Spring is upon us in the great Nor’west.  This means it was time to go see what winter had wrought upon the stones of the Labyrinth, as if my frequent walks there had not kept me well apprised of the situation.  But Tuesday, out I went to the memorial that is both the symbol of and a contributing cause of my constant grief over the continuing war.

Usually, even this early, weeding is a big necessity and takes about nine or ten hours of knee wrecking concentration.  Not this year.  This year, we have six full grown ducks on patrol and they have eaten almost every scrap of green, including many of the desired plants out there.  But, no weeds….I can cope with the loss of the liatris, perhaps?

But other tasks are there in spite of he ducks…leveling a few mole sunk stones or a couple frost heaved sections.  This is negligible this year—my big rebuild last spring apparently held pretty well.  But the ducks have scattered fine gravel and big fist sized rocks from the borders all across the walk with their scampering flat feet.  This takes me a couple hours to fix.  I have to drag beams to the under eave area of my son’s adjoining building and dig them in so there is a containment for the large stones that are the drainage zone for roof rain runoff.  Then I have to get a small rake and bucket to collect all the scattered stones and put them back where they belong.  I edge the Walk with old broken sandstone chunks to keep the smaller gravel and stones from the firepit area from being duck-raked back onto the paving stones.

And all the while I work, the trees in the adjacent lot are full of crows.  The outliers even perch in my fir trees carrying on quite the corvine conversation about what I am doing.  I enjoy the crows; their loud convivial communities endlessly amuse and comfort me.  Their constant wars with the hawks  pose all sort of silly metaphorical questions for me.  But on Tuesday morning, those mobile bits of black murmur and squawk made me feel envious in a way.

It is hard for me to not compare crows to people.  They are acquisitive birds, they take anything sparkly that they can carry away.  They can be gluttonous.  They have a healthy sense of “My road kill, jerkwad….drive around me,” but know just when to move when the jerkwad of the hour is not going to drive around.  I love them best, however, not as the solitary trash-picker, but in full “murder” formation as they were on Tuesday.  I think this is because I am more often lonely than not and crows never seem lonesome, even when alone.  While I appreciate solitary time, I differentiate between that and lonely time.  And time working on the Walk is always solitary and often lonely.  I no longer freeze when working there, as I once did.  But others do, would be helpers begin to shiver even working in summer; some have even gone a bit blue about the lips there.  So, the crows are my only company there.

Being pagan, having spent more time than the average American looking at various legends, I am also aware of the mythic reputation of crows and ravens.  They have strong associations with Nordic and Celtic legends, being associated with entities as powerful as Odin and Morrighan.  Many friends have noted that crows and ravens are very fond of my yard and the Labyrinth area and they find significance in this.  It is harder for me to nail down what, if anything, all the crows mean.  I feel comforted by the raucous hordes, but do I feel a “presence”?  No.

That is the sorrow of this Walk of the Fallen as the war goes on and on, you see, I feel less and less.  My emotions are going through as certain a process as any Kubler-Ross book on dying ever listed.  First, I was so furious when I went out there with a list of names that I almost vibrated.  Then, more often, I was so stricken with grief and despair that I had to take myself in a very firm hand not to weep as I walked. Of course, I did come to the accommodation that it is what it is and I have to be what is required; and after that physical tiredness set in more than the emotional drain.  And now, as the anniversary of the war’s beginning comes round again, I feel empty and hollow.  I often think of the common phrase for an empty alcohol bottle, “dead soldier”, when I am out there.  I once wished I could collect enough empty tiny booze bottles to display one bottle of each literal dead soldier, just to make the damned point to sleeping America.  As this war goes on, I feel as if I am one of those empty bottles…..all poured out.

Sometimes it takes me four days after I compose a list to actually force myself out upon the Walk—true, part of that was winter and ice and early darkness at work; but more of it was just a reluctance that escapes my ability to describe accurately.  A desire to say “It is over….it will stop now” became a cell deep need.  Every name received was a slap that told me again that it was not ended.  This longing became so intense that I actually formulated a “finalization” for the labyrinth.

I decided that when the bulk of the troops do come home, although I know we will likely maintain a presence there for possibly decades to come, I will change the Walk.  Although I feel convinced that on some level of existence, that seven circuit walkway will always exist, I have a growing need to soften it.  I want to make it a closed ring at the outer and largest circuit and remove the inner circuits completely.  Then, with those stones, I will make either four or six “rays” from the central stone to that outer ring.  And I will plant herbs, flowers, sweet smelling things in the triangles of earth.  It will be a  healing “medicine circle” over the site of the walkway of grief and mourning.

But that is still at some unknown  future point.  And I am still in the company of crows, I feel like draping myself in a like shade of black.  I believe in reincarnation.  Not necessarily in the Eastern sense of karma and debt, but more in a “Oh, crap….look at that life! I can do better…gimmee a new one!” sense.

But I don’t know if I can do better, or if I even want to, at least not as a human.  I think I might prefer to really be in the company of crows  or ravens next time around the planet.  Perhaps, as my ashes will one day be scattered over the site of the Labyrinth, my new physical self will perch in the tall firs on its edge.  Birds don’t cry and have no tears; but they don’t need to grasp for the right word to describe their feelings either.  If I am being rendered inarticulate and dark…..lets just go for it back to an original source.  If I am hollowed out to memory alone, maybe being a raven like one on Odin’s shoulder wouldn’t be such a bad thing.