Magical Raven

Raven…black as pitch, mystical as the moon. Speak to me of magic, I will fly with you soon.

As I was writing that just now, no lie, a raven was quorking out on the deck of the beach house. Raven has been with me all week, in fact. Long ago, I wrote about being a noticer. I notice things many will overlook. I see signs and symbols where others simply see a cloud, or hear an animal’s call. It doesn’t matter if there is anything magical to it or not. I notice, and it makes me think. That’s magic of its own kind.

This week is Terri-Christmas~Dollbaby Week. I’ve been taking this week for me, me, only me since 2002. It has become something sacred to me. To all of us dollbabies. The like of it you have to experience to actually get. More magic.

One of the things we have been doing the past few years is a Medicine Card evening. Medicine cards are kind of like Tarot, but with a Native American set of symbols and symbolism. This year was a powerful year. We drew Buffalo and Hawk, Coyote and Badger. Most every card drawn by each doll was a power animal. I drew Raven.

Raven magic is powerful medicine that can give one courage to enter the darkness of the Void, the home of all not yet in form. Raven is the bringer of magic, but it is also the messenger of the Void. The Great Mystery~that which was here before all, and will be here long after all is gone. Raven’s appearance signals a change in consciousness. It’s a call to being open to walking the Great Mystery on another path at the edge of time.

I tend to explain away dreams, and the strange, wonderful, comforting things that happen almost daily. As if I don’t deserve them. As if believing my son tries to visit me in dreams or speak to me through song is somehow stupid. Why? I don’t know. I believe in this kind of thing! For everyone but me. On my way down here to VAB, I heard a song I’ve heard a gazillion times before. The chorus goes, “I will wait, I will wait for you.” The rest of it doesn’t really pertain to him, but those two lines–I won’t say they were sung in his voice, but there was his energy, his presence with them. I said, “Don’t wait for me, son. You go on and next time around, I’ll wait for you.”

But later, after telling this to my beloved friend (Diana Dollbaby,) she said, “Maybe he wasn’t saying he’ll wait for you to meet him in the hereafter, maybe he’s waiting for you to stop blocking his attempts to reach you.” Not a direct quote. I was too flattened by her words to remember them verbatim. She’s right–Chris doesn’t speak in dreams because I won’t let him. He tries to reach me and I explain it away. He tries and tries and tries. How long before he gives up?

And then I choose Raven here in VAB. Such a great card. I think I need a raven tattoo now. It’s about creativity and deeper consciousness, obtaining the willingness to accept unexplainable things as a means to further a more spiritual, intellectual growth. But it also said this, as if speaking directly to me:

‘If you have chosen Raven, magic is in the air. Do not try to figure it out; you can’t. It is the power of the unknown at work, and something special is about to happen. The deeper mystery, however, is how you will respond to the sparkling synchronicity of the alchemical moment. Will you recognize it and use it to further enhance your growth? Can you accept it as a gift? Or will you limit the power of the Great Mystery by explaining it away?’

Other things are happening in my life that don’t involve Christofer. Great, amazing things that I was stupidly explaining away. I don’t understand why, since his death, I’ve become so skeptical. I can wiggle the edges of it, but the root is strangely deep for something that hasn’t been around too long. Or maybe the old root I thought pulled out long ago was still deep in there, growing unnoticed and has now taken the opportunity to sprout. I can’t let it. Especially not now. I’ve said it before–I’m a lioness. I will do anything for my kids, and if that means excising that root all over again, I will.