I typically don’t share too much about my art – just the actual piece as I love giving the people the freedom to relate in their own personal way – but I have to talk about the piece. It has meant two different things to me – what I thought I as creating and what the Universe was unknowingly creating. The raven These deepest of black birds whose silhouettes often command the sky have come to mean to me and my journey. A bird thought to have no beauty and be only a weak scavenger has become one of the most beautiful and powerful birds in my life. They flew with me through the hurricane and I had no idea. Like guardian angels they showered me with hope and direction and the ability to transform something so dark into something so bright.
Why did I put a raven carrying away something that was holding me down instead of an eagle? The bird that saved me and followed me? Maybe it wasn’t eagles I saw following me when I left my dad’s funeral but instead ravens signaling a big transformation was coming? While going through the darkness of my life I constantly saw ravens in my visions and sketches. I dreamed about ravens. I wrote about them. I unknowingly had them tattooed them on my arm – what was supposed to be the silouette of two eagles always looked like ravens to me and well they were.
Soooo where is this leading? What does this have to do with a raven? I started studying the folklore, myths and “old wives tales” of other cultures and civilizations. Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype written by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, is a great reference and one of my most read books. It’s dog-eared, highlighted, underlined, water stained and well loved. In these studies one thing that stood out to me was the raven that showed up in Native American tales. I always had put a negative connotation on the raven – it brings darkness right? It’s a scavenger and dirty creature. However in a culture older than ours it brought transformation and change. So can it represent darkness and transformation? Yes. It is our darkness that allows us to transform.
So just know that whatever you are walking through at this point in your life things are moving around you and in you that you can not see or understand. The raven shows us that sometimes things just aren’t as they seem or that we believe. The darkness is not always our enemy. We are not what we are told. Transformation is not pretty but when complete one of the most beautiful gifts to yourself, your loved ones and the world. There is a raven outside your door ready to look you in the eye, spread it’s wings and fly with you. If it’s all unclear right now just hang in there my friend and fellow traveler on the road of the feminine experience and follow the raven to find your own light.
“Talk then tossed away
Greed the girl needs more forgiveness than betrayal
Oh light on this day
She’s got gifts that we can see
Rain on all this
Oh she’s got to go down, down
No she cries and begs it well
Let me be my own light”
Raven | Dave Matthews Band
