Signs and Symbols

I have a Ph.D. in science, and the scientific mode of inquiry (sometimes wrongly called "the scientific method" and wrongly presented as a linear or circular "process") is very important to me. I am still trying to find out if I "naturally" think like a scientist, or if it takes a conscious re-focusing of the way my mind works in order to structure up my thinking along scientific lines. I'm recalling that my approach to the Ph.D. research was backwards in many ways, In particular, I had a study site before I had any research questions, and then I had a study organism before I really had any idea what I was trying to find out about it. These approaches made the process awkward for a couple of years, as I zoomed in from the big picture to some tangible, research based and specific questions. I think this big picture approach arises from my earlier experience as a naturalist, and a photographer, concerned a lot more with context, setting, narrative, and aesthetics. 

I think this is just intuition at work. It did end up paying off, and all of my early intuition about the study site and the study species was exactly right. There's a ton more research that could easily be done in the same locale, and with the same species. I feel like the role of intuition in science gets downplayed a lot, especially these days. I've seen some quotations from Einstein and others highlighting how important intuition is in the scientific mode of inquiry. But it seems like hard core reductivist empiricism is the ruling attitude these days, and I find it kind of humorous, especially since it doesn't seem to be leading to very good science, a lot of the time. For example, the incredible pressure within the hypothesis testing framework to get "significant" results, as measured by a p value < .05, which is absurd in a great many experimental and research situations. We tell our science students not to worry if their experimental results do not "support their hypothesis" or bear out their prediction, and yet the entire financial machinery of science runs on the opposite. 

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, a mourning dove (Zenaida macrora) made itself known, through the cooing from which they get their name, and a mate came along in response, and then the female built out a rather desultory nest on top of the fire extinguisher box outside on the balcony at my apartment. Right by my window, basically. And now there are a couple of squabs in the nest, and she's almost always around, sometimes sitting right on top of her babies, other times hanging out on the railing outside my window, peering into my apartment. 

Knowing that birds have long been a sign or symbol, an omen, I looked up some of the woo woo stuff regarding mourning doves. It's what you would expect: a sign of a time of grief, letting go, moving on, etc. It's interesting to me how these resonances are so literal, a lot of the time. Reading signs and symbols may seem arcane, but via the doctrine of signatures and the sometimes literally concrete approach of our imaginations, the interpretation is often not even metaphorical. 

Part witch, I found the coincidences meaningful. Part "scientist, I did a tiny bit of research on Zenaida macrora, discovering that they usually have two squabs per mating cycle, as this one does, and that they reproduce many times a year. They are so successful that somewhere between 20 million and 70 million mourning doves are hunted for sport or food annually, and it doesn't even make a dent in their numbers. From a witchy point of view, this makes grief seem to be the most common thing there is. 

One of those obvious truths, for sure. 

Meanwhile the season turns and is naturally, for me anyway, the season of grief. Fall has long been the time to let go. Some weird coincidence with my birthday, a tendency for things to end right around now which has been a very common pattern, and of course the darkening of the light. My resident mourning momma visits at the right time.