There was something more than just a magnetic attraction, more than an instinct, it was more like a gasp for a breath of air after being underwater too long that pulled me immediately to the first window with bars through which it was possible to see the outside after 3 long days of being in the labyrinth of arrests cells, hallways and metal cubes of prison transport vans that followed my immediate arrest when being “processed”.  Looking  to see some life, some nature, some grass, birds anything: I looked out at a perfect square with solid dirt surface with barely any grass surrounded on all sides by 3 stories of brick and barbed wire.  On the top of the antenna on rooftop opposite however were two magpies sitting close on both sides of a very still crow.  The magpies looked around constantly the crow did not.  Instant reconnect to something from which forcefully one was being pried apart… and this was just the beginning of this form of avian psychological support as time after time crows would hang out in the distance, cognizant of the fact that humans are not to be trusted, allowing the colony of magpies inhabiting the jail rooftops and courtyard to do their scouting and only when alerted by the magpies would they come closer to investigate.  A slow glide with an audible whoosh, followed by several hops on the ground.  The whole parliament, yes that is an actual name for group of magpies, immediately would freeze only following the crow with their eyes, only  moving again after one of them would take on a role of a delegate and representative, walking right to the crow, accompanying the bird side by side with beaming pride you see in young kids when they are with an older sibling they admire… Hmmm fellow Crowids, a family of opportunists and omnivores in that aspect like ourselves. In most ways nothing like us as we continue to hunt, exterminate, and abuse them…

Sitting in a cell and seeing the comrade birds outside, in came reports of another wave of record breaking heatwaves, vanishing polar ice, hurricanes and fire storms, fueling wave after wave of social instability and refugees. Then another type of message arrived, it was an issue of Adbusters with the theme of Collapse.  It contained a story of a future civilization of crowids that looked down at the Anthropocene’s archaeological layer of radial tires, plastic, toxic coal micro-particles, with a thin layer of radioactive fallout on top and as they studied this crap they reflected  and were cognizant enough not to try to make the same mistakes…

This struggle and this action of solidarity with the prisoners in reality is so much more, at least to me, it is a struggle against turning the whole planet into a prison of climate chaos, food insecurity, resource collapse and extinction future that will become a prison for our future selves whatever species we might be if the present trends are allowed to continue. A future that is guaranteed if the only solutions enforced by those presently in power to the present day ecological, social and climate crisis is more exploitation, more cops, more weapons and more jails…….

In Solidarity with the Hambi9