The hill behind the house where I live is bisected by a fence line that is often highlighted by 40 or more black crows sitting atop each fencepost to form a perfect row of full stops against the sky. On some days, I see the full stops take flight and dive towards the ground in a chaotic mass. When they do, the nesting lapwings rise up to meet them and push them away from their eggs and young chicks. Lapwings are petite birds with a pretty crest when on the ground, but when they take flight, their huge blunt wings dwarf their bodies as they lumber up into the air for a battle of life and death with the mobs of crows. While their wings seem to hinder their taking off, demanding more energy to flap than seems possible from such a small bird, they hold the lapwings solid in the air as they physically block the crows’ trajectory towards their nests. When they have successfully resisted another bombardment, the lapwings gracefully soar up and away from the scene of the fight before wheeling back around for the next barrage. These birds have taught me an important lesson: the unity of the universe demands that we engage in battles of life and death every day to defend others, ourselves and the planet; however, the knowledge that there is a higher metaReal world of Love that underpins the world of politics and crow attacks should enable us to soar away from the emotional weight and potential trauma that they induce. Like the lapwings, we cannot control when the crows will attack, but we can choose to soar up into Love when we need to, and from the perspective that we gain when we do, we are able to look down and determine how to act next while also avoiding our own destruction. But the lapwings are not just a metaphor for our minds and the meditation practices that take us out of oppositional thinking. Our bodies also live in the world, and like the lapwings, we can physically take ourselves out of harm's way when we need to.