Magpies were a common sight in my childhood garden hopping round the lawn and were never given a second thought. Only in my twenties did a superstitious friend start to make me wary. One day the unusual sight of a magpie sitting on the back of a sheep (like a tick bird on a rhino) was followed by news of the death of a pet sheep I had hand-reared. Thereafter I became alert to sightings.
Riding exercise on a friend’s horse one morning I caught sight of a magpie sitting on a tree above the track looking directly at me and later passed a dead cow carcass on the road (not unusual in faming country since they are left out to be uplifted.) The horse a couple of days later fell on the road with its owner riding, caught cattle gangrene from its injuries and died. The vet said he hadn’t seen a horse with that in thirty years. That focussed my interest on a parallel universe.
Not that magpies are always unlucky though in years following, a magpie flying across the road usually meant delays or accidents ahead.
The old magpie rhyme – one for sorrow, two for joy, five for silver, six for gold – flitted through my head when I was selling my first flat. On Hampstead Heath as I was dog walking, a congregation (mischief) of magpies was gathered, all six of them. Hmm, I thought and hey presto the sale went through at a much better price than expected. Gold indeed.
On the good news front as well, my first ever sighting of a Pileated Woodpecker, a sparkling red, white and black dandy, coincided the same day an exceptional career opportunity came in.
Having become focused on bird meanings I drooped when I saw Green Finches (= illness), beamed with enthusiasm when I saw Herons (= new beginnings) and Hawks (= fly highest so blessings from above, except if you are a rabbit of course).
Three trips to St Kilda one year, the furthest north-west of Scotland’s islands, next stop North America, would have defeated even Astrolobus. Tens of thousands of gannets, fulmars, guillemots, kittiwakes and puffins did not stir up any messages from beyond though I did wonder about the meaning behind being attacked by an enormous Great Skua (known as pirates of the sea) as I crossed its breeding ground.
Back on the mainland, I embarked on a new relationship. The first Scilly Isles holiday together was blighted by the devastation from a recent storm of hurricane proportions. The second in France was littered with roadkill (I joke not). The roads were awash with squashed badgers, foxes, hedgehogs and rabbits. Passing a pond whereon swam a white swan and a black one I decided that was it – an incompatible if not downright unlucky association.
Retreating to an alternative healing spa in Big Sur, California to recover my balance, Pelicans were a welcoming sight on the way down. Known as Spirit Animals they represent overcoming heavy emotional burdens. Which about covered that.
In recent years there have not been many ornithological incidents of note apart from a wonderful velvet brown eagle which flew low across in front of my car the day I bought a house in the South of France.
Though there was one meaningful happening from nature. A friend dying of cancer wanted to chase a magnificent, luminous double rainbow up in the mountains so she could see both ends disappearing into the earth. I drove her up and it was a breathtaking sight. She died soon after. It came to mind a year or so later when I caught sight of another double rainbow. News of the death of a Hawaiian friend was delivered shortly after. His wife later told me in their culture the rainbow bridge was the journey to a happier life on the other side.
At present I have an office window which looks out onto bird feeders and a garden with a gaggle of magpies, crows, jays, myriad small birds and the occasional red kite flying over. And the odd roe deer ambling around. Nothing untoward or other worldly.
Sceptics will point to coincidence or even hallucinations in the above stories. But most people if they are honest will admit to happenings in their lives which they could not explain but seemed deeply meaningful.
In a way I don’t care what the explanation is beyond accepting that the world is an odder place than science would have us believe.
“Science is still only a candle glimmering in a great pitch-dark cavern.” Mario Vargas Llosa
“Theory is all very well, but it doesn’t prevent things from existing.” Freud
“The rise of modern science has brought with it increasing acceptance among intellectual elites of a picture of reality that conflicts sharply both with everyday human experience and with beliefs widely shared among the world’s great cultures.” Edward F Kelly: Beyond Physicalism.
“Each science has a sort of attic into which things are almost automatically pushed that cannot be used at the moment, that do not quite fit …We are constantly putting aside, unused, a wealth of valuable material [which leads to] blocking of scientific progress.” Kohler:
Beautiful posting! Touches on the magic of nature. You had a charmed up bringing.
I used to live in the middle of a lot of acreage. We could tell when the weather was going to change based on bird behavior.