Monday, June 20, 2011

The Crow's Ethics.

Picking apart date-fruit with my fingernails, mixing it in to a blend of roses and other herbs. It smells sweet, and yet dark - it is the fruit of the tree of death and it is the perfume of funerals.

I'm angry while I do all this - I had to go down to the police station and report a man. He's a level three registered sex offender (for acts with a child, not simply a minor or statutory offense) - and he has not been disclosing this information. Not to the people he has stayed with, not to the groups he has interacted with, and likely not to the local authorities as he should.

Crow's Ethics.
On the way home I saw a crow, roadkill, in the middle of the median. I think it's only the second I've seen in my entire life. It was nearly perfect. And I wanted it. I planned to go back after dark and take it. I was readying my funerary blend, and getting my kit together, and suddenly it hit me.

I could take what I want, ignoring the law of this land, and in the eyes of the law I'd be a felon. I'd be on some of the same lists with this motherfucker - this worthless waste of tissue that has the audacity to breathe my goddamned air. And I don't want that. 

I realized exactly what that crow was teaching me. I don't need to bring it home, macerate it's bones, and turn it's tail into a smudge fan. It cleansed me from the median. It told me "Tow the line, grasshopper. I broke the rules and look where it got me." And it also said "You want me? Find me the right way."

Burdens and Blessings.
I've bitched a lot on this blog about my community, and I had a very sudden realization in the middle of my sleepless morning. My community is diseased by silence. Everyone tip-toes, everyone lies. Everyone tries to hide and protect and ... enable?

This is MY land and I will not permit this bullshit in my territory any longer. I will not permit the diseased, the criminal, the -slime- that has infected this community to continue to do so without fear of retribution. The claws come out - poisoned, and dripping with the blood of my enemies.

12 comments:

  1. Right fucking on.

    Giving a deep bow in your direction, and a thanks carried to you on the wind.

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  2. "He and his wife had been trying to convince us that they should organize a children's group"

    Yeah... no justification needed.

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  3. New reader to your blog, and I applaud you for doing what you did. Way way too many people don't have the courage to step up. As someone who was sexually assaulted as a child, this has a VERY special place in my heart.

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  4. Keepers of the Land also watch over their people. We are all responsible for teaching and protecting our own children, but that extends into a community responsibility towards the community's children. "He and his wife had been trying to convince us that they should organize a children's group" was certainly just cause to act. However, we should question the character of those who chose to remain silent.

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  5. In most parts of the world, you can't own parts of a migratory bird. Crows are not migratory (not where I live anyway) and found parts are sometimes okay. Double check your regionregional laws.

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  6. @ Dre, Pallas, theprimalheart, Kebechet, and Deborah - Thank you all very much.

    @Hadaig - Exactly. That anyone in that group who knew did not speak itself says volumes about how seriously (or not) they take life.

    @Juniper - I've spoken with wildlife officers about it - in no part of the US is it legal to own in part or whole, any of the birds listed in the MBA - All species of Crows found in the U.S. Fall under this, at all times and in all places in the U.S. I will have to obtain carrion crow bits and bobs from the U.K. in order for it to be legal.

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  7. I am with Kebechet--I really wonder about the people who knew and said nothing. Silence is a killer.

    I had no idea about the crow bits, although I had in the past tried to buy crow feathers from an animal parts shop and been told they could not be sold. Here in NY, crows can be legally hunted from September through March. :( There are massive crow roosts generally around the Fingerlakes and Rochester every winter. They try to chase them away with fireworks and such, but the birds know where the warmth and light is. Individual crows often visit the trees in my yard, and I enjoy their presence almost as much as I love grackles.

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  8. I was recently at a pagan gathering where, during a workshop, the speaker lamented that much of neopaganism seems almost addicted to a certain enabling kind of pretend. I won't say anything about how you call yourself a drummer but have no real drumming skills, if you don't say anything about me when I claim to be descended from the True Witches. I won't call you out for claiming to be a powerful dragon spirit in human form if you don't ever criticize my leadership style, because we have to be Acceptng. So, so, accepting of every ludicrous thing, because to doanything else would be... what? Persecution? Mean-ness? A blow to the fragile egos of those who never learned to get along in the world? And so, we accept the silly and the ludicrous, and sometimes the poisonous things sneak in as well.
    What if we focused less on pretend and more on the true, which is where the magic was in the first place?
    *note that by "pretend" I do not quite mean "using the creative potency of imagination."

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  9. No lengthy explanation here, but simply thundering applause for you. (bow)

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  10. Cindy: I agree. I was also at a recent Pagan gathering (I'm wondering if you were there too, actually.) and there seemed to be a strong presence of people just...there to be there. They weren't there for spiritual development, but to show off and say "Look at me! Look how special I am!" and no one said anything because...well, I don't know. I bit my tongue, but it was still frustrating to see.

    Perchance was this PSG, or a different gathering?

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