by Steve Tanham
I hate crows, Tess, don’t you?
– They’re harmless… just make a lot of noise
That’s the point, craw, craw, bloody craw… from dawn till dusk
– What are you doing now? Your little head’s going into another dimension!
Shaking their noise out of my ears.
© Stephen Tanham
Sun in Gemini 
I love crows. They are intelligent and have good memories for what they see. Yes, there is something very spiritual that offers messages to us all. I yearn to understand what they are telling us. There have been times when I did understand a particular message, “There is a snake over in those bushes you are approaching.” And by golly, there was for certain . . . I guess it is how we perceive them and how much we care to listen to what they have to tell us . . .
I often laugh at the many wild parrots we have here, mostly escaped from cages in homes. They keep up a wonderful chatter as they fly overhead, probably saying something like “Oh, I saw a wonderful peach tree the other day and it is just east of us.” And the others are all replying, “Oh yes, fruit, wonderful fruit. Let’s go that way. ” They all speak excitedly of memories of delicious fruits they remember and where they were. At night they all call out to each other too. “Are you settled in ok?” “Oh yes, we are comfortable with our new little ones.” “Oh, how many do you have?” And on and on and on, but it is the happiest sound and I am always thrilled, for I know I have an opportunity to see the wonderful creatures.
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That’s lovely, Anne. Amazing things happen when we open ourselves up, like that…
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Thank you most kindly, Steve. Years ago when I lived in another part of California in a mobile home park, there was a construction project from a very old piece of land that had held one beautiful sort of farm. Now it was converted into high homes that pushed up against each other as if rebelling. Well, all of a sudden, this ribbit, ribbit frog (as differentiated from another type) was in my yard, and although he was very small, he made the noise happily and loudly. Every day when I came home from work, we had a little thing we did. He would call out ribbit, ribbit happily and loudly, and I would answer him too. I so looked forward to that communication, as I knew he was sacred in this world and this was a good thing.
I also rescued a very old desert tortoise that I believe came from the same place. He was walking down the street near the gutter, and would have fallen into the storm drain had I not found him when I did. I took him home and he was quite dehydrated so I took him to the vet, and she told me that he was approaching 70 years of life. He lived very happily with me, always coming in where I could protect him from other predatory creatures, and he had his own special place where he slept. He ate plenty of fresh greens from my little yard, or I found him special ones and he lived a very long time until I moved to my present home.
It has been not only a joy and love in life to share it with these creatures, but to find ways to communicate and feel at one with them, because I believe we all are one in reality. It is too bad that Enkidu lost his oneness with the very creatures and parts of nature that he was clearly a part of. That was the first really tragic part of the story. And then when he joined Gilgamesh who wanted to go and hunt the Bull of Heaven, and the one who protected the beautiful trees, that was another part of the genuine sorrow that I felt. It brought mankind from the supernatural to just ordinary human beings, and there could be no further living beyond that life. The magic, that beauty of life beyond what a limited vision can provide was gone forever. There was so much more to the story, but loving and being part of the life of creatures and plants and grains of sand and all of us being within the One is so much of what I believe is the sacredness and possibility of life. It may be a small part of what is waiting for us, but it is one of the critical components. Thank you one and all for coming into my life in a wonderful and magical way.
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You are kind, Anne, and those are kindly stories. They remind me of my own mother, who is nearly ninety and has always looked after animals and lost creatures in general.
In Glilgamesh – which we shall enact next weekend – the real story is of the journey of the personality, the ego. The all- powerful King is rightly successful, yet has narrowed his world to his selfish will. With Enkidu, the ‘gods’ bring him fave to face with part of his inner nature – the wild child suppressed. He loves it but cannot embrace it with his ‘inner’. Until the mysterious end of the story he pursues a life dictated by the will of his personality… until all is seemingly lost. It’s a difficult part to play, and necessarily dark for most of its length! 😎
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Yes, he definitely used that selfishness with Enkidu, and I can see what you are talking about as he goes to kill The Bull of Heaven and the soul who guards the sacred forest. So truly sad, and then to think that Enkidu had been so affected that he wanted to have everlasting life as he believed that Gilgamesh did. Such a story. It was particularly upsetting when Enkidu leaves that of which he was an integral part, and Gilgamesh’s ego to do the things he did makes him want to be like that being he believes Gilgamesh is. It is definitely a complex and very highly thoughtful story. I hope that I am able to make one of the events. They sound wonderful!
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They are very ‘involving’, Anne – as a something with a spiritual purpose must be. The story always ‘masks’ a deeper story, in the time-honoured tradition. Sometimes we use a time-honoured legend, others we create something g from new and map it to the universal journey of the enneagram. With Gilgamesh, the key is that the King is the cause of everything that happened; that, though he did ‘everything right’ in a material sense, having got there, he had to learn of a higher world apparently at odds with the one he knew… and yet he continued to expect to ‘win’ with his old methods. The ‘Gods’ sent Enkidu to unit the parts of himself and they truly loved each other (mirror images). But, Gilgamesh because responsible for his beloved’s apparent death. All is reunited in the end, but the finale is hidden in the symbology of the serpent….
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