A Murder of Crows an Evolutionary Disaster

Apollo’s unfaithful mistress, Coronis, is the source for the word crow. In these images, crows lead viewers as co-conspirators and protagonists where, in their guidance, they are both faithful and not. A mere one-and-a-half century after the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species, our evolutionary success dictates quite emphatically that we must change. Simply, we are, as we are, an unsustainable component of our planet's ecosystem. This change has to be self-imposed in a matter of decades, if not sooner. In A Murder of Crows - An Evolutionary Disaster, the crows have travelled from nature, through domestic environments, to publicly mediated experiences of nature, such as aquariums, and finally back into the sea. There the crows transform into the realm of the subconscious, the place of reckoning and dialogue, unencumbered by the physical necessity to be whole. This mirrors the human need for transformation, where the psyche must change for the body to survive. This is not unprecedented. At some point, what are now the great whales, and others, returned to the oceans. Only, they had millennia to reinvent themselves. We have an unparalleled, urgent need to intervene with our own success, which directly pits us against our cultural expectations. Among the responses to this paradox has been denial at all levels, including the rejection of science and evolutionary theory. Ironically, the decision to change may well require a willingness to embrace selfless spiritual precepts against learned greed, desire and dogma. This is also the journey of the crows throughout this series, which itself has evolved, during the collectively and individually felt tumult that is pushing humanity at exponentially increasing speed towards reason or demise. No animals were harmed or mistreated to make these photographs.