A Shoal Of Red Herrings

Demons performing devilish dances

Photo by Jonas Jacobsson

1.

It’s late summer and I’m arguing with the dog as we ramble slowly through pungent blueberries deep in the forest on yet another humid afternoon. There’s a warm wind gliding across the lake and weaving through the trees.

“I’m not lying,” I say with such flimsy conviction that I am forced to say it again, “I’m not even making this up”, noticing the rising pitch of my voice.

“I swear to you,” I say, “there was a time when this whole place would’ve been buzzing with insects. Now we’ve just got rich men.” The dog gives me the side eye, suspecting I’m exaggerating because he knows I blame “rich men” for everything

“Look,” I continue, "I may be a trickster, perhaps, or a storyteller, maybe, or a fool, yes, a fool, but never, probably never, hardly ever anyway, would I make up this kind of ridiculous nonsense. You know I’d never perform a rain dance to drench myself in the falling tears of others”. The dog gives me a second side eye. I can almost hear him: a rain dance to drench yourself in the tears of others, oh man!

“I’ll admit,” I go on, reaching for blueberries, my hands covered in blue-black stains, “that I might fail to reveal the entire story every time. I’ll concede that I might leave my curtains half-pulled. I’ll admit that. And, fair enough, I’ll admit there are times when I have said nothing when I should, perhaps, have spoken. OK. But I’m not a liar.”

The dog has lost interest in my blathering and starts sniffing the air. There’s something in the wind and he feels it. I give up and peer through the fractal explosion of light and shadow and see the trolls and fairies and pixies and gnomes and banshees and leprechauns and spirits because they are everywhere. But there are no insects, not like there once was. I ache to be stung. Sting me bee.

2.

The dog and I had been drenched by the unbelievable horror of modern political theatre. We had edged closer to each other on the sofa as we peered into the portals of dread, screens, where we saw men, and women, but mostly men, preforming devilish dances of wickedness, inviting us to side with one or another set of atrocious lies that could only ever lead to suffering and torment.

This forest may be full of mythical creatures dancing through the shadows, but our cities are bubbling over with actual bone-fide, real-life demons casting their spells in the bright light of day. And I begin to wonder how deceptive double-dealing became the common currency within these city walls.

Deep within us all is an ancient impulse to walk bare-skinned through this fleeting existence, because, we know, deep in our bones, that to truly reveal ourselves as fellow delicate flames equally buffeted by the blustery winds of life is to Love. To dissolve the walls behind which we are hidden is to Love. To expose our vulnerabilities and accept the vulnerabilities of others is to Love. We know the most powerful and bravest of us can do this. We are in awe of those ones.

But the most powerful and bravest of us all were not performing on the portals of dread. Instead there was a procession of lunatics, spinning webs of deceit to ensnare and entangle we bare-skinned fools that amble by seeking entertainment, or to learn, or to gain a slither of enlightenment, or to find something, anything, to fill the dreary long days of slow-burning agony that we call modern life.

I had turned to the dog and muttered “Feed not the ego for that beast will never be sated,” and he leaps from the sofa and trots toward his bowl.

They’ll come in all cloaks and veils, shapes and forms, with open hands and a smile, with sincere advice and guidance, wearing bespoke tailored outfits, or uniforms, or jeans and sandals. They'll come with Bronze Age scripture or New Age esoteric allusions or they’ll come with carefully worded legislation, bylaws and statues. They’ll come with their velvet hands or their loquacious tongues or their papers to be signed on the dotted line.

But no matter how they manifest, at some point, they’ll come for you.

Like a shoal of red herrings they’ll swirl and blind and overwhelm and unbalance, until you’re bewildered or over-confident, perplexed or even thankful. No matter what ordeal or adventure they invent, the climax will always be the same. Eventually you’ll be dispossessed of something essential. Whatever it might be, they’ll come and they’ll try to make you theirs. They will do all these terrible things.

Unless you turn away from them and back to Love.

3.

In the high Sumatran canopy an orangutan is unfurling one arm to reach for a wild durian whilst cradling an infant.

In the North Atlantic the body of a tuna is spiraling toward the depths to become a feast for an unhurried Greenland shark born when The Lord Chamberlains Men were performing Hamlet for the first time at the Rose Theatre.

A sidewinder viper defies the melting desert dunes as it glides under the Saharan evening sun in pursuit of a meal.

And in the mighty northern forests which breathe in and breathe out as the planet rolls through its runway in bending spacetime, the dog feels my soul shivering like a nesting chick trembling in the wind, without agency, subject to the whims of this never-ending storm of demons, and he saunters beside me when he’d prefer to run wild, his kindly heart preferring to comfort my obvious confusion than to satisfy his hankering.

I see a hooded crow casually sidestepping the parental panic of a diving thrush who makes his way toward the unborn nested eggs to breakfast, as a white-tailed eagle watches from his distant perch on the escarpment, his black-tipped beak and orange eyes patiently scanning the kingdom.

There is a lynx here, somewhere, watching us pass through this territory, but I’ll never see the lynx who would prefer to avoid conflict than seek it out, especially with unpredictable creatures like the dog and I, who can not be trusted with our infantile tendencies to destroy for nothing.

But the lynx is mistaken because the dog and I are humble and dignified creatures. We are not the foot soldiers of the demons who perform on the portals of dread, demons who struggle to dominate all our lives in the pursuit of unfathomable goals, demons who will never be sated.

“There really were more insects once, but now we’ve just got rich men,” I say again and the dog stands beside me as we both fall into silence.

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My sincere thanks to everyone who reads The Crow. I hope you’re enjoying these small escapes. And a warm welcome to you new subscribers. I am honoured to have you here.

I had wanted to post a beautiful tale of Love this week, but I made the foolish error of paying attention the international political circus, which tipped me into a gentle melancholy and I ended up writing the above.

As I mentioned on Notes, my old laptop had been struggling, and finally died last week after 10 years of being battered by my Quixotic blathering. After a short funeral (in the recycling bin) I wasted no time finding another Sancho (are you kidding? how much?!), so fear not lovers of The Crow, my flow is about to return to full pace, and I’ll try to avoid the demons and their devilish dances

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