Crow vs Raven

[CatDaddy]

Very long story short as I can make it:

My daughter passed away from SIDS in March 2021. Cancelled all my hunting plans for the rest of the year. One of my closest friends who is a moose hunting/fishing outfitter in western Alaska was staying at my house in early May while he was picking up his airplanes for the year. He basically told me I didn't have a choice and he had a moose spot to fly me into to check out in September. I gave in and ultimately decided to fly in solo as a hunt with my daughter I guess. My brother (who worked for the outfitter) came with me for a few days and flew out after day 3 to get back to work. That left me with 6 days alone in the wilderness with my only way out being a float plane ride. The last day the wind blew all day and I was sitting up on my little glassing tit at dusk. Finally the wind let up and eventually went pure calm as I watched the pink sunset over the valley. A single raven flew across the valley, came directly over me maybe 15 feet above my head and was doing it's hollow croak. It eventually just kept flying off and its croak got softer and softer until I couldn't hear it. And at that point the whole valley went dead quiet and still. Not a blade of grass moved or a very prevalent bug in the air. Wilderness is chaotic, especially where I was with the wind, the distant mighty Yukon River, birds, beavers, mosquitos and other bugs, moose, etc. But I mean true quiet that I don't think I've experienced in my life. The type of quiet you can only get by being in a room designed for it. For about 2-3 minutes the only thing I could hear were my organs. It was quiet and still to the point I wasn't sure if the world or my life had ended. Eventually after about 2-3 emotional minutes, it was like someone flipped a switch. The whole valley woke back up simultaneously and went back to its normal chaos. So that's it. It was somewhat of an out of body experience all kicked off by a lone raven coming through the valley and directly over my head. I'm a Christian man so I don't really know what the significance of it all was to be honest. Just an interesting story in the end I guess.

Spiritual and meaningful no matter what religion you are (or aren't). Very awesome - thanks for sharing it with us!

 

[svnmag]

Crow beginng/ending: (wtf?...you'd think...)


https://youtu.be/YAE1XTvKLXA

- - - Updated - - -

BONUS: When I was transcending the '80's I considered this as much a jam as Elton's "Pinball Wizard" FWIW:

I haven't heard this in 35ish years (for real--even Deep Tracks). Not sure how I feel about the pan flute fluttery noises. The vocals and guitar still hold true:

https://youtu.be/bDXa4FkAw-4

Also FWIW: Even as that Egyptian eye thing looks wicked cool I pray to the Cross and don't scorn the kids in white shirts knocking at my door. They don't burn cities.

 

[NodakBob]

thanks for sharing the Alaskan raven story, very cool...not crazy.

As a kid in the 1960s my Dad used to take me crow hunting south of Bismarck...he was buddy with the prison warden and they had some blinds set up near the prison farm. We would shoot up an apple box full of reloads (or more) in one outing! hundreds of dead birds hung in the trees for decoys...after a shoot we would tie kite string to the dead birds and toss them up in the trees to get tangled and hang there. Flocks of thousands of birds would pour into us.

 

[LBrandt]

Back in the early 90's I was on an early season elk hunt in Colorado San Jaun mountains. It was really mild and the elk were up high. I was at about 10,000 ft up on a canyon rock face glassing the valley below when I heard a raven calling and it sounded close but for the life of me I could not see him. After a minute or so I finally spotted the little black dot getting closer to me but below me flying up the valley. Just crystal clear sky and when your up that high the sky is such a deep blue. And so quite, just the sound of the raven is all you could hear, not even the jets headed to Cal. from Denver leaving those almost pure white contrails. It was about as peaceful a moment in my life as I have ever experianced. I can close my eyes and live it again. I did not get an elk that year but I did get a memory that will last a life time. The other thing I did while setting on that big old rock is I found a piece of dried out pine branch and took out my pocket knife and whittled it down and carved my soon to be wife's name on it. She still has it in her jewelry box and I think she likes it more than anything jewelry I have ever bought her. LB

 

[svnmag]

https://youtu.be/yCkELrxCl70

 

[snow1]

Very long story short as I can make it:

My daughter passed away from SIDS in March 2021. Cancelled all my hunting plans for the rest of the year. One of my closest friends who is a moose hunting/fishing outfitter in western Alaska was staying at my house in early May while he was picking up his airplanes for the year. He basically told me I didn't have a choice and he had a moose spot to fly me into to check out in September. I gave in and ultimately decided to fly in solo as a hunt with my daughter I guess. My brother (who worked for the outfitter) came with me for a few days and flew out after day 3 to get back to work. That left me with 6 days alone in the wilderness with my only way out being a float plane ride. The last day the wind blew all day and I was sitting up on my little glassing tit at dusk. Finally the wind let up and eventually went pure calm as I watched the pink sunset over the valley. A single raven flew across the valley, came directly over me maybe 15 feet above my head and was doing it's hollow croak. It eventually just kept flying off and its croak got softer and softer until I couldn't hear it. And at that point the whole valley went dead quiet and still. Not a blade of grass moved or a very prevalent bug in the air. Wilderness is chaotic, especially where I was with the wind, the distant mighty Yukon River, birds, beavers, mosquitos and other bugs, moose, etc. But I mean true quiet that I don't think I've experienced in my life. The type of quiet you can only get by being in a room designed for it. For about 2-3 minutes the only thing I could hear were my organs. It was quiet and still to the point I wasn't sure if the world or my life had ended. Eventually after about 2-3 emotional minutes, it was like someone flipped a switch. The whole valley woke back up simultaneously and went back to its normal chaos. So that's it. It was somewhat of an out of body experience all kicked off by a lone raven coming through the valley and directly over my head. I'm a Christian man so I don't really know what the significance of it all was to be honest. Just an interesting story in the end I guess.

wj,great personal story that was a great read,thanx for sharing,sorry to hear about your daughter...life,so many curves.