Cora’s Raven Magic

I am the Voice of the Raven Upon Wind.
My harsh cries echo long upon the Earth and Air:
Nothing is Forever, Not Life,
not Love,
not Death,
nor Loss.
Only change is eternal,
and only destruction
can the seed of creation form.
author unknown

Cora is a bird of alchemy! She was not gone long! As night fell she returned to my chamber. Here she dances a ritual – adding and combining, stirring and distilling. The potion she is creating in her dark cauldron contains all the elements in a very precise recipe.

Honouring Cora – A Faithful Guide

She walks in beauty like the light
Of cloudless chimes and starry skies
And all that’s dark and bright
Meet in the aspect of her eyes
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies
One shade the more, one ray the less
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Lord Byron

In Norse mythology Odin has two pet ravens: Hugin and Munin– thought and memory accordingly. Each day they leave Odin and return from “Midgard,” (literal meaning: middle enclosure) the mortal realm. In her final years, when she was living alone, my mother had a pet raven who came each day to visit. I was privileged enough to get some good photos of her.

When my alter ego, Heather Blakey, ran the Soul Food Cafe ‘Ravens’ regularly ‘returned’ from ‘Midgard’ to roost in the virtual haven she had created, bringing with them, from their mortal worlds, many thoughts and memories.

Cora is a faithful member of a clan of Ravens who has chosen to be by my side as I give fresh life to Shadwell and work intimately with the Tarot of the Vampyres. She is also a shape-changer and, as she has just shown, can reveal herself as the Priestess!

Cora brings ‘intelligence’ from the underworld. She helps make space for intuition.

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To honor the darkness of this bird’s wing, I now enable Cora to help me own the hidden interior, the parts of my past marked with shadows of unhealed wounds and unexpressed emotions. The Raven is the symbol of our own Soul. This is the side of ourselves that, according to Thomas Moore, is nostalgic, melancholy, lost in memories and dreams, rooted in the past, resisting change and seeking stability. The side of us that doesn’t want to go to the meeting in the first place and would rather stay home and rest.

Raven carried her ball of light into the sky,
so we no longer live in darkness.

The old self image must die
Death must precede the
Psychological revolution that is welling
the creative reorganization demanding to
Unblock the flow of psychic energy and
Give life new meaning

Into the cauldron Raven
Beautiful soul maiden gently places
Black seeds from my shadow
Black wormseed from my ego
to incubate, regenerate and
Facilitate rebirth

A beginning, the end
Dying to the senses, withdrawing
Voluntarily entering the dark inner world of the soul
at home in the darkness of suffering
Only in death is a greater thing born
Only within the darkness lie germs of recovery

by Heather Blakey 2007

The Raven symbolizes the home of our ancestors, our personal stories and body memories. It is distinctly earthy, and feminine.

To read more about the role of Ravens in Fantasy check out the work of Nicola at Thoughts of Fantasy. Her post is very comprehensive.

Rapping on My Chamber Window

“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As if someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door”.
Edgar Allen Poe

As I sat in my apartment, by my dressing table, admiring the ‘new’ me that Pook had, like some good fairy out of one of those Hans Christian Anderson tales, conjured up using a spell that involved the burning of pine needles, I heard a persistent tapping at my chamber window. I looked to see that Cora had arrived and was beckoning me to pay heed. She had a decidedly haughty, unfamiliar look about her.

Puzzled I opened the window only to be greeted with “Really! Anastasia! I am surprised at you! How could you let Pook lead you astray like this? You know he cannot be trusted. He weaves spells to bemuse our senses and confuse our judgement.”

I was about to slam the window shut, not wanting to hear another word when she added, “You know Pook is the master of illusion and delusion, holding up a distorting mirror to confuse and misguide you”.

With that she dropped her calling card telling me that perhaps I needed to reflect on this ‘little truth’ before I reduced myself to pursuing rather than being pursued or did anything to make an enemy out of the Empress.

As I looked at the card a flood of painful memories surged forward. Bereft I locked my chamber door and slipped under the doona to mull over the truth I was being forced to face.