Today I am at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

The weekday winter sun has just set and it’s time for evening prayers.

We know it’s prayer time by looking up at the sky.

Overhead, the first group of grey hooded crows flies home. They have worked all day foraging in their family territories. Now they will meet up with thousands of local crows to debrief, laugh, socialize and sleep.

On Friday nights, the Wall is a human version of crow central. Jews arrive in small groups, with members of their families and their own sects. Then they crowd into the prayer spaces with hundreds of strangers to debrief, laugh, socialize and sing.

But on this weekday afternoon, the Western Wall seems more like one family’s territory.  In the comfort of the Wall’s Jewish presence, divisions between Jews come forward. Ultra-Orthodox men and women dressed in black dominate the scene.

Across the plaza, high-rise yeshivas define the space. Thin black lines of men gather on the roofs. They come and go, lean on the rail, form and re-form circles, randomly socializing.

Their long black coats look like military uniforms. They seem to me to be patrolling their space, and I am unnerved, maybe even afraid.

At the entrance to the women’s section, slender young women dressed in black pray quietly along a wall of aluminum scaffolding. The tapered cut and belt-buckle detail of their stylish coats makes them look like mini-military officers, too.

My daughter stands with me in the plaza, wearing jeans and bright hand-knitted rainbow scarf. She is unafraid. She pulls us through the crowd, bringing us about a meter from the wall. Here, it’s nearly impossible to move forward into the crowd, so we stop.

Then, everything stops.

Sound stops.

Thought stops.

Fear stops.

Anxiety stops.

Hundreds of women press against one in another in absolute calm and absolute silence.

Some women in the front row hide their faces against the wall, pouring their hearts directly into the cracks. One woman puts a cell phone to her ear but her conversation makes no sound.

Behind us, a woman whispers in irritation, “They need to switch with us!”

But her annoyance is not contagious. Several of us around beam smiles at her.

What can you do? Wherever you go, there you are.

The women in front of us need to pray. The woman behind us needs to be annoyed.

We will all get our turn to do and to be.

My daughter and I get our turn.

Then she takes my hand and leads me back out to where my husband is waiting. He is easy to spot in his bright green shirt. I realize I am wearing a bright red dress.

The judging mind that notes divisions and feels fear has returned.

But it doesn’t matter. For a few moments, I saw past the wall of appearances. I stood in a deeper space, where everyone can simply be.

Overhead, the last group of crows flies home. They head to a space where every crow can simply be. Suddenly, they look like a celestial reminder of a consciousness undivided by fear. They call us to a more primal reality.

After all, crows colonized Jerusalem millennia ago.

By crow law, even Jewish space belongs to them.

Photos by Charles Kaplan.