I am behind the wheel and have been driving for the last seven hours. The highway is a rural black top road that seems to stretch ahead into infinity. I pass by ranch houses and barns set way off in the fields on both sides of the road. Large gates overhang the dirt driveways off of the highway. Signs hang from the gates with cryptic brand symbols or names like “Peak Ranch” or “Berry Farms”. Each sign is different, but yet, they each are the same.
As I approach another driveway and sign, I notice perched upon the sign, two large Ravens. In the brief time it takes to drive by, I can see that they are talking to each other. I also notice that they are facing toward the long driveway and the ranch in the distance.
Another driveway approaches. Another sign . And on this sign, again, sit two Ravens who talk and face the ranch off in the field.
Then another. And another. And another. I count five driveways in all with five sets of Ravens seated upon the signs.
I choose to wait and to not interpret this right now, because something tells me there is more here than what I have initially witnessed. So I drive on down the highway.
I find myself moving slowly, now, along a very rough road . There are small yellow wild flowers everywhere. I am very high up in the mountains, above the tree-line. I am jolted from side to side as the car crawls from one rock and pothole to the next. The tundra stretches out and up and touches the sky, seemingly only a few hundred feet from me. But I know that the actual distance is deceiving.
A shadow then passes over the hood of the car and I instinctively look out the window and up into the blue sky. There I see the shadow, or silhouette, of a very large Raven, possibly larger than any Eagle I have ever seen — definitely larger than those I saw perched on the ranch signs. I then see her with detail and clarity as she swoops on the strong winds. She hovers. She dives. She is teasing and hunting the mice that live within the earth.
And she pays no attention to me or my jostling car. I then realize that none of the birds perched upon the signs had paid attention to me, either. These creatures are suppose to be the “tricksters” and the “attention-seekers” and the “omen-bringers” — and yet — somehow — they are not so towards me.
I understand now.
I find myself talking to all of these beautiful black birds. “I see you, but you don’t choose to see me. You tease and trick this world into whatever outlandish story you wish to tell — but I am not here to stop you — I am here only to witness and to let you know I see what you do.”
This is my journey.
— Nate Long “Owl”