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Trees partake of both sky and middle (surface) earth, adding the primordial element of the underworld, the source unconscious. The roots of trees are shamanistic slides to the Lower Realms. Birds conserve access to, and understanding of, this Underworld � both in terms of the physical sub-stratae of matter, and of the unconscious, occult aspects of Creation. This is especially true of crows, which even science grudgingly admits are the most intelligent of birds.

Oh perfesser. Ya got no idea.

Trees, birds, angels, the puer aeternus, the Cabiri, the filius macrocosmi � these are all elements a'swirl in a four-dimensional continnuum fundamental to the descent/ascent motifs of the Western spiritual tradition.

In Christian iconography, the Holy Spirit, or the Paraclete of Redemption, is a bird, often a dove. In alchemy the crow (as nagual, representing nigredo) and the phoenix figure prominently. Deities or entities which share flight with birds are shown winged, including Hermes and Apollo in Hellenism, Rome�s Mercury and the alchemy's Mercurius duplex.

Like birds and angels, these powers are liminate, mediating between earth and heaven, matter and spirit. They seek not merely to bring messages, but to manipulate matter by incantation, which often, but not always, means sonic resonance or song. In Greek mythology, it is intermediary Hermes who invents the lyre, employing a tortoise, then presents the instrument to Apollo, god of music. Sonic resonance in caves and grottoes was a chief method by which Paleolithic shamans moved �out of body� and journeyed to the Lower and Upper Worlds.

It is not an accident that the primary gnosis of the past forty years has been encoded in human song, both through lyric and melodic content. Certain songs, especially of the past four decades, are modern manifestations of the Holy Spirit, of that collective entity that Christ promised would return to inspire humanity � the Paraclete.

A close review will reveal music which is blatantly gnostic and alchemical in theme and content. Many songs are barefaced revelations of coniunctio, including John Fogerty�s �Have You Ever Seen the Rain?� the Beatles� �I Am the Walrus,� and Bob Dylan�s �Changing of the Guard.�

When birds and angels sing, the opposites knit together, and the prison doors of the underworld and the unconcious burst asunder. The sparks of spirit hidden in matter are revealed and released. Fallen angels and fallen matter rise like loaves before the multitude.

The next day we�re back on the job. We find our flying heroes sprawled on the sidewalk, frozen to death, a pussycat�s gift.

Seraphim in the Sycamore

I guess Jung got a tough start with birds � the horror in Nature, and the horror in ourselves, is an existential shock that aboriginal peoples held at bay through constant ritual, typically including atonement sacrifices of animals and/or humans. Most modern humans force the teeming grisly realities of Nature, whether microcosmic or macrocosmic, into unconsciousness -- and rightly so. Modern humans are sufficiently neurotic. Much more, and they would come stark unglued. They are best roused slowly, like cranky children on a school-morning.

Jung exhibited his genius by confronting such issues as a boy. Very plucky.

A long way in his dust, I�m one of the slow risers.

When I was a toddler, I woke most dawns to choruses of birds. We lived in a tiny two-story cottage on the edge of San Pablo Bay, in northern California. As soon as I�d learned to crawl and climb, I�d head down the little hallway to the window each morning, hanging on the sill, rapt before the sycamore tree just outside, its branches shimmering with singing things.

We were at eye-level, on wavelength, only lightly grounded in this strange world, closer to There than here.

Back on the Fire Road

Fast-forward four decades, to the mid-Nineties. I had been walking down the Fire Road for many years by then. The alchemists call such periods nigredo, the blackening � the crow on the soul.

I was living in Mountainair, New Mexico, a hamlet sixty miles southeast of Albuquerque. Mountainair is so isolated and small, the clocks don�t even stop there. The surrounding desert, over a mile high, is studded with stark, breathtaking mountains. The vistas are liberating, the air clean.

My brother was working as an archaeologist at a nearby ranger station, while I shuttled back and forth to Albuquerque, pursuing foolishnesses. We shared a little trailer on the edge of the village.

One late summer day I was walking to the ranger station to get Big Red, my brother�s truck, for a trip to that mecca of arcana, the University of New Mexico library. As I padded along puffs of dust ascended from the Fire Road. To my right, in the ditch, a line of telephone poles stretched, with the Manzano Mountains jutting northeast in the mid-distance.