By Harold Klemp
The local paper, the Star Tribune, carried an item about a week and a half ago. It was in a question-and-answer column about animals. It was less a question than a statement. This person wanted to tell something about crow behavior. He said one day he was out by a pond and saw a crow tangled in a fishing line that was hanging down from a branch of a tree.
So the man got in a boat, paddled over, and worked at the fishing line until he was able to get the line off the crow. Then the crow flew up in the tree.
The man paddled back and got in his pickup truck. Then the crow flew down, landed on the cab of his truck, and rode it the few blocks to the man’s home.
When he got there, the crow began to call and call. Pretty soon a group of about ten other crows came, and they all flew in a circle around his home. The man said, “I don’t care what anyone says; I know the crow was thanking me for saving its life.”
I thought this was just a beautiful story. There are all kinds of little expressions of God’s love that turn up, even in the daily newspaper. It’s this link between life—between Souls. Cats are Souls, as are dogs and crows. They’re Souls in certain forms.
Hearing me say this would offend some people. Because a lot of people feel they are the special creation of God, and they try to elbow out others, especially of the lower animal world—like cats and dogs and crows.
But it’s a vanity that was very much alive during the Middle Ages before Columbus came to America. Columbus was very wise. He picked up some of the natives—which was unfortunate for the natives—and took them back to Europe. If he hadn’t, he likely would have been accused of heresy for saying there was a land with people other than the ones in the known world. But the Native Americans were proof positive that something strange was going on out there.
You are Soul. We are Soul. And this expression of Soul extends far beyond the human form.
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Excerpted from The Master’s Talks in The Year of Graceful Living—2011–12.
I loved the Crow story , I love birds and I think they show me such love. From Peacocks to Parakeets ; they show me the Eck’s Love in Everyday things . You just have to look and Listen. Thank you for that story .
Animals are Souls too, because of the nature of bird they flock and move around where they perceive love. A family of dove were home to one house in our neighborhood, they were living there and overtime their number increased, and there seemed to be shortage of food. My wife figured that out and started to throw out millets around in our compound.
Very soon the doves caught the love, and were always waiting for us to come out to the balcony every morning. Once we wake and walk out to the balcony, the doves in their tens will just take off from their abode fly down to our compound waiting for feeds. There were lots of chirpings, and we would scoop a handful of feeds to them.
It soon became a regular attraction, that even the birds knows when we are not around or travel out of town.
My little dog always gives me so much love. as well as everyone else. He goes up to MOST souls and rolls over on his back. If they do not pay attention to him he howls! LOL
Yes, Crows are very should I say intelligent and grateful animals. A friend,
who does not like to waste anything, put in her backyard little scraps of
meat in the winter for the crows. One day when she came out one of the
crows had a little piece of wood. She put it on the ground, but my friend
did not know it was a present for her. So the crow pushes the nicely shaped piece of wood toward her. After the crow repeated this twice more, she understood, asking in surprise, “Is this for me?” Again the crow pushed it closer to her. Picking up her present, she said, “It’s beautiful, thank you so much.” She looked around where to put this gift of gratefulness and placed it outside on the windowsill. All the while the crow watched her. From then on daily, the crow came and brought a gift for her. Even in the summer when she did not feed them, the crow came and put a present on the windowsill. Animals are special gifts of love from the ECK and the gratefulness they can express touches my heart every time I read, hear, or have my own experiences. I am sure the crows came to thank this man. It’s a wonderful story.