Raven Funeral

Living in a pine forest in the mountains, I have witnessed many animal behaviors that I have thought to be strange and wondrous.  What the ravens shared with us that day was definitely high on that barometer.
 

It was the middle of a Spring day.  It was quiet in the neighborhood, the kids not home from school yet.  My dining room has a view of the cemetery across the street.  It’s the town cemetery that was established in the 1800s, so it’s been around longer than the houses on the road.  As I walked through the dining room to the kitchen, something caught my eye.  I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what I glimpsed outside.

A wave of glossy black, completely covering the road, was moving up the hill.  

I went outside, as quietly as I could, still not quite being able to grasp what I was seeing.  The roadway was covered in ravens, shoulder to shoulder, walking calmly and silently, together up the hill.  There were so many ravens, they filled the roadway from one side to the other.

I had to get a better look.  I quickly and as quietly as I could, went inside and then ran up the stairs to my mom’s apartment which has a deck overlooking the street and the cemetery.  I grabbed her on the way, wanting a witness and to make sure it was not a figment of my imagination.  We both stood there, our mouths agape (good…she saw them, too!)  We watched this wave of ravens marching to the top of the hill.  We tried to count them, but there were just too many.   We lost count around 40.  

As we watched, more ravens flew down, landed towards the back of the group and joined in the march upward. 

 

We must have stood there watching in silence for several minutes.  When the front of the group reached the top of the road, next to the end of the cemetery land, they spread their massive black wings and flew up towards the surrounding pine trees.  As the others reached the same spot, they too, flew up, some to join the first group in the trees, others just flew away.   Then, all of a sudden, as if by some invisible cue to the rest of the masses, they all flew away.   The sound they made as they took flight has stayed with both my mom and myself.   I believe we heard it with not only our physical ears, but with our soul ears, and felt it deep within our hearts.

After all the ravens were gone and the roadway was once again, a normal country road, my mom turned to me and said “I think we just witnessed a Raven funeral.”  That was what came to my mind, too. 

 

We’ve lived in our house for 24 winters now.  We have never seen anything like that again.   

We have never forgotten, either.

Raven in Weaverville Joss House Tree, photographer: Paula Masterman 

Spider and Infinite Possibilities

I was beginning to feel a little bit like Lil Miss Muffett...

It was Day 5 of my latest manifesting journey and I noticed I was finding spiders in the most unusual places...scooting across my living room rug (this guy was so big he cast his own shadow!) one scurries into the kitchen sink as I was doing the dishes, and another hovering over my hands as I was slicing cucumbers for our dinner salad!  Okay, I get it... time to check in on what Spider medicine (or totem) messages are all about.

Ted Andrews, a favorite author and I consider a teacher of mine who is now in the Spirit world, writes that Spider is at the heart of creation stories, and is related to the Wheel of Fortune card in the Tarot because both are about creating a balance between past and future, flow and flux, male and female, etc and the rhythms of it all.

Physically:
Body is the figure 8 = infinity symbol
8 legs

Taking this a bit further, with Spider's physical attributes being about infinity and the metaphysical message is about creation and the connection and balance between, then Spider's web-thread is that what connects human world with Spirit world or the above world with the below world, as in As Above, So Below.

After sitting quietly with this information, I checked in with Source and my Ancient Ones and here was Spider's message to me:

Infinite possibilities.

Remember we are infinite Beings who will continue to weave patterns of life and living throughout time.  

As Spider's thread connects the human world and spirit world, 

we are also connected through our threads of living to Source.

Is it easier to stay in the vortex, the flow of the Universe, if we remember we are infinite Beings and this lifetime is temporary?  Does it make it easier to embrace "this too shall pass"?  

Are so many afraid of spiders because maybe instinctively, at some level, we understand they represent our infinite Being, our infinite possibilities and that, quite frankly, can scare the hell out of us?!?

We want more structure, more things to weigh us down - could this be another slice of the pie to why we are an overweight society with too much stuff? (I have seen a change in awareness about this lately - I think we are beginning to understand the ramifications of material wants and needs being out of control.)

What if we all became energetically light as feathers, light enough to fly on our own threads from object to object always connected to Source and therefore, secure with our threads?

And the fact that we manufacture our own threads from within our own bodies, how cool and self-sufficient is that?!?

I am creating my own thread from my Heart Center today - how about you?

Thank you Spider for your wisdom and guidance ~ 

p.s.  you can leave my house, now...