A Storm of Crows....

 

 

   A couple of years ago when Morrigu’s Daughters was still fairly new I had a vivid dream, the kind of dream you wake from and aren’t really sure which world is the reality and which the dream.  The part that stuck with me the most was seeing the sky full of ravens, so many it blotted out everything else except this storm of black feathers.  In the dream I was one of the ravens, and when I woke up my fiancé said I sat strait up and complained to him that my wings were gone.  Thankfully he’s the kind of guy who shrugs the weird things I say off as me being me.  I came across the post I wrote about it a few days ago on the Morrigu’s Daughters website, while looking for something else, and its been back on my mind ever since.  At the time I took it to mean in part that we were gathering her “ravens” together, as the site had been growing a lot at the time.  And I thought it was ironic that many of us used “raven” in some form or another as part of our screen names for the site.  We really were, and are, her own little flock of ravens.  Here is what I wrote at the time:

“I hold a black feather in my hand. As I move I brush the soft tip of the  feather along the ground, as if casting a circle. I move in an arch tracing a pattern on the ground, but it is not a circle as I first though, instead I spiral closer and closer to an unseen center, tracing the pattern of a labyrinth or a spiral on the earth. Where the feather touches a black line appears, like black ash on the pale ground, or ink on ivory skin. The symbol is important, and all my concentration goes into etching it. As I move closer and closer to the center I begin to change. I no longer hold the feather, it is part of my arm and soon my arms become black wings, and I am some strange combination of bird and woman. Reaching the center of the spiral I feel like I have reached the center of my being, or perhaps the center of the universe. There is a stillness here, and I feel complete, whole. I raise my hands/wings upward and the transformation is complete. I lift into the sky as a raven. I fly for a long, long time, simply enjoying the feeling of freedom flying brings. Then there is someone below me. I circle around a clearing.  I feel drawn to glide closer and closer.  A woman stands in the clearing, her hand upraised stirring the air as if it were a cauldron. Her hand is human, but along it are black feathers, sprouting from her arm down to her back. She  is naked save for a black cloak with a beak like hood pulled down over her head, below it I see her lips tilt upwards in a secret smile. She is a strange combination of bird, woman and Goddess and I know immediately it is the Morrigan. She has never appeared in this way before.  She is usually either a woman or a crow/raven, or at times transformed from one to the other. Regardless I simply know it is Her. Around me I notice other dark shapes fill the sky, other black birds circle her, although I know on some level that they are no more birds than I am, despite the shape I wear. There are so very many.  The air is thick with them.  The sky is filled with storm a cloud of ravens, and it is these clouds she stirs with her outstretched hand. I fly down to the woman and when I touch the ground I am myself again. A silent understanding passes between us and I see in my mind’s eye the birds who circle over head, I see them spread out across the world, I see them filled with the Morrigan’s light and I see them doing amazing things, spreading a light within them to others. In my mind’s eye it looks like a soft blue light, pulsing like a brilliant aura around the Morrigan, and up to the birds, her children, then out to the world. She smiles at me. It’s a wicked kind of smile. Not sinister or bad in any way, but full of mystery, guile and secrets.  Only the Morrigan can smile that way. She kisses me on the brow and I wake up.”

   Today I had a very corvid filled day.  This morning three crows flew by the front of the building I work in.  The front of the building is mostly glass and they were very close, creating this streak of black whooshing by, accompanied by this chorus of loud hoarse cawing.  It scared the heck out of someone walking into the building, which made me laugh.  I felt the Morrigan’s presence the whole day, but she wasn’t quite done getting my attention.  As I drove home I drove past the town park.  Its just a little strip of green with a playground along Candlewood lake.  I drive past it everyday.  I might see the occasional crow there, or even a raven once in a while, but nothing like the gathering that greeted me as I drove by today.  Every tree was filled with crows.  Every single one.  They were everywhere I looked, and the sound of them all calling out was all I could hear.  I literally stopped the car and parked, and just watched them in awe.  The sound of so many corvid voices, all calling out at once echoed through me. The dream came flooding back to me.  A gathering of crows, a flock, a herd, a mob, an army of the Morrigan’s children gathered together. 

   I walked around the park for a little bit, sat on one of the benches by the lake and watched them.  I quietly chanted “Morrigu, Morrigu, Morrigu…..” over and over to myself.  It was a cold day, with some snow still on the ground, and there was no one in the park save myself and crows.  I thought of all the people who had gathered together to honor Her at the PantheaCon ritual I had attended, I thought of other rituals where Her children have gathered together, I thought of all the sisters on Morrigu’s Daughters, I thought of all the people who have emailed me or talked with me about being drawn to her, I thought of how she is calling her children together.      

  In my mind I tell Her  “Tell me what to do, and I will do it.’’  The reply comes immediately.  “Be a Power.”  The same message I received from Dagda (see my previous post for more on this).  The Morrigan is gathering her Tribe, She is calling to us more than ever before.  She is calling her heroes, her champions.   An army of ravens.  There is work to be done. 

  But what is the work?  What is she rallying us to?  I think in lettering her into our hearts, in letting her transform us, we in turn begin to transform the world around us.  The world certainly needs it.  And all who stands before the Morrigan leave transformed.   


* Above artwork by Larry Vienneau