Thursday
Jun022011
Scrying Birds
Thursday, June 2, 2011
I had that feeling again, that pull to follow my gut rather than habit again. Maybe it has to do with the time of year. My intuition wakes up. It gets restless.
I had that feeling again, though, and I followed it. I walked a less familiar route as it urges me to do, and then BAM!
Another dead bird.
I felt a hard stone settle into my gut. It felt like the world had committed a perfidious act.
I know that birds fall out of the sky all the time. They hit buildings. Cars run into them. They die like all things must. I know this, and yet it feels like there is something more. I follow my gut, and there they are.
It feels like I should be divining some truth.
According to some dream interpretations, a dead bird can symbolize disappointments. I am worrying over problems that I can't stop thinking about. Some suggest that it is a request to put my life in the service of my goals, that my ideals or hopes of freedom are being threatened.
Pigeons in particular can suggest that I am taking the blame for the actions of others. They may be the carriers of messages from my unconscious. They can also suggest a desire to return home.
These ideas push my life into the service of a difficult narrative. I want things to be easy.
Scrying one's life, its patterns, the mysterious bits that fall out in between appointments and jobs and general upkeep, feels dangerous. I might see through to something else. It makes me nervous. It makes the more obvious reality to which I am most accustomed feel fragile.
Patterns come together and patterns fall apart to become new patterns, and stories journey from them, broken pieces into wholes and then broken again.
Maybe these are just birds I'm finding. Maybe they aren't anything else at all. Maybe there is a dead bird to find on every block.
There's that feeling in my gut, though, and it knows better.
I had that feeling again, though, and I followed it. I walked a less familiar route as it urges me to do, and then BAM!
Another dead bird.
I felt a hard stone settle into my gut. It felt like the world had committed a perfidious act.
I know that birds fall out of the sky all the time. They hit buildings. Cars run into them. They die like all things must. I know this, and yet it feels like there is something more. I follow my gut, and there they are.
It feels like I should be divining some truth.
According to some dream interpretations, a dead bird can symbolize disappointments. I am worrying over problems that I can't stop thinking about. Some suggest that it is a request to put my life in the service of my goals, that my ideals or hopes of freedom are being threatened.
Pigeons in particular can suggest that I am taking the blame for the actions of others. They may be the carriers of messages from my unconscious. They can also suggest a desire to return home.
These ideas push my life into the service of a difficult narrative. I want things to be easy.
Scrying one's life, its patterns, the mysterious bits that fall out in between appointments and jobs and general upkeep, feels dangerous. I might see through to something else. It makes me nervous. It makes the more obvious reality to which I am most accustomed feel fragile.
Patterns come together and patterns fall apart to become new patterns, and stories journey from them, broken pieces into wholes and then broken again.
Maybe these are just birds I'm finding. Maybe they aren't anything else at all. Maybe there is a dead bird to find on every block.
There's that feeling in my gut, though, and it knows better.
Reader Comments (7)
Ugh. I know this feeling. I usually try to ignore it, but dammit it doesn't stop.
Good luck.
I'm not one who usually finds symbolism in these things, so I'm wondering if you should search the local news about something that might be causing an increase of bird deaths in your area. I did search Regina + dead pigeon, and came up with, uh, your site.
I know this feeling. I more often than not *hate* this feeling. Sometimes I worry that I'm piecing together a puzzle that doesn't exist, waiting for something that won't ever arrive. But it always does.
This is beautifully written even if the gut feeling.... isn't.
I think it's pretty amazing that you have this kind of extra sensory radar, even if it is tuned to the dead bird frequency. Whenever I read about your dead birds, I think of the dead robin we had in our yard a few years ago.
Oh. Wow. Those photos are so beautiful, and so hard to look at at the same time.
Many years ago there was a dead bird in our bldg courtyard. One day I went out and saw a dead bird lying on its back, like your in the picture.
I told my best friend and he said, "Your ex-boyfriend just broke up with the girl he was seeing."
I asked him how he got that out of a dead bird and he replied, in the UK girls are called "birds" and this bird is dead so the other girl is out.
I found out the next day my ex had dumped the girl he was seeing.
Eerie.
You know, I've heard if you read the entrails, they actually explain everything. Don't ask me how.