Signs That Might Be Omens

As I sat in the sunshine today I suddenly noticed a flight of birds before me. Two dark birds, perhaps crackles, were chasing a hawk. They were flying at about tree-top level, maybe thirty feet up, and slightly to my left. One of the dark birds quit the chase by suddenly wheeling away, while the other continued to pursue the hawk, which was at least half again his size. The hawk appeared to be fleeing for its life, although I can’t imagine what damage a smaller bird could do to a bird of prey.

The point of this is that the flight of birds is one of the many things I see in the world which I believe to be full of a meaning of sorts. I’m hardly a superstitious individual. And I’m certainly not religious. Yet, the more I think upon these things the more I’ve come to realize that I am an animist of sorts. The natural world is full of significant events and phenomena. Pools of still water, trees of a kind, the presence of things where they should not be. Or the absence of things where they are to be expected.

A black cat crossing my path means nothing. The song of a bird in the middle of the night does mean something. Owls generally always mean something. I mean, have you ever seen an owl actually look at you? Whew! A lone dog that stands and just looks should be watched to see which way he moves. Which really sort of makes sense, don’t you think?

In reading Plutarch’s Parallel Lives one is struck by how incredibly religious the Greeks and Romans were. They were constantly cognizant of the role of unseen forces in their lives, and busied themselves constantly in seeking to find favor with them, and to divine their meanings as manifest in the events around them.

I am of the opinion that ancient peoples were far, far more religious than any modern peoples, who seek their beliefs in books, and who distill these beliefs into obtuse systems and sets of dogmas and rites devoid of any connection to the real world.

Signs and omens are all about us. They are very personal things, and I wouldn’t trust anyone who claims to be able to read their meaning. Some very few can. But they are not the ones who say they can. Those are charlatans.

I cannot read the omens. I only know that they are all about me. To me, they fill my world with awe and wonderment. Some would call that madness, I suppose. But that’s of little consequence. The mystery of things is too vast to be diminished by such petty concerns.