PSYCHOSCAPES: An Epiphany with a Raven Gives Me Hope

photo by author

I’ve enjoyed communing with ravens during trips out West, but especially here in Northwood, where I often meet a pair of ravens who have a nest near my house.

Recently, Russet and I left the house and drove down the dirt road next to us, which my father called the “Wild Hawk Road.” We were heading toward a somewhat distant hike, even though it was late in the day, when I spotted one of my ravens hopping beside the road. When he saw me, he stopped, and we locked eyes. At that moment, a more pleasant and closer hike popped into my mind. I hadn’t considered the possibility before because it was always off-limits, as it was in an active Boy Scout camp. I had forgotten it had recently been shut down.

What transpired between me and the Raven I call mind-reading, while scientists call it a “theory of mind.” That’s according to Christine Webb in her new book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters.^⁠1

You may say I’m imagining my connection to the raven, but I prefer to believe otherwise: I derive pleasure from the way this experience transformed me from a mundane, rational calculator into a sentient creature encountering an unforeseen connection to the natural world.

In a word, it made my day!

It shifted my mind from its small-minded fixation on relentless human dominance – controlling every facet of our lives –to the ethic Webb proposes, based on humility and reciprocity with the rest of nature.

For Webb, human arrogance is an ideology that has done us a grave harm. Because we have long viewed our species as special, as God’s gift to the Earth, we have been conditioned to believe everything we do is privileged, an inescapable result of divine intent.. Like the patriarchy, which I think is a related ideology, it denies participation to anyone not belonging to the dominant group.

But, in reality, we are but one small cog, among countless others, in a vast interconnected web. So then, what does it really mean to be human, Webb asks: “Our first hint might come from the word “human” itself—which derives from the root word humus, meaning “earth.” To be human thus means to be of the earth, not apart from or better than any of the other beings with whom we share this planet.”^⁠2

Webb urges us to switch from our usual, small-minded, egotistic self to an Earth-based version where all species are interconnected as one. This can lead to a secondary benefit: a spontaneous eruption of awe, difficult to describe because it transcends our ordinary experience.

According to Peter Wehner in Atlantic Magazine, research shows that “awe provides us with a greater sense of purpose and meaning. It encourages an appreciation for beauty and creativity. It can improve our mood and sense of well-being, make us more curious and less self-occupied.” When we see ourselves in the context of wonder, it makes us humbler.^⁠3

Wehner cites the clinical psychologist David Elkins, who rhapsodizes, “Awe is a lightning bolt that marks in memory those moments when the doors of perception are cleansed and we see with startling clarity what is truly important in life.”

That’s what the lightning flash was between that bird and me: my sudden epiphany that all life on Earth is kin, that we are all multiple intelligences on a spectrum. The fact that life is more mysterious than we usually believe is a reason for hope, Webb writes.

She would agree with Robecca Solnit, who has written: “Optimism says that everything will be fine no matter what, just as pessimism says that it will be dismal no matter what. Hope is a sense of the grand mystery of it all, the knowledge that we don’t know how it will turn out, that anything is possible.”⁠^⁠4

And she’s right!

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