Say cheese

Between Taos and Embudo, NM by Beth Surdut

My heart opens with joy every time I drive the mountainous road between Taos and Embudo. The rift gorge is still aflame with golden cottonwoods leaning over the Rio Grande, and I wonder how to paint the emotions of this day. 

Glory fades as the road eventually widens and flattens into the traffic lanes and ratty median strips of Espanola where a dead dog lies bloated in the sun. Some kind of cattle dog, the spotted fur still visible—Australian or maybe Blue Heeler. The truck in the lane next to me passes, the silver trailer hitch glinting and wobbling so much that I consider honking to tell the two guys in the truck cab that something is wrong, but this being Espanola, I better be damn sure, so I speed up for a closer  look.

It’s an aluminum scrotum sack...about the size of a bull’s, complete with bulging balls and little indentation marks like rippled skin, just swinging low to the rhythm of the road.

My potential Good Samaritan act foiled, I returned to wondering how best to describe the sound of  wind moving through the cottonwood  leaves like dry  rain, or how to paint the flash of pinon jays lofting in blue notes of  surprise.

Raven Walks in Orion Magazine, Roosts at the NM State Land Office

The wind comes up cold in August.

Coyotes bark in the valley

I sit on the mountain

Raven wings brushing my hair

Pay attention to me, says Raven.

I will. Tomorrow. 

Right now I’m distracted

Tied up. Tied down. 

Raven sits in the juniper

Watching me as I draw him

Looking at me

He swoops in to untie a knot

He talks to me every day.

Light glancing off his feathers

Six drawings later

My eyes are reflected in his

As I walk in the desert morning

Raven lands in front me

Listen, he says

     And finally I do.       

©Beth Surdut  2011 

Nov/Dec  Orion Magazine--Walks Like a Man and my thoughts about habitat and wildfires

Another Reason Why

The  Reason Why  by  Beth  Surdut  2011

 I walk through this desert with Coyote and Raven, discussing who really created the Milky Way. I stand under these big open mouthed skies of New Mexico and let the stars flow down my throat and into my veins. I hike through the Bisti badlands, the towering playground of Tent Rocks, and hear the thrumming of the ancient earth.

At night I take my flashlight out into the brush, following the sparkling shine of eyes in the darkness. By morning the sun lights the gold chamisa and lavender sage carpet of my  dreams.

This is my home, though I haven't a house. 

This is my succor,  though water is scarce. 

I came from the east and can't imagine life without the west.

This is the place where I live.

The Reason Why

The character of Raven appears as trickster and bringer of magic in stories that fly through time and territory, his cleverness ultimately providing humans with surprising benefits.  

 Enduring creatures, Ravens appear in the Lascaux cave paintings, the Bible, Babylonian flood myths, Norse, Celtic, and Native American stories and more. Raucous, rowdy, defiant, sensual and smart, their cleverness is admired by scientists, their mystery acknowledged throughout world cultures.

A jewelry maker from Boston, graduate of the esteemed North Bennet Street School, gave this Raven to a dear friend in New Mexico who knew the pleasure of sitting with her dog named Bear and talking to ravens. Soon after the dog died, a raven feather appeared on the front stoop. The owner believes that the feather is a message from Bear. 

Solo  exhibition of Listening to Raven including this drawing and  story  at Wells Fargo Bank Gallery in Santa Fe,corner of Paseo de Peralta and  Washington Ave. Open 6 days a  week with  free parking.

Walking by Moonlight in Bandelier

Listening  to Raven  series  at  www.bethsurdut.com

Walking with the ancients by moonlight, my feet joined 10,000 years of  footfalls.  A resident raven listened to my questions as the moon rose over these ancestral pueblo dwelling places.Then we were silent in a landscape full of night sounds.

It was a poetic night of the senses.

Of rushing water in a dry land

Of drumbeats linking the centuries

Of heartbeats calling to the dead

Of surprises.

I  was changed.

I will not tell you more.

Go.

http://www.nps.gov/band/planyourvisit/nightwalk.htm

To hear more  raven  adventures and see portraits of this clever corvid, visit  Wells Fargo  Bank  Gallery for the  month  of  July,  corner of  Washington  Ave and  Paseo  de Peralta, open  Monday through Saturday with free parking.

Walks Like  A  Man  by  Beth  Surdut

The Middle of Nowhere is Somewhere to Me

Great  Basin pastel sketch          c Beth Surdut 2011

  All this talk about getting back to nature...some of us never left.

Creativity--the natural high.

Out of the Lion's mouth

Yes, I drew this, but there are days when I can't tell if she's being swallowed or launching herself out of the lion's mouth.

In Balinese myth, a big moon faced ogre swallows the moon goddess each month until she's a sliver of light and hope, but he never succeeds entirely, because he only has a head. She always emerges, serene and beautiful, with a knowing little smile. It's something to aspire to--outwitting the ogres, knowing where the lions are-- don't you think?

Musical confluence--Wondering Where the Lions Are by brilliant Bruce Cockburn

Listening To Raven~Drawings,  Myths & Realities by Beth Surdut

While I was creating The Ravens of  Truth and Memory with pen and colored pencil, heart and mind, two tiny Zuni fetish ravens carved by a married couple into black marble and bound together with turquoise and coral perched on the paper's edge. I found them through the grace of the Bronwyn the White Raven who owns Keshi in Santa Fe.
The Norse God Odin sent two Ravens out each day--one named Thought (Hugin), the other Memory (Munin). Here, I've changed Thought to Truth.
Memory allows Truth to gently pick through her feathers until both birds shine. Chosen by bird guide author  David Allen Sibley for the exhibition For the Birds at Brush Gallery in Massachusetts until June 18.
For the beginning of the Raven story that brought this mermaid to the desert, start with Drawing Raven.

Ten Generations en la troca

Ten Generations from Listening to Raven series by Beth Surdut

La troca (the truck) is as iconic here in New Mexico as Trickster Raven-- the older rounded forms made by man mimic the languid curves and patinas of this high desert that color my soul. 

The Listening toRaven~Drawings, Myths and Realities series of intricate drawings and stories is the current focus of this blog and my professional life. From Alaska to Australia, Croatia, Canada, and all over the map, people contact me with raven tales.  
Come meet my raven family and their stories roosting at the Wells Fargo Bank Gallery on Washington St for the entire month of July 2011.

In Alaska, Mark has been caring for ravens and eagles for the past 16 years. Although there are certainly professional nature photographers with admirable patience, skill, and talent, this man’s love is uniquely communicated through his actions and photographic documentation of his avian friends. His photographs and the stories he tells me gave flight to this drawing as well as  The Ravens of Truth and Memory which nods to the Norse God Odin’s ravens.

Mark writes: I must say I think your drawing of Raven is the best that I have seen yet...

 Raven flew over the office of the apartment complex where I worked. I put some meat out for him and soon he came down and got it. Next, he brought his partner and although she was much more tentative they both started stopping by each day. I started to develop a call that sounded like when the male Kushka called the female Feathers. After time, when I called, they would come down off the mountain. That summer, I noticed that they brought their fledge down to my truck and from that time on I became their babysitter.

  After 10 generations of fledges, I believe the original couple moved on and now all their children come back in the winter to live nearby cause they know I will have food for them if times get bad.

Speaking of la troca: I carried Martha Egan's collection La Ranfla (The Ride) to the mechanic's while he fixed my brakes-- I read the entire collection, nodding and grinning, wondering if I should go looking for a literate cowboy and a good cash crop, when Guapo brought me to tears right there in a chilly waiting room.

When your friends back East ask what New Mexico is about, send them this book. Then get them out here, drive them around in a troca, show them the land and sky and a good taqueria, reading them Jim Sagal's Unexpected Turn if you can find a copy.

Mining for Bats

Visual  Storyteller Beth  Surdut 2011

 

 

 

 

Two miles up straight up a rock-pile masquerading as a road in the Ortiz Mountains of New Mexico, Thompson’s Big-eared bats swirled out of the old Santo Niño mine shaft at sunset. Wings beating like tiny bellows in the deep lavender air next to my cheek, they looked like spirits, their forms limned by the full moon. 

This is the kind of thing I live for—I’ve stood in a sacred and odorous bat cave in Indonesia that looked like a view into a many-storied tenement building; held a grinning fruit bat and stroked its suede-soft wings after leaving a sacred monkey forest in Bali, and was now standing in the cool of a starry evening in a mountain preserve given over to the Santa Fe Botanical Garden by a mining company.

About a mile up the road, which looked like one of those middle-of-nowhere ads with the disclaimer that reads “Professional driver--Do not attempt at home,” I had to ask my two volunteer passengers in the back to get out and walk. I realized that this was the first time I ever had second thoughts after signing one of those “if you die, it's not our fault" waivers. 

I’m not an adrenaline junky, but there is much that I will do to get to the great view, the sacred place, the isolated island, the animal adventure. So, singing  Bob Marley songs with  a guide,  I’ve ridden a jumpy polo pony into the hills of Jamaica, kayaked alligator infested waters in Florida, flown strapped onto a bench in a skinless home-built plane to see sea turtles in the Hawaiian ocean—you get the idea.  But this time, I turned to my companion in the passenger seat and said, “This is just plain stupid and there’s more to come--we’re going to have to maneuver this in the dark. Should have brought sleeping bags.”

We gathered under the light of a mica moon and walked up a small incline with wildlife biologist Mike Roedel, who said wryly, when I asked the name of a flower, “I don’t know, it doesn’t have wings,” but was otherwise informative about his field, so much so that he encouraged questions while we waited for the bats to swirl up from the mine. We learned that the majority of the bats we would see were males and that the maternity colony, as many as 140, were literally hanging out with their pups in the much more accessible Mining Museum in Cerrillos.

They began to arrive in ones and twos, about  4 inches long with rabbit-like ears, dancing a pas de deux, sometimes announcing squeakily that they were coming up the shaft, which was lined with a large echoing metal cylinder covered by an iron cupola to keep us from jumping in, I guess. We counted the bats; numbers ranged from 25 to 42. Wings swooshed by my head as I peered and listened for the next arrivals

There is so much to know--the set of the constellations, the rounded curves of the mountains, the moods of the desert, the creatures that have been here longer than we can remember. We came down off the mountain, every one of us enhanced by the wing beat of bat under a night sky.

The Compass of My Heart by Beth  Surdut

  This trip is no longer offered. However there is guided hike information on Santa Fe Botanical Garden properties that include mountains and wetlands at  http://www.santafebotanicalgarden.org

portrait photo credit: David Holmstrom

Calling peacocks

Power without Sacrifice--silk cape by Beth Surdut

"There are baby peacocks loose in your neighborhood," the head of the Conservation Commission called to tell me. In a rural quintessential New England town that had seen one murder 33 years before I arrived to work as a reporter, small events masquerade as big news. The murder remains unsolved, but this time, I was prepared.

Ordered through the mail,  the peacock youngsters, too young to achieve brilliant coloration (not that the peahens ever would), weren't supposed to take flight until they'd matured, but like airplane schedules I'd encountered in Indonesia,  they took off when they pleased, especially since the owners had yet to build a covered enclosure. So, with a lot less effort than it took to escape the local penitentiary,  the birds had flown the  coop.

"Look up in the  trees, " the Con Com lady advised me.

Not knowing when a peacock caller would come in handy, I'd bought one for $2 from a jolly man who owned a downstairs shop on Boston's tony Newbury Street. The two reeds, a few inches long, bound together at each end with red twine, emit a piercing unbeautiful sound when you blow through them.

Too Much Beauty 

 

When I lived in  Florida, where a neighborhood was  known for its  free roaming  peacocks, a group of residents lobbied for an ordinance to rid the neighborhood of  these strikingly gorgeous birds with the voices of harridans.

For two years I worked for a newspaper that covered this lovely town of 5,000 people west of Boston complete with apple orchards, a village green, churches, livestock, dogs, cats and wild things-- fierce Fisher cats that howled like banshees,  hungry foxes, and bold coyotes that trotted by clenching little squealing bodies in their jaws.

"What about the cats and dogs," I asked the old woman who showed me the 150 year old house, a former commune with a hand- built Swedish sauna perched by the pond spillway.
"Guess they run a lot faster than they used to," she said grimly.

A neighbor came by to tell me he'd seen a Fisher cat in my yard early one morning. "Cat" sounded like a big kitty. I had no idea what hellishness roamed the forests until another neighbor brought me to the rotting corpse of this fearsome beast from the wolverine family.

I'd seen a determined fox take a gosling from my pond, a hawk snatch a sparrow in mid- air right in front of me, found baby deer legs behind my house. My two inquisitive Khaki Campbell ducks no longer knocked on my front door with their beaks

I now wandered the back roads of what felt like an H.P. Lovecraft horror story, honking my peacock caller, hoping that I would be triumphant.

Nothing.

As light filtered through the trees at day's end, I returned home to find a message from the Con Com lady scribbled on paper and tucked in my screen  door.

Peacocks returned of their own accord.

I have yet to have another chance to try out the efficacy of my peacock caller, but you just never know when it'll come in handy.

javelina and the meaning of fierce

From the notebook of  Beth Surdut, after seeing --with a friend as witness--10 javelinas cross the road in the Gila Wilderness where 17 ravens swooped and played in the winds over the mountains.

There's a neighbor who thrives on alarm, so when I told him about the javelinas, he said they were fierce.
The last one I saw walked like she had her tampon in crooked. It's hard to be fierce when you're that  distracted.
Then he told me, that yakking  neighbor, that we had a coyote problem and he wants the game  warden to  kill some--
hang 'em up  in the trees.
"That'll scare the others," he said, eyes gleaming in his piggy  face.
I think the KKK tried that in the South.
 All it did was make people fierce.

Flying Lessons in Abiquiu

Flying  Lessons  © Beth Surdut 2011

The first first time I piloted a small plane-- over the ocean through a  lava red sunset drenched in fire--

I described the feeling as delirious contentment.

As Raven and I continue our journey, I feel that same heartbeat of exaltation, curiosity, and mystery.

Resilient enough to survive monsoon and drought, soft as a whisper over my skin, the somewhat battered raven feather I retrieved from the Stone Ladies of the White Place now rides around in my car window, dividing my vision between earth and sky.

The White Place photo by Beth  Surdut

Smartest of birds and an icon in creation mythology, Raven shows himself to me and I respond. We talk in the golden aspen groves; sometimes we walk with Coyote amidst the earth sculptures of the Navajo badlands, discussing who really created the Milky Way. 

The  Compass of My Heart     © Beth Surdut

 I come here to breathe in what Raven has to tell me, to breathe out a new mythology with hands, heart and mind.  Standing in the open-mouthed wonder of Ghost Ranch, I make graaking sounds of hope and welcome to three ravens playing. I would leave this body to enter one of theirs, to fly and swoop in the New Mexico blue sky.

Healing Scarf For Gabrielle Giffords

 The Hebrew prayer Misheberach asks for “complete healing” –r’fuah shleimah in Hebrew-- of body and spirit. As I began painting, saddened by the death of songwriter Debbie Friedman and the Tucson shootings,   I heard the melody of Debbie’s Misheberach and realized the scarf was destined for Congresswoman Giffords.

So, here it is—The Heavens scarf, inscribed with r’fuah shleimah and inspired by the power greater than us, who created the star-filled universe and gives us the strength of spirit to heal.

Death and Cookies

Death stands next to me in the kitchen watching me make cookies.

He gets way too close, his murky odor distracting me as I measure portions of raisins and oats.  Death's shadow and I have been keeping company a lot these days.  I think he especially wants beautiful Sara because her heart's so good. A bad-mannered suitor, he grabbed her breast and slid into her spine, not realizing what kind of backbone he was dealing with. That woman's faith has gotten her through fifty-some-odd years of more than you want to know. We know she needs a miracle, and she's gotten sidetracked from what she does best, which is full-time ministering to people as a pastor.  I think when she comes through this, she'll fill her kitchen with people seeking the warmth of her great spirit.

I add a teaspoon of ginger and listen to a public radio interview with a Unitarian minister who has esophageal cancer. He got himself so right with God and Death that for a long moment that man forgot his family was in this, too. Then he got a year's reprieve. When Death came knocking a second time, "My family and I had already had the dress rehearsal," said the minister. Bet his wife and kids didn't look at it that way.

I hear people say, "I'm not scared of dying."  Maybe all the people who love them are scared. So think of that next time you get all philosophical about leaving this earth. We still want you.

Death still hangs around as the flour and rising agents fall gently out of the sifter. At least one of us is disturbed to see something wiggling. I scoop out the little wormy things and give Death a few treats.
 
"That's all you're getting from me today, buddy," I say, as I cream the healthy substitute butter with the natural substitute sweetener that's supposed to help keep me on earth longer.
Some of the cookies are for a rabbi with a sweet tooth. "Who will say kaddish for me," asked the bachelor Rabbi in a sermon twenty years ago, when he could still tap dance. Possibly everyone he has ever met, I think, as people come up to him whenever we go out. From birth to death, he has been a part of every life cycle event. Now, at 82, brilliant and sparky despite crippling spinal stenosis and Parkinson's, he taps sitting down, his feet clicking to Gershwin and the Beatles.

I'm making these cookies in my writer friend David's kitchen. "So what happens when Jews die?" he asks. His lymphoma has him walking the tightrope between Christian Science and modern science. So far, he's finding his balance.
"No heaven and hell. We're about the here and now, though reincarnation would be great. I can't get everything accomplished in one lifetime," I tell him as I plop cookie dough onto the next baking sheet.
When I bend over to open the oven door, Death pokes me as rudely as a wet nosed dog.
He leans close, rotten breath whispering, "Make room for me." 

I slide the second batch into the oven. Then, fed up, I shove Death in, too, and quickly close the door. No matter how much sugar you add, death stinks, but for the time being, the comforting scent of oatmeal cookies completely fills the kitchen.
I divide up the sweets for Sara, David, and the Rabbi.

Post Script-- I wrote this essay in  2009 before my father's heart broke into little pieces, floating through his bloodstream, trying to find their way back together.

The Spirit of Raven and My Father

The Things I  Do for Love

Raven welcomed me home to the big sky country of New Mexico after my father's death.

When asked if I knew where my father's soul was, I realized that for now, it is on my breath.

And in my hands and spirit.

Each day I put out an egg for raven.

Each moment, I miss my father.

They never met each other, but somehow, they are connected.

Protective Coloration

Protective Coloration , from the Enigmatic Paradise series by Beth Surdut

Once upon a time or two or three, I raised a little cane in Jamaica and Hawaii, where the colors of the sun and the moon gave truth to purple fields graced with gold light. Gauguin’s art didn’t lie, even if he did. I never wanted to leave the stains of experience behind, for its colors painted me to be who I am.

"When they see us coming,the birdies all try and hide..."

Things I Do For Love (drawing) cBeth Surdut 2010

Raven hasn't heard about the egg scare and let me know quite loudly that he didn't appreciate my withholding his treat for two days. Although I do have a fondness for the twisted Tom Lehrer song Poisoning Pigeons in the  Park (hence the title of this post),  I consulted an ornithologist about the raw chicken eggs I set each day in the hot desert sun.
"What are you worried about? You're feeding birds that eat road kill and festering carrion." Point taken, and yet, I scrutinized this current carton of eggs trying to ascertain if the eggs actually came out of Arizona chickens, or if the company was a distributor of any of the potentially salmonella laden 550 million eggs that were recalled from designated Iowa culprits.
Speaking of carrion eaters-- hearing that the resistance to stem cell research lies in the the use of cells taken from early fetuses that have been discarded, I  wonder how many of those chicken embryo-eating consumers support stem cell research. Just a thought...

Ten Generations

Ten Generations by Beth  Surdut 2011

Listening To Raven series

In Alaska, Mark has been caring for ravens and eagles for the past 16 years. Although there are certainly professional nature photographers with admirable patience, skill, and talent, this man’s love is uniquely communicated through his actions and photographic documentation of his avian friends. His photographs and the stories he tells me gave flight to this newest drawing as well as  The Ravens of Truth and Memory which nods to the Norse God Odin’s raven.

Mark writes: I must say I think your drawing of Raven is the best that I have seen yet...

 Raven flew over the office of the apartment complex where I worked. I put some meat out for him and soon he came down and got it. Next, he brought his partner and although she was much more tentative they both started stopping by each day. I started to develop a call that sounded like when the male Kushka called the female Feathers. After time, when I called, they would come down off the mountain. That summer, I noticed that they brought their fledge down to my truck and from that time on I became their babysitter.

  After 10 generations of fledges, I believe the original couple moved on and now all their children come back in the winter to live nearby cause they know I will have food for them if times get bad. 
Come meet Ten Generations and the rest of my raven family at the Randall Davey Audubon Center exhibition opening July 9, 5-7 pm in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Ravens Roost

Truth and Memory

and

Walks Like a Man

may be the current top two favorites so far, with The Compass of My Heart an active Contender, but this swaggering guy is the one who's been going home with people. I love the stories you are bringing to these characters--bird tales, spiritual experiences, intolerant neighbors and macho husbands!

See you at the solo exhibit opening July 9, 2010 at the Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe!

Raven talks about water

Author and adventurer Craig Childs is a man born thirsty. Under Solstice skies in the Galisteo Basin where Raven gurgled and shouted like a rowdy commentator from a peanut gallery, Childs talked about the secrets of water.
Beneath us, earth's lifeblood flowed and to prove it, digging a hole (not even as long as your arm) gave us fresh water.
Raven, content to drink at the trough under the windmill, mimicked the sound of bubbles rising.
Come meet my raven family--from the little juvie shaman to the brassy one who walks like a man -- from 5-7 pm at the opening of my solo exhibit at Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe.
PS-- The Audubon exibit  was 2010. My  Ravens are currently roosting at  NM State Land  Office until Nov 30, 2011.
The Reason Why (Raven Head) drawing by Beth Surdut
Galisteo Basin just before sunset photo Beth Surdut

Talking Raven

 

Quite a talker, this raven. From the kitchen I can see his shadow dusting the garden as he walks and pauses, walks and pauses along the roof of the portal, yakking all the time. There! Shiny blue-black feathers--he left me one yesterday-- catch the sunlight in dazzling fractals as Raven inspects the egg before taking his treasure in his beak and flying away.
“You have their personal traits down pat," said an avid art collector in Alaska. "The way they strut, the curious pose, the whole body language. These ravens are wonderful because you obviously know your bird and its personality. It's as if you have one in your home. Most people are content to do the raven-looking-over-the-shoulder pose and call it good. You nailed it every time.”
Yet the one I have drawn here can be confusing--the beak appears longer, the pose foreshortens the body.Some scientists believe that there are as yet unclassified ravens. I say these birds are in a class by themselves. Do come see my raven family in their solo exhibit in Santa Fe July 9- August 9 up the canyon at Randall Davey Audubon CenterQuite

Is that an egg in your pocket,or are you just happy to see me?

There's a new raven lurking in the lavender. How do I know? He's bigger and more cautious than my regulars,who swoop in to check a few times a day to see if I've put out uncooked chicken eggs.
The newbie, watching to see if the egg is really available, is stalking amidst the sweet-scented purple flowers, flying up to land on the creviced rock fountain, then back to the bushes.
Now he's on the rock, head swinging back and forth to see if he's alone. Ah ha! He's picked up the prize in his beak and taken off, his feathers gleaming blue and silver.

If you're in Santa Fe, you can see my Ravens of Truth and Memory in the Wildlife Invitational show at the Randall Davey Audubon Center until June 30th. My solo Listening To Raven exhibition opens there July 9.

Raven Boys

Nesting season here, so the players have changed. No sign of the courting couple--he who delicately picked up an egg and brought it to her a couple of yards away where they dined, leaving a mosaic of white and brown shells on the desert.
Once she took to the nest, one sloppy eater dined in place, leaving pieces of shell and a glutinous haze of egg white. I wonder, courtship over, if it was the same male or some young bachelor.
Two days ago, seeing five shining ravens swooping around my piece of New Mexico sky, I put out three eggs. I heard the whoosh of wings and some ravenish comments as soon as I went inside,walked down the hallway to my studio where through the glass door I saw winged shadows lofting. The eggs were gone.
Just for fun, I immediately placed two more eggs in the usual spot atop the rock fountain, and for the next hour, watched desire being overcome by confusion. These guys thought they had raided a nest, so much as they wanted those eggs, well, something wasn't right. Swooping in, slowing to look but not land and touch, they wove a loose tapestry of yearning. The eggs remained until the next morning--- a new dawn, a new raid.
The Audubon Wildlife Invitational, which includes one of my raven pieces, opens May 21 at the Randall Davey Audubon Center at the top of Upper Canyon RD.

More Raven Bribery

The Egg Thief swoops in at least once a day to check on the chicken egg situation. Today, even in winds so brisk the house was howling, he took one egg of the two I placed on the rock fountain and brought it over to his mate, who was hopping impatiently in the budding desert. These birds have yet to connect me with the eggs, but have figured out where I place the treats, and that sometimes I do it more than once a day.
Patience.

Bribing Ravens

I heard two visitors talking in the garden this morning. Two huge ravens were sharing the white chicken egg I'd put out for them. Feathers glowing like abalone in the cool sunlight, they nibbled and chatted, leaving before I could photograph them.
This is the first time I've resorted to bribery. I see ravens when I go out for a walk in these hills above the city of Santa Fe, and we have conversations, but unlike the other homes I've perched in since coming here, Raven hasn't come to the house. When I saw Coyote in the arroyo last night, I asked him why.
I just placed two eggs on the lava rock watering hole. Let's see what happens.

Fine Feathered Raven Tales

Thanks to the Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Ana Trujillo and photographer Jane Phillips!

Fine-feathered tales Sunday, January 24
"Local artist Beth Surdut is drawn to the region's landscape and ever-present ravens. Her visual storytelling project, Listening to Ravens, includes drawing accompanied by a myth or story of the bird. She's looking for new stories from Santa Feans for a new project..." More story and photos on the newspaper's website.

The raven stories in response to this article are already coming in!

New Year's Compass

Raven just flew by my window, his feathers silvered by the sunlight. Mountains rising from a bed of clouds into the blue New Mexico sky --such beauty transcends all challenges. May we all utilize the compass of our heart in this next year.

When Raven knocks, let him in

Insistent thudding.
Knocking.
Banging.
In the kitchen.
Above my head.
A darkness on the frosted skylight.
A cat, I thought, and went outside calling, “Here kitty kitty.”
The big raven walked to the edge of the flat roof.
“What do you mean... kitty,” said Raven, looking down at me.
After all this time, I should have known.

Surdut's Southwest Flair

Look for a few more moments of Surdut fame in the current Southwest Flair magazine, which kindly mentions the ravens, also featured in last month's issue. (And I don't know these generous people!) This New Mexico Mountain series of hand painted silk shawls and scarves are what happens when I breathe in the sight and scent of sky and land, and then breathe out using dyes, resist, brushes and silk. Each one is as individual as the moment when light shifts and changes. Click on the shawl for more images on the apparel page of http://www.bethsurdut.com/

The Reason Why

If you're in Taos, New Mexico on October 17th, do come meet the ravens and me at The Charles Collins Gallery on the plaza. If you have one, bring me a raven tale during this weekend of the Taos Storytelling Festival.

The newest story came from a jewelry maker from Boston, a graduate of the esteemed North Bennet Street School. She bought this Raven Head, which I also call The Reason Why, to give to a dear friend who knew the pleasure of sitting with her dog named Bear and talking to ravens. Soon after the dog died (Oh why can't our beloved four-leggers live as long as we do?), a raven feather appeared. The owner believes that the feather is a message from Bear. This is not the first and certainly won't be the last story of ravens and the passing of a loved one.

Raven Print Cycle

http://www.bethsurdut.com/listening_to_raven_prints.htm

After a year of drawing and cawing, The Raven Print Cycle is now available! I am asking you to be my focus group. Please vote for your favorites by going to www.bethsurdut.com/listening_to_raven_prints.htm where you'll find 11 images. lf you've been following the journey so far, you know there are stories here. I eagerly look forward to you posting your thoughts here on the blog or emailing info@bethsurdut.com
To thank you for participating, the prints are offered at special prices if purchased by July 30.

The Next Shaman

The Kwakiutl of British Columbia offered a child's afterbirth to the beaks of ravens in hopes that the boy would grow to learn the language of corvids. All those hopes and superstitions focused on a tiny body that might learn Raven's wisdom, trickery, creativity and magic--- a new messiah, the next Dalai lama, the next peacemaker. Perhaps this little juvie is the next shaman.

Raven Walks Like a Man

In my dream, Raven walks like a man.

My friend Cuervo, who grew up in Columbia, warned me, "If you see a really big raven, I mean, one that is big like a dog, it's a spirit or a brujo, and not a good one."

Raven lopes towards me, beak wide open and pink inside, so I know he's young, but I don't know what he wants, so I wake up.

I draw every feather and shadow of him until he walks off the page to tell me why he is here.

Raven just flew by my window. I can see everything through the wall of glass, the light so beautiful I can breathe.

The Egg Thief

As I was drawing in the highlights on a pair of raven feet, Raven flew directly towards my studio window, then veered to land in a big pine tree. My pleasure at his arrival turned to foreboding as he placed one foot in front of the other, moving purposefully through the branches towards a songbird's nest that I knew held three eggs.

I ran into the garden, squawking and flapping my arms. Raven glared at me and took off before he reached the nest.

Two days later, I climbed a ladder to find only one egg in the nest. As I grieved, telling myself that this was nature's order, the egg moved! The remaining baby had pecked out much of the underside of the shell.

As I came down the ladder, hoping the mother would return, I saw a tiny yellow beak wobbling open-mouthed in a soft bed of leaves at the base of the tree. Another survivor! I placed it, pink skinned with random patches of gray fuzz, back in the nest.

Raven must have made off with the third egg, for there was no sign at all.

In two more days, the birds have doubled in size, but these babies may still be doomed. My friend David had five little birdkins snatched all at once and he's still moping like a grandfather denied visitation.

And I, recognizing that humans steal and eat eggs from nests every day, I have lost my desire to eat eggs.

This original drawing is pen, pencil, heart and mind on paper size 15" x 21"

Raven brought this mermaid to the high desert. To begin, start with Drawing Raven.

The Ravens of Truth and Memory

The Norse God Odin sent two Ravens out each day--one named Thought (Hugin), the other Memory (Munin).

Here, I've changed Thought to Truth.
Memory allows Truth to gently pick through her feathers until both birds shine.
While I was creating Truth and Memory (paper size 15" X 22") with pen and colored pencil, heart and mind, two tiny Zuni fetish ravens carved by a married couple into black marble and bound together with turquoise and coral perched on the paper's edge. I found them through the grace of the White Raven who owns Keshi in Santa Fe.
My thanks to kind-hearted Cordova Raven, who cares for ravens and eagles in Alaska.
For the beginning of the Raven story that brought this mermaid to the desert, start with Drawing Raven.

Heartbeat of the earth

At the San Felipe Corn Dance, my pulse thrums with ancient chants as 1500 people dance the heartbeat of the land. It is by their grace that I am here.
Hours later, with Raven by my side, I look for spirit carvings amidst the traditional regalia of whole fox pelts and skunk anklets. Frowning and smiling like a god with two faces, a Zuni fetish seller says, "No, I don't have ravens, they are not good signs for us."
"Don't listen to him, " Raven hisses in my ear. "Be polite, then walk away." So I do.
"Tell our stories," says Raven as he perches on my shoulder, each pinpoint of his claws reminding me of the path I am meant to be taking.

Knowing Raven ( on 10" x 13" paper) is drawn with pen, pencil, heart and mind, as are the other denizens of the Listening To Raven series.
As to raven and carved Zuni fetishes---my first little raven, black marble with turquoise eyes, perches on my work table atop a lapis heart. Both were gifts from dear friends in Santa Fe. While creating Truth and Memory, a carved pair of ravens bound together with turquoise and coral sat watching on the paper's edge. All three were discovered at Keshi in Santa Fe.
The story of why this mermaid came to live in the high desert begins with Drawing Raven.

The Compass of My Heart

Displayed until May 29 at City Hall in Santa Fe, this intricate drawing came to me in a dream:

A Compass glinted between Raven’s feet as he lengthened his legs to land. It had been a bad day—a friend in Florida had been shot, not killed, by some crazy teenager with a 357 Magnum the color of raven feathers.
Raven, as gravel-voiced as Tom Waits, announced his arrival. I offered a flat hand, palm up, as one would to a dog, my mother’s voice in my ear, “Always palm up, so they won’t be threatened,” she’d whisper, the thin white scar from the bite embroidered right above her eyebrow. Big dogs scared her. She tried to pass on her fears to me, but I decided to just be polite to the muscled boxer down the street, saying “Excuse me,” if I ran by him.
“Don’t run; he’ll chase you. They can smell fear,” warned my mother, but for much of my life I have smelled like musk and exotic flowers.
Raven released a silvery roundel that fit well into the palm of my hand. The sun’s shadow quivered like a hound as tiny animal shapes in turquoise and black marble moved restlessly around the sides.
Raven danced next to me, scratching out a tune in the dirt as I examined the intricate inlay of purple sugalite, orange coral and bright turquoise.
Wings whisked the air as he lofted onto my shoulder, nuzzling his beak into my hair.
“What is this?” I asked him as he preened me, rubbing his head against mine, combing through my hair with his beak, tickling along my hairline.
“Pay attention to what I’ve brought you,” he murmured.
I stroked his head and back, trying to read the compass of my heart.