It’s very easy to be extremely naive about living beings and places when one has no deep (deep-time | deep-intimate relationships) with living beings and places. As an example, I will pose the following story.

A woman was gardening on her land (i.e ‘distracted animal is present’). A raven came nearby and made a few calls. This alerted the woman: she woke up a bit. After a time, she noticed a mountain lion nearby, and left the area to go to shelter.

The narrative she wove around this experience was something like this: ‘My friend, the Raven, may have saved my life’. In her mind, the Raven was her ally and friend. This is not an entirely unreasonable story. From her perspective, it is relatively truthful and certainly accords with her experience.

But what she doesn’t understand is the relationship between the corvids and predators. This relationship is extremely ancient. Under the right circumstances, corvids will provide this useful service to human hunters. It cannot be easily encapsulated in language, however, the simple basis is that the the corvids are used to getting the leftovers of successful hunts. So they are inclined to lead predators toward situations where there is prey, particularly prey that is injured, distracted, or otherwise ‘not paying attention’.

No one can say what actually took place; however, it is useful to develop rich knowledge about living beings and places. Such knowledge is not merely functional or logical. It is, fundamentally, relational…