A crow contemplating the autumn sunrise raises the question: Do animals sense wonder and awe? Patrick Gormally, a retired university professor who now volunteers as a Catholic Prison Chaplain in France, reflects.
In late August this year, at 5.45am, a crow was perched in the Lebanon cedar tree outside my window; and over fifteen minutes he crowed three times. Distracted, I saw him move to the North-Eastern side where the sun rose; then he circled back around the cedar tree and flew away.
At worship that morning ten men from the Detention Centre discussed ways to pray: supplication (a favourite because they tend to haggle with God), thanksgiving, and in silence. I mentioned the crow. "Maybe he was praying?", ventured F, who defends the Catholic faith of his childhood with conviction.
The crow and the prisoner’s remarks came back to me as I read Indian Portraits[1] by Yann Vagneux, a French priest of the Paris Foreign Missions Society who discovered India and Hinduism in 1997, and who lives in the holy city of Banaras (Varanasi). Among the portraits is Indian-born Prasanna Devi (Sr. Anna, 1934-), the only female hermit of the Syro-Malabar Church, who left her community but has lived, alone in the jungle, a Hindu lifestyle which allowed people to accept her and listen to her. For her, contemplation is at the heart of spiritual experience, contemplation as God’s intimate presence and the ability to see "the tiniest created beings" with wonder and awe. The crow came to mind.
In the chapter "Like Rivers of Living Water" Vagneux describes Sr. Vandana Mataji (1921-2013), a Sacred Heart sister, and Indian classical musician, whose Christian ashram in Rishikesh promoted the Indian inculturation of a contemplative form of Christian spirituality and prayer, including silent meditation and the transmission of inner experience. For her, "the Church had no other choice in the Hindu world than to be prophetic through a genuine contemplation and a great respect for other religious traditions" (p. 180-181).
Yann Vagneux describes the awe and mystery he experiences when contemplating the Milky Way in his native Alps, the beauty and mystery of the Ganges and the Indian sense of the Divine presence. Indians are conscious of the divine in all living things; Jains wear a mouth covering to avoid inadvertently swallowing tiny insects, Hindus have deep respect for the sacredness of animals, and many are vegetarian. Such regard for all animal life is a reminder that Western deterministic thinking and at times Catholic theology have missed the point that animals are also creatures of God. Pope Francis, by choosing the name of a saint and animal-lover, invites us to contemplate the Creator’s love of Creation.
Naturalists believe that elephant death rituals suggest sorrow and regret; and other species show signs of awe, fear, delight, and joy. Animals feature in the Bible: Noah’s Ark, Jonah’s whale, Balaam’s ass. For Jesus, snakes, foxes, and birds illustrate intelligence and carefree trust; in Bethlehem and on Palm Sunday, cows, sheep and the donkey provide warmth, companionship and aid.
The Cultural History of the Crow by medieval historian Michel Pastoureau[2], relates how the crow’s positive image in Antiquity became associated with evil in the Middle Ages, and continues to be a bad omen in modern times; in French corbeau (crow) is figuratively synonymous with the anonymous whistleblower. More recent research on animal intelligence confirms however the bird’s wisdom and shrewdness. It is clever, quick-thinking, faithful and possesses a good memory with a high ratio of brain to body size, as French school children know thanks to the 17th century fable by La Fontaine, The Fox and the Crow[3].
One day in the following week, at 6.45am,the sky was greyer, the sun rose later, and a crow again croaked twice in the branches facing towards the North-East, before departing. On September 22, the Autumn Equinox this year, a crow croaked several times as the sun emerged through low clouds at 7.30am, and two days later a pair of crows watched briefly in the cool dawn air. It was three weeks since the first croak. I do not know how animal instinct functions, but in the dawn darkness I have much to learn from Crow’s observation of the morning sky.
*Patrick and his wife Marie-Cécile live in New Aquitaine, south western France.
In a previous posting on Living Water, theologian and hermit Maggie Ross describes her companionship with a pet raven. See: https://www.thelivingwater.com.au/blog/freefalling-in-the-love-of-god
[1]Yann Vagneux, Indian Portraits.Eight Christian Encounters with Hinduism, (New Delhi, Nirala, 2021)
[2]Michel Pastoureau, Le Corbeau. Une histoire culturelle, (Paris, Le Seuil, 2021)
[3]Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695), Le Corbeau et le Renard.