Take any owl feather and whip it through the air.
Know the sound it makes?
It makes no sound.
This is not the sound of a raven’s wing.
The Trickster has a deep, low beating sound of feather against air; a “whoop whoop whoop” that can often be heard as a duet when the corvids are flying in concert.
Today the trickster soared through the air on the currents making no sound. What I love is to be surprised by them. They SEE their shadow cast upon the ground and love to sneak up from behind you. 150’ above and cruising at 45 miles per hour, their timing and trajectory impeccable and whoosh – the shadow shoots from behind to in front of you just like that.
Of course the Tricksters smile as they do this.
Today, it was not a raven but a paraglider, smiling just the same.
(image of Moses, hero of Brian Doyle’s Mink River)
When I was flying hang gliders, I took great joy in watching my shadow on the ground and steering it over people on the ground, sometimes from a long ways up. Sometimes they’d react, sometimes not. There’s something fun about being the trickster, even a clumsy temporary one.