Crow-seeing: Dreaming Oneself Into Things

Nature Notes - April 2025

“Dreaming oneself into things ...” [Bachelard]

​​- by James Inabinet

For months now, I’ve been going to Waveland Marsh to sit at its edge, trying to come to know it intimately. My ultimate goal is to tease out its story. I began this quest by looking out over its vastness and describing what I saw. Humans are really good at telling nature what it is and my description is a perfect example: the marsh is a tidal wetland covered in cordgrass and cane, crisscrossed with racoon trails and marsh rabbit roads, scurried over by fiddler crabs, slithered on by water moccasins, visited here and there by herons and egrets, turkey vultures and eagles.
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There’s nothing wrong with my description [except that it’s boring]. It’s factual. A story in its own right, it’s just not the one I’m looking for. I have wondered, is there anything to see beyond this reality? I wonder, if I could find a way to pose the question and devise a way to listen, “what might the marsh tell me about itself?” The philosopher Gaston Bachelard hinted at how I might access and listen to that story by dreaming myself into the marsh.
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The marsh is a complex web of interrelated beings, a cacophony of communicated meanings. Wanting in, I find that “how to tap into that cacophony” and “how to ask the marsh to tell me about itself” are the same question. Philosopher Stephen H. Buhner likened an ecosystem to a tightly coupled group of jazz musicians in a deep synchrony. With no score to follow or scripted notes, each note is predicated by meaning [i.e., the meaningful notes around it]. The flow of music and meaning can be profoundly felt, especially if it’s good. An ecosystem is like that; each organism is like a musical note, responsive to other organisms and the interplay of meaning all around it. The ecosystemic song arises out of this interplay of meanings; it can be profoundly felt.
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​In the marsh, each being plays a note in the “winter marsh symphony”: the greening around the base of the marsh grass clumps in response to a blitz of warm temperatures, the croak of the startled heron coming up through the cane, the muddy swirls of a school of cocahoe minnows swiftly changing direction for no apparent reason, wind gusts raking over dancing cane and grass. In a jazz song, the meaning isn’t in the musicians, it’s in the song as it’s being played. Similarly, in an ecosystem, the meaning isn’t in the beings themselves, but in the symphonic arrangement they create together–that’s its song–and it’s happening in real time. I want to get at that marshy song and feel its various meanings. Dreaming myself into the marsh is a pathway there.

I use what I call “Crow-Seeing” to initiate the “waking dreaming” I’m talking about. It’s much like dreaming while asleep; both are products of imagination. Waking-dreaming is different in that it’s intended. It’s guided too, at least in the beginning. Guided imagery is used to begin dreaming and then we get out of the way. The philosopher Robert Sardello said that “when consciousness ceases, things speak.” Consciousness ceases the more we descend from mind to heart. By silencing our own talking and telling, the world can get a word in edgewise.

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What does it mean to “dream myself into the marsh?” It means to be taken into its life, a way of indwelling that blurs the line between me and the Other. It has to be intended, which literally means “to shoot an arrow at.” To crow-see, we intentionally move into intimate relation with the other in a “sympathetic identification.” It’s like identifying with a child, for instance, who falls and scuffs his knee. I grimace in pain because I feel it too. The philosopher Michael Polanyi says that, in so doing, we incorporate the other into our body, extending our body to include it. We “dwell in the child” and feel his pain. A joint meaning arises; the child and I are not that separate anymore.

To dream myself into the marsh, I intentionally evoke a “sympathetic identification” with a marsh being, heron for instance. I begin by just sitting with the entire idea of herons and heronness: what it’s like to be heron? I look at the heron and engage him in a dialogue that goes something like this: “what do you see?” The heron tells me back: “look at me, where I am; what do you think I see.” I sit with that for a moment and try to see what he sees with heron eyes. Then I ask the heron, “what do you feel?” The heron tells me back, “look at me, where I am; what do you think I’m feeling?” Then I try to feel what the heron might be feeling. I must dampen my skepticism, at least at first, and put on a “beginner’s mind.” Suzuki Roshi says that beginner’s mind is empty, open to everything. There are many possibilities because he doesn’t know better. With intention and beginner’s mind, I stumble into knowing something, however small, about heronness. Then I move on and “crow-see” marsh rabbit, and cocahoe minnow, and water snake, and eagle.
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Why engage in crow-seeing? Crow-seeing asks what the Other says that he is. As I crow-see more and more marsh animals, my story of marshness becomes nuanced. Over time, I’m teasing out more of the “marsh story,” as my experience through the beings that live in the marsh widens my view. If each being is a note in the “marsh song,” crow-seeing more animals helps me tease out a melody. That melody is the marsh’s story as told by the marsh. My story is enriched, my experience more complete and meaningful. The marsh becomes increasingly ... home.

“The temple bells stop, but the sound keeps coming out of the flowers.” [Bashō]

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