more. Much to my surprise they all seemed to get it. They were somber but not distraught. One little girl mentioned that the apples would probably be very tasty this fall. The teacher and her charges went back to class and I went back to sweeping.