Ravens

Ohhhhh....that is interesting Gypsy,
it could be a crow or a raven. Do you know how to tell the difference.Here is a story I'd like to tell you about my experience. My son had told me that a baby raven fell from the spruce tree. The baby raven was stunned. He had beautiful blue eyes. Anyway, the raven was taken from the ground where it fell out of its nest. The mother and father raven were circling the extremely tall spruce tree and cawing very loudly. They did not want their baby to leave. The baby raven was not able to fly and only a few weeks old. We decided to nurse it back to health (not what you think).
We kept "Baby" in a corrugated box inside the front hall of our house. Each morning and evening the parent ravens would caw in the same distinctive way. We first started by feeding the baby dog food. Later, I was told to feed it steak (that was getting too expensive). Each time it would feed, it had this voracious appetite. It would make this odd gurgling sound and it was funny to watch.
After a few months of taking care of "Baby" we decided it was time to release the dear bird. We went outside in the spring air and let him go.After flapping pointlessly on the ground, he looked at me with those deep blue raven eyes and wanted to know what to do. I started to flap my arms. Then baby flapped his wings. Soon he began to hoover over the ground and caught on to the reason he had wings. He quickly flew to the nearest branch over our birdfeeder. The parents were cawing and watching our every mood. Soon baby got the hang of flying and took off towards his old nest.
For the rest of the summer whereever we would go, Baby would follow us. He follow us shopping, he followed us to the park. One of my neighbours continued to feed the bird fillet mignon. No wonder he didnt want to go back to life as a raven.
It came time to move from our home. We got all packed up to go. Baby followed us for 13 hours in our moving van. We know baby has a family and they always caw good morning and swoop around us.
I have heard tell that ravens become very attached to their human owners (no kidding). I have also heard that ravens continue to "see" using one eye or the "all seeing" eye, as if all ravens view the same thing. as in Carlos Casteneda stories, Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (and series) about native witch doctors, etc.
. I have also heard that witches (warlocks) take the form of ravens and fly about scaring or helping other witch doctors..
Anyway, I think they are cute and not harbingers of death.
Of course fear begets fear, and there are scary stories about ravens and crows out there. Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven a classic example. I think we make things what we think they are as in self-fufilling prophesy.
Of course I was greatly saddened by the West Nile outbreak that was killing so many crows, ravens and other birds. I think they may be germ carriers because, after all they are carrion creatures and eat dead and rotting flesh.
Maybe we can teach ravens and crows to eat vegtables instead, and they would be less of typhoid Mary type of animal.. Chickens will eat anything too, and are carnivores, herbivores depending on food availability.
They definitely need a healthier diet and lose the poor image society has given them.
They are very bright, and somehow, I felt connected to this bird. Baby follows me everywhere to this day. There memories are external and connected, a little bit different than us, but we may have raven powers; if we look for them.(ok I am not sick!). It's true!
That is my experience anyway. Jane Jones

Great point, Dravan: No matter which person, no one is perfect. Mistakes have been made in the past.Humans know little about why we are here on this planet. We make up things as we go along. We probably wouldnt know the truth (if it exists) if it hit us the backside!
If we were or are perfect, we wouldn't be here. I feel I am in a "limbo-like" place, both good and bad and black and white. A Divine Dictomy. Somewhere, sometime ago we separated from being One With The Universe or complete. All humanity searches for those philosophic questions.
Yet we are split in two, look at our bodies, two of everything, everything in our known universe is a split atom. What was the mother atom like? Does it still exist? Where? I often wonder why? You are not alone Dravan in your coming to grips with others trying to "Lord over your spiritual integrity". This has been the nature of man since time immemorial.
When and if we erer achieve that "wholeness" of spirit mind and body we won't ask questions anymore.
Maybe we are all just waiting. This sounds so much like Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett, an existentialist. Just because we are waiting doesnt mean we do not have a spiritual belief system. That is human nature to categorize everything! We have to believe in something for our spirits to feel fufilled. It is the added ingredient, the echoing back off the mountain, someone or something is there to look after us after all.
Faith is the hope in things unseen. Pagan or Christian I think that statement holds water. "You decide what to choose and what is an illusion! Remember to choose wisely Dear Wise Dravan! Love your beard! Jane Jones from Oct 31 08 Samhain