Kingpin crow punch

Sometimes I feel totally aligned with the cosmo. I feel so tapped in to "the force" that I lose my body to the greater world; I become one with it.

That's how I was feeling when I punched a crow.

I love crows. I love their scruffy colour, their too smart urban ways, and their brooding and witchy demeanors. They can live for a hundred years, which is why, I suppose, they are so wily. My roomate calls crows the mafia of the bird world. I think this is a very apt description. So if you want to outwit a crow and gain their respect, you've got to act like a crow. Capiche?

In my "at one with the world" state I espied a crow about three meters away, perched on a low slung evergreen branch. Its body was rhythmically bobbing up and down on its eely stick legs. I calmly thought to myself: this crow is going to swoop me.

Have you ever been swooped by a crow? At certain times in the year, crows swoop humans. Nobody knows why they swoop. Some conjecture that it's a mating season thang, other's surmise it's a nest building season thang, but I believe it's part of their "pestering humans" festivities. It's like running with the bull — just as inane and dangerous and equally as fun... for the crows that is.

So sure enough that beady-eyed crow, sitting antsy on its natural perch, started to lackadaisically swoop me. But the distance between us was so short that it was still in take-off mode as it neared my naked head. Without realizing quite what I was doing (but with complete intention) I punched that wily crow.

And for a split second after I punched the crow (lightly), it just hovered vertically in the air, wings flapping with this shocked expression on its face — not wounded, but shocked. I just looked back at it with the best crow eyes I could muster, deep, wise and unphased.

I punched a crow and looked dead straight into his all-knowing eyes. Now, how many people get to do that in one lifetime?

I see it as a sign.