hark the raven
I don’t consider myself a mystic, but I am a believer in the occult. I do Tarot, read up on my daily animal totem, and throw I-Ching coins regularly. The supernatural has always been a fascinating study.
The older I become, it seems that the more incredible the moments of serendipity show up. As I move closer to my final adventure, “dying,” I feel I am also moving closer to the powers of nature, time, awareness and enlightenment. It is absolutely remarkable that human aging brings our mind, soul and body into synch. The pieces of the puzzle that have given us “life” are aligning and connecting in a way that is quite extraordinary and exciting.
Let me give you an example. Here is my most recent experience from the other week, which will help to explain this babble.
On Thursday night, I got up on stage at the Black Box Theater in Burlington, Vermont, to give a Story Slam speech about ICE and how it infiltrated my life in a very bizarre and troubling way, and how I was fighting back. Earlier, I had met with a couple in their 90s for an interview about their life and love of alpine skiing for a ski history magazine I write for.
Friday came around, and I breathed a sigh of relief for an open day so I could write my article on the alpine spirit of the 90-year-old couple. On Saturday, I attended the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Association’s Hall of Fame Award Celebration. I was delighted to see the 90-year-old couple I just interviewed in attendance.
Sunday rolls around, and I planned to set it aside for myself, and what shows up at my dining room window but a black raven with a broken wing. The raven was looking right at me and squawking.
I posted a picture on social media with a call for information and instantly received a plethora of suggestions. I was directed to VINS, which is an organization that rehabilitates injured birds. It was located about two hours from our home.
My husband picked up the raven without any issue and placed her into a large plastic container. We drove to Quechee, Vermont, and dropped her off for care. While leaving the facility, a woman runs up to me and says, “I saw you on Thursday night at the Story Slam talking about ICE.”
She looked at my license plate, saw “Peterpan,” and exclaimed, “I have been trying to decide what play to do for our local middle school musical.I guess you have made my decision; it will be ‘Peter Pan.’”
As we were driving back, we stopped in Woodstock, Vermont, for some lunch, and ran into my friend Dottie walking down the sidewalk where she asked about the raven. We chatted for a while and headed on to the Mad River Valley. On the way, we saw the sign for the farm that the 90-year-old couple I interviewed had just bought to save it from development. There it was—the bronze historic sign, and the farmhouse and hillside. We.we stopped and took photos for my article.
What are the odds?
I finally arrived at the Mad River Big Picture, where I was on a panel for my friend who just wrote a young adult book, “Channeling Marilyn.” The Marilyn is Marilyn Monroe, of course. June 1was her 100th birthday. She died four months before my mother in 1962.
Driving over the Appalachian Gap toward home, a baby bear ran in front of the car. We stopped, and he stopped, looked right at us, and ran off. Wow!
Finally, we arrived home at the end of this day. The full Sagittarian Blue Moon was rising over Camel’s Hump Mountain. I turned to my husband, and we just looked at each other,wide-eyed and incredulous—the magic, mystical, marvelous and most inexplicable crossovers of incidents. I looked up the animal totem message for raven, and this is what it said:
“The raven totem is the keeper of synchronicity. He is a master of bending and folding time and space. Therefore, you are precisely at the right moment at the right time.”
Amen to that.
The Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) has reported that the raven is doing well. She was probably injured by a cat. In time, she should make a full recovery and be returned to Moulton Meadow to rejoin her family.
