Ezekiel and the crow ceremony

I was out on a long wander around the land here. There's a three mile loop that goes out my back door and onto my neighbour's property that's wooded, a conservation easement with beautiful trails through the forest. The loop trail goes along the two ridges and at the halfway point dips down into the valley and meets the creek. There's a rock cliff, and a grove of Hemlock trees. The Hemlocks in eastern North America are on their way out due to invasive insect the woolly adelgid. We're getting into the later stages of this infestation, so a lot of them are dying.  In the grove there is one tree I've connected with for the last couple of years, the biggest one by far on the on the land here, probably 200 years old, I would guess, maybe older. Great big Grandmother Hemlock grows right along the edge of the creek. I've had some really sweet encounters sitting at the base of this tree and praying there.

As I was walking down the incline, I realised the tree had fallen; she was down. Seeing this just cracked me open; it brought up a tremendous amount of grief. I crossed the creek – she had fallen across the creek and was covered in snow – and I sat at the base of her trunk when it snapped and just wept and wept. I was surprised by the depth of my grief, and wondered, ‘How do I grieve for this being?’ I've never been taught how to grieve for humans, let alone for members of the other than human world.

Then I heard this loud noise from maybe 200 yards away; it was a crow calling, very loud and directed in my direction. I looked up to the canopy, to the circle of branches that marked the outline of where this grandmother tree had stood, the space that she occupied in the canopy, which was now open to blue sky. Tracing this circle were six crows, directly over my head, circling and circling and calling. It felt like a funeral procession or incantation or some something potent, almost ominous. They eventually scattered and I sat there for quite a long while until I started to get cold found my way back home.