One afternoon I was walking through a park, part of which was not manicured, but left wild. I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings, having a few “big” things on my mind. The light fog I’d started my walk in thickened, and I could barely see a length in front of me. Sounds were muffled and rarely heard.
I felt very alone.
I became aware of a sound coming from seemingly all around me. It wasn’t music, but had a rhythm. It wasn’t pretty, but didn’t inspire fear. I could see less and less around me and sound was mostly just me — my feet on the ground, my breath.
I understood the deepest meaning of eerie.
Above me, barely seen, flew a crow, the sound of its wings muffled in the wet air. With no better sense of where to go, I followed the path the crow had taken. From time to time, I seemed to hear wings flapping heavily, and a dog making a single bark.
I was completely disoriented and getting worried, surely I should have come to the end of the park by now, re-entered civilization, found a sidewalk . . . something.
Ahead of me the fog thinned and I found myself at the edge of a field of grain, stalks bent low under the weight of the beads of water from the mist. Just ahead was a large rock with the weight of age clear upon it. Three crows stood atop it, facing away from me, although my arrival was not particularly quiet. There was no fence, no border.
I felt absolutely no desire to approach the stone.
Raising my arms out in invitation, I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths, connecting with the earth, feeling the warmth of my body, the moisture in the air, and centered myself there.
An old man’s voice spoke in my left ear: “You may grieve and weep, little dove; but do not lose hope.” Sorrow is only for a time, and all will come right in the end.”
I should have been startled, but it felt like an answer.
Opening my eyes, I lowered my arms and swept my hands across the tops of the grain right in front of me, then wiped my face with the liquid. It tasted salty, as if I were near the ocean.
“Thank you.” I replied aloud, putting my gratitude in my tone. I kept my eyes closed as the water dried on my face. When I opened them again, the fog was thinning and the sounds of the city all around came back. I could see the sidewalk to my home clearly.
That was the story of the crows in the field. There will be people and places that will come and go; our journey never finishes.