"Quoth the Raven, Nevermore"

Walking to school this morning I came up to the Forestry building through the closed down fire lane between the old business building and the city bus barn, like I do every day I come to work. Suddenly I felt a slight brush on my head and a second later I saw a large black raven fly upward and land on a nearby pine bough. The raven hunched over, bristling its feathers at me, silently inquiring about my presence.

A few weeks earlier I had a similar encounter with a much noisier relative of today's raven. The raven a few weeks earlier flew at me several times, squawking in protest of my invasion of its territory, but never touched me like today's raven.

My first thoughts about these ravens were ones of protest. Crazy birds... what's their problem? Then I realized, their problem is plainly me. So often I think we take an anthropocentric approach to living. We'll say "when's it going to rain? We really need it by now," instead of "the earth could really do with some fresh moisture right about now."

Bryan and I watched a show on the National Geographic channel a few days ago, "Mega Structures." The show chronicled the story of the Chinese struggle in building bridges to "span the rivers that divide the country." This is clearly not a chicken and the egg scenario. The rivers came first and then the Chinese. It is people who have settled themselves along the banks of life-giving rivers and then turn their backs on the continually giving Earth and state that it is "dividing the people."

Even though the School of Forestry building at NAU is one of the most remote buildings, set more within the pines than any other building on campus, it is still intruding on the earth and the life processes of many species. Until the end of the ravens' nesting season at least, I will keep my distance from the footpaths that wind through the forest to my work.