A walk in the park.

"There is no such thing as a true wilderness untouched by politics."

-Donna Haraway

How to sit down on a log.

Today, I saw three birds in a tree.

Long before, they saw me perch myself upon a fallen log and puff up my breast with strange breaths. Some were long - First, I filled a green log's lungs with deep, seated trees' breaths. Then I took some short and some long, as I bellowed up my belly with Tummo's fiercest heat breaths. Third, I called aloud and two crows cawed loudly back to me.

They perched upon a dead tree - stood tall before me. Two crows, four eyes, each one leaving me seen. I set beside me one blue bead as they, too, observed me, sat down on their living room moss seat. I closed my eyes, and I resumed my breathing. When I reopened my two beads, I could see no eyes seeing me.

How to walk in a park.

So I began to walk.

I did this just as I always do: by standing up fast, whistling two low blasts, and grabbing a fist full of trash. And just as I'd stood, I began walking too fast, and my head full of air, I detected no stare. Yet silently there, who barred my way with two hidden eyes in full glare? One bird in the brush - half as wide in the wing and twice as startled by me as I was by he. He leapt into flight, which gave me a fright - until a limb's reprieve he received. Upon it, relieved, a Barred Owl - perched and perceived.

What did they see?

Unburdened were we, when - our tension relieved - we were interceived by those two crows whose beads we'd last seen when I sat myself down on their green, mossy seat.

"CAW! CAW! CAW!" From out of frame, they came and they perched and began to commune. Above me conceived, and so I received - as above, so below - I believed these two birds had conceived of standing upon a branch of sprawling peace.

How to break an olive branch.

Let's focus on me for a moment.

A tension-filled peace sits uneasy between three branching birds who have long deceived; how tension mounts when another crosses this line of attention.

Upon receiving permission via psychic transmission - three tense birds' percussive silence - our faithful observer pulled out a blue jeaned back pocket galaxy's black lens and began to record the dance of our triumvirate mirrors.

Immune to mistakes, I correctly interpreted every cue from these two, and boldly inched closer to this budding truce. Silently I crept, like a mouse through a house - all six-foot-three and two-hundred pounds - without making a sound as I redefined "stealth." Or would have, but for each twig which broke itself beneath my catlike agility. Or those noisy leaves who'd set out to shout at each silent step.

how to betray an owl.

Back to the birds.

These crows, it seems, had not communed, but conspired. I can't say when, but ahead of the scene, these untruceful two had come up with a scheme: while knowing the stakes, they'd accept any slight as a great mistake - a flinch, a quiver, a shake - is all it would take, and both these old crows would peck like spring hens.

Unseeded now our olive branch, left instead: a long-lashing willow's switch. Our uneasy three reached a tenuous truce atop a teetering tree. Completely un-influenced by my brilliant reframing of the concept of stealth: all it took was a flinch, in the end. Whose? Yes.

how to roll deep.

What would you do if your flock cawed on you?

Face to face at last with their bar-necked nemesis, these corvid conspirators could not help but to help themselves. Each infinite one of this alchemical three being implicitly aware of the stakes of the equivalent exchange which came before them, our dinosaurs' detente transformed into a powder keg. Again, with no influence from my unbridled stealth.

At the last left shout of a loud-mouthed leaf beneath my silent right foot, who flinched? The owl. Which barred him for life.

Two crows take flight - they strike and they strike, and who flees? Our now-barred owl. His crime? He flinched. And maybe raided a few nests. Like way back in the day. Or, like, last night. Owls have not yet codified their tracking of time. But that hardly matters. He had only raided their nest because they refused to quit "CAW"ing in the middle of the day. Plus, they kept eating the mice he'd left out as offerings to his girlfriend, the moon. Can you believe them?

how to look at birds.

If we take this natural interaction as a metaphor for uneasy ceasefires and ancient betrayals the world over, over all time, then it is easy to arrive at some sort of nihilistic view - that no real peace can last in this world; that too much intergenerational damage has been done for deep trust and collaboration to take root. And maybe that is a long way off, but consider the owl who fled.

That owl could have fought and died instead. In taking strategic flight, he set us up for a thought experiment - a spooky superposition: since all three birds survived this encounter, all three birds get to try again, which means that a number of potential outcomes continue to exist. Could you glimpse peace - only for a moment; right on the future's cusp, as a shimmer just beyond the horizon - beginning to coalesce just enough to edge into frame? Can you see the invisible hand which tugs at the fraying threads of ancient power cycles?

What will that interaction look like ten thousand peaceful iterations from now? I may only have one set of eyes, but I believe that each one of us can see the world through to change by collectively observing peace. What do you believe?

If you haven't already, go see the visual companion for this post! Much of the content from here is meant to synergize with what you can find there.