Maria Wulf Full Moon Fiber Art

Zip met me on the back porch.  A cup of hot cacao in one hand the other draped with the sheep skin I meditate on.

“Ok, Zip,”  I said, “I’ll sit here instead of the by the stream if you’ll join me.”

I set my sheepskin down on the grass next to the empty dahlia garden,  wrapped my blanket around me and sat.  Zip poked his head under the blanket and crawled into my lap.   As soon as we settled in the crow started calling.

It didn’t stop for some time.

Not until she was answered with the hollow clucking of another crow flying by,  did the first crow leave her perch in the tallest tree.  Then they joined another crow and all three flew off to… I don’t know where.

Six crows.

I saw them the day before in the pasture, pecking around like chickens, our Bud watching diligently from the other side of the fence.

……………

It took me a couple of hours  in my studio to find the crow and raven fabric and know that they were what I needed to work on.

For me, crows and ravens are a sign of creating change, mostly in how I think about something. More than a physical change it’s  about being able to go inside myself and alter the way I see things from the past or my ideas about what might be going on at the moment.

Being able to to see with new eyes  feels like magic to me.

In his book Animal Speak, Ted Andrews writes  that crows “are messages calling to us about the creation and magic that is alive within our world everyday and available to us.”

Both  crows and ravens are thought to have supernatural powers.  Andrews writes that ravens teach us to “stir the magic of life without fear”.

Jon and me merging our blogs is a big change for both of us.  One we both want and embrace.  But this is also a time of  transition.  One that marks the trust and respect we have for each other and our work.

Still it is as unnerving as it is exciting.

Being able to raise over $7000, thanks to so many of you reading this, definitely takes the edge off. One very important part of the transition we don’t have to worry about.  So now we can move ahead with our minds free to think creatively about what comes next.

So when I heard the crow calling this morning, I tried to touch the everyday magic that I know lives inside of me.

The anxiety I’ve been feeling around  this past week had tighten me up. Body and mind.

So, as I sat in meditation, I thought , instead of holding on to the tension, maybe I needed to open myself up to it and allow the process to take over.    I started by breathing into my heart, imagining it opening and softening with each breath.

Over time I felt my body relax, my eyes go soft and the possibility that it would all work out.  This seemed to send a signal to the rest of my body and my mind too.

Magic, maybe, or maybe not.  But I certainly felt lighter when my timer rang an hour later.

I’ll keep allowing the excitement instead of focusing on the anxiety, with the six crows who live around the farm as good reminders.