In my life there’s a Crow,
A big, black as pitch, special crow. Sometimes he’s in an oak tree, others he’s on a fence post. Sometimes he’s off doing what black crows do and other times, he’s sat on my shoulder screaming and squawking in my ear!
If you don’t know what a crow is, it’s a big black bird they get in the UK, like a raven. As you’ll read, I’m quite a grounded person and don’t subscribe to much in the way of conventional wisdom. I’m skeptical of luck and destiny and don’t really get off on the supernatural … BUT … there are things in life that we simply can’t explain.
How did this crow come into my life?
We were looking to move house and came across a property that was in the hands of the receiver. The owner had gone bankrupt and this looked like a fantastic opportunity. I tracked down the agent dealing with it and opened negotiations, looking forward to the moment we signed the deal of the decade.
I was ahead of the game, had got in before anyone else, the price was good … and things just started to fall apart!
One thing after another, inexplainable things that I’m not even going to attempt to explain! The more we pushed, the more the deal pushed back.
My wife would often turn to me and say that “things aren’t right, this just isn’t normal”
In my heart I agreed but my head disagreed with both.
Then on the last visit, as we got out of the car, an old lady appeared at the fence from the field opposite. Cheery enough but just strange. “Hi, just wanted to say hello and see if I like you or not. If not I’ll be putting in a toilet block here in front of you” she chirped.
At that very moment my Crow appeared on an ancient oak branch right next to her head and began screaming at us. “Rarrrk, rarrk, rarrk”
That’s it! We agreed and decided it was all too much. We pulled out of the deal and forgot all about it.
A year later we passed the property again and were horrified to see what would have happened if we’d secured the house.
A retired lawyer lived some distance away and liked to ride out on the forest on his horse. He’d been studying old maps of the area and found an ancient bridleway that allowed him to access past the house to the woods beyond. He did his lawyer’s thing and got the path reopened.
It passed through the garden, under the kitchen window, through the garage and out of the garden on the other side!
I have listened to my Black Crow from that point forward.
When the Black Crow screams he’s telling me to walk away or is pushing me in a direction. My wife and I have a saying now when things go wrong for no reason we can fathom, “it’s a Black Crow”.
We learned to accept that when the ‘Crow’s a screamin’ … beware! We’ve learned to walk away, no matter how counter intuitive it may seem.
I grew through writing and practicing the things I put down on paper here and as my other businesses took off and life took over I put Omniscience on the back burner.
Things started to go bad with my business, my Black Crow has been squawking and I’ve not been listening. Everything failed, culminating in probably the darkest day of my life …
Later I write about locking horns, seeing the signs and learning to walk away at the right time. Making an enemy is the most time-consuming, energy-sapping, draining thing you can do.
We’d bought an amazing property here in New Zealand which used to be an old apple orchard. It came with three workers’ cottages. After we moved, the council changed the development zoning, which for us was a lottery ticket. It meant we could divide off the cottages, give them titles and sell them on.
All went well until close to the end. We’d sold a couple and just needed some driveways putting in. This is the most simple of jobs. We took on a small local landscaping firm and that must have been one of those days when the Black Crow was off in some Black Crow strip joint, smoking Black Crow ganja and getting thoroughly smashed on Black Crow cerveza, or something. Where ever he was, he wasn’t where he should have been … screaming at the top of his croupy voice: “Stay away from these motherfuckers, they are baaaaaaad news…”
I’m not going to bore you with the details but the subsequent two years have been what can only be described as utter insanity. These people made such a mess of the job that they caused us to miss the deadlines on the agreements and lose a sale. They then produced an invoice that appeared to have been penned by The Brothers Grim.
It’s ended up in court and caused so much upset and distress I can’t begin to describe … well I can but can’t be fucked!
This was only a small facet of things that were going wrong. Alone, I sank lower and lower and lower into a dank and dark place where all was black and all was cold and all was silent.
I was living life constantly below the happiness line. My moods rarely peaked above it. I went on tablets in the hope they’d at least even emotions out. Just to be able to have a life on the happiness line would be a start.
I couldn’t concentrate on my projects. I slept for too many hours and awoke tired and drained. I dreaded the morning and lived in abject fear of what Groundhog day would bring. If it was the same as yesterday, a day filled with rejection, I didn’t want to face today.
And it was during this time of crushing self-pity that I rediscovered The Omniscience Principle.
I began reading. I would read more and as it made more and more sense I read more and then I started to rewrite. I am older and wiser now and began to feel a spark as I rediscovered writing stuff in better ways. Something I found most amazing of all was just how good this shit was! Stuff I’d written those years ago was still so relevant and poignant.
As I wrote, the power returned and began coursing through my every cell … I’d forgotten how powerful it all is.
Nothing’s changed at this point except my perspective. I am still fixing a broken business, still battling demons and still fighting those unhinged landscaping people … But I am feeling good, really, really good.
And now the fog has cleared I see the colour returning. I can see the sun rising and the moon, like an obedient dog following. I can hear the bees working and the birds singing and loudest of all … Black Crow is squawking!
He was there all along … The things that failed were Black Crow. If any of a million things had gone differently, I’d not be writing this now!
Extract from: How Why & i
