The Corvidae family, that includes Crows, Ravens, Rooks, Jays and Magpies, as well as Jackdaws, have powers of abstraction, memory, and creativity that are some of the strongest among birds, even rivalling that of many mammals. Corvids are well known creatures that show up time and time again in various myths and folktales throughout history. For the Native Tsimshian peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America, the Raven is a central figure in their creation myth, representing an intermediary between the physical and spiritual realms. In the Tsimshian genesis, when all lived in darkness, it was the Raven who spread light throughout the world. Disguised as a pine needle and consumed by the chief’s daughter, the Raven was reborn as her son. With its newfound innocence, the raven-turned-boy was able to beguile his grandfather into unlocking the closely guarded chests that held the sun, the moon, and the stars (Barbeau, Marias and Beynon, 1987, pp. 14–15). In the ancient syncretic philosophical Hindu text, the Yogavasistha, the Crow is an “immortal sage-like Crow who lives in a tree on Mount Meru where he witnesses the creation and dissolution of the universe, a succession of epochs in the earth’s history, and the birth and death of suns and moons, as described in Hindu cosmology” (Dangers, 2022). In such examples of Corvid mythology, these birds are imbued with a metamorphic divinity – as agents of cosmic transformation.
In more recent European history however, Corvids have become more associated with thievery and death, most likely due to their scavenging traits and their ability to “engage in mourning rituals when a member of their flock dies” (Dangers, 2022). In recent history a group of crows has even been referred to as a ‘murder’!! In Richard Harris Barham’s 19th century poem ‘The Jackaw of Rheims’ the Jackdaw is portrayed as a scavenging thief that takes off with the Cardinal’s precious ring. Upon returning it, the bird becomes a beacon of divine retribution, and a warning against the temptations of material possessions, human vanity and corruption.
If any one lied,–or if any one swore,–
Or slumber’d in pray’r-time and happen’d to snore,
That good Jackdaw
Would give a great “Caw!” (Barham, 1837)
In light of the absolved Jackdaw’s newfound piety, it is made a saint by the poem’s end and canonised by the name of Jim Crow. This coincides with the same period of time in which the term ‘Jim Crow’, popularised by Thomas Dartmouth Rice in his blackface performances, was being used as a collective racial epithet for black people. There is no direct evidence that shows an intentional link between Barham’s ‘Jim Crow’ and Rice’s character, but the resonance is an interesting one to consider. In both examples the character of ‘Jim Crow’ is an exaggerated representation of human stereotypes, on one hand a display of religious sanctity and human purity born against the supposed foolish and inherently villainous nature of the Jackdaw, and on the other a figurehead of white superiority used to rationalise and deepen African American inequality. Interestingly so, corvids have co-evolved along-side predators. Through this symbiotic relationship crows were able to aid ancient humans locate prey, in return gaining access to the remains of their food. Thus their cultural significance as scavengers today are built on thousands of years of co-evolution. Perhaps then, our applications of thievery to Jackdaw behaviour are a result of our detachment and disenchantment from the ecological world – the same world responsible for shaping us.
Mytho-poetic inquiry might help us challenge our civilisational myopia, and understand the more-than-humans outside of our anthropocentric preconceptions. Perhaps I’ve been trying too hard to intellectualise that initial encounter with those Nonsuch Jackdaws. When first experiencing their deafening chorus and sunset murmurations I felt an openness to the world around me, a feeling of presence I had not experienced in some time. In this numinous encounter I not only saw them or merely heard them, but rather entered into relationship with them, into another mode of being that surrendered to the ambiguity of the sensuous. Looking back I could say those Jackdaws became messengers, archetypes of the collective shadow, surpassing their biological identity by becoming mirrors of my own pysche. The deeper I experienced them, the more I let go, and through this undoing of perception, the more they revealed parts of me to myself. A mytho-poetic alchemy in which the outer world reflects the inner, and vice versa. This exchange of energy might be said to arise from the implicate order of the world: a deeper interconnected reality where everything is enfolded within everything else, as proposed by David Bohm (1989), contributor to theoretical physics, philosophy of mind, and neuropsychology. By embracing a larger narrative, fueled by a tacit awareness of the implicate order, the jackdaws became drenched in personal meaning. Bohm describes this ‘active meaning making’ as an “explication of a more inconspicuous form of meaning that is called into consciousness through its relationship to the implicate order” (Ruebsaat, 2013). In allowing the Jackdaws to become key players in our conception of self, a portal opens to the unconscious. Entering into this relationship then is an act of archetypal activism; a reclamation of one’s agency that emerges through some qualitative resonance with the ‘other’. Thus, we might say the self, and the dynamic process of ‘becoming’, in the Deleuzian sense, are unified within the implicate order, and expressed, or individuated in the explicate. This is the essence of embodiment.
Reflection is the true seeing; the root of seeing through, when one can apprehend the archetypal being revealed in an event or story. One can then hear the archetypal image voicing beneath the myth as it sings and flickers through for one to engage actively (Ruebsaat, 2013).
Mythopoetics provides the spinal cord along which all my ideas have found their natural alignment. It is the exploration of jackdaw as archetype, catalysed by my experience of them, that prompts the ‘naked ear’, able to listen in spite of one’s preconceptions, and in doing so, reflects ourselves back to ourselves – as a result there arises a deepening and unveiling of the self. Much like meditation, where we give ourselves permission to let thoughts and emotions pass through us without judgement, I propose that any ‘more-than-human’ encounter offers that same space of openness and receptivity that enables one to integrate different aspects of their psyche. And yet, even as I recreate their mythology, Jackdaws remain as agents of transformation.
A marriage of depth pyschology, phenomenology, deleuzian ‘becomings’ and mythopoetic inquiry – but what does this look, or sound like as a creative composition? The visuals are already well underway and offers a visceral collage of the liminal layers of perception. Phenomenologically speaking, I hope to represent the source of our subconscious preconceptions through this. Using fast paced imagery, the visual element will aim to entrance the watcher in a dreamlike state, within which the subconscious recalls, and speaks to us through, the obscurity of experience. This will act as the backdrop to the soundscape composition. But how do I translate the Jackdaw-as-archetype – as agents of transformation – into a musical and sonic context? In order to adhere to both ‘ecological consciousness’ and psychological transformation I will utilise both raw field recordings, manipulated field recordings, and composed music. Instead of creating an entire world of sound, drawing from endless libraries of samples, I will instead set myself the challenge of only using my own field recordings. This include jackdaws, the dawn and dusk chorus, water as a symbol of fluidity (much like Deleuze and Guattari’s idea on becoming), and the church bells of Nonsuch Park. I will start the piece with these bells, tolling predictably, to represent the hourly march of time, of control. This is echoed in Schafer’s denotation of the bell as an anthropocentric signal delineating the boundaries of a town or city. This could work well over static, geometric city-like imagery to further invoke the feeling or order, separation, or the known world. The seven bells will also signify the start of sunset, in which the encounter begins, as the jackdaws murmurate before settling to roost. From here I will introduce the sound of the jackdaws slowly, accompanied by a string ensemble. As the encounter grows I might use violins to replicate, and even replace the voices of the jackdaws, to signify growing enchantment – as the chatterings grow more and more cacophonous, I will switch in and out of violin-as-jackdaw and actual jackdaw sounds, even overlapping the two, to tread the line of both phenomenological experience and reciprocal becoming; as stringed instruments and jackdaws become indistinguishable there should be a culmination of transformative resonance, where jackdaw and self are no longer separate. As murmurations begin, the score will grow in depth. To sustain the continuous process of seeing/ hearing past the fog of preconception, an ongoing tension of continuous becoming will be delivered by the continued manipulation of jackdaw voices, drifting in and out of mythic engagement, phenomenological reality, and projected distortions. Time might slow down in places (bird against bird?) – a warping of time when encountering a perceived divinity, of self, or other. Bowed textures could mimic both air currents, murmurations, in the spirit of Jon Hassell (particularly his use of the trumpet to recreate the feel of a ‘Rising Thermal’ in his album Fourth World Vol 1 Possible Musics). I might also explore other extended techniques such as sul pont, harmonics, or scratch tones. I’ve even thought of using Jackdaw voices as mediators of resonator controls representing an implicate order – creating an organic ever-evolving ambience. I’ve thought to use my own voice too, perhaps whispers, audible, yet just out of reach, as if something is being communicated but it is impossible to tell what. This is all only meant as a loose structure for what I might call an audiovisual poem. The aim is to make audible the process of deconstructing anthropocentric listening, revealing not only the jackdaws, but our inner-workings through them. An entangled listening as a form of spiritual and psychological alignment.
We often don’t have the language, or indeed the mental syntax, for the intuited unknown and so we’re obliged to reach into and employ the poetic mind. This mind enables us better to explore nascent truths that aren’t yet tangibly manifested (Ruebsaat, 2013).
Bibliography
Barbeau, M. Marias and Beynon, W., 1987. Tsimshian narratives: Volume 1: Tricksters, shamans, and heroes. J.J. Cove and G.F. MacDonald (eds.). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.
Barham, R.H. 1837. The Jackdaw of Rheims. Family Stories, Bentley’s Miscellany, IV. London: R. Bentley. AP 4 B38, Robarts Library.
Bohm, D. 1989. Meaning and information. In: P. Pylkkänen, ed. The search for meaning: the new spirit in science and philosophy. Toronto: HarperCollins Canada.
Buxton, N. 2006. The crow and the coconut: Accident, coincidence, and causation in the Yogavāsiṣṭha. Philosophy East and West, 56(3), pp.392–408
Dangers, D. 2022. Crow & Crone: Twin archetypes. Feathers and Folktales. 7 September. Available at: https://feathersandfolktales.com/diemdangersblogposts/crow-and-crone-twin-archetypes [Accessed 15 Apr. 2025].
Ruebsaat, S. 2013. What does a mythopoetic inquiry look like? SFU Educational Review, 6. Available at: https://doi.org/10.21810/sfuer.v6i.372