Experiencing life’s magic
from http://www.clipartguide.com/_pages/0512-0810-1618-0524.html
I have some noisy new neighbors. For years the ravens living in the ravine below my home have used one of the sunshade over my southern windows as a launch site for the courting acrobatics. This year a pair decide that the other set of slats would be a great place for their nest. It’s hard to see from inside the house but a rough construction of sticks appeared in the end of March.
Now, in mid-May, I can hear hungry sounds of raven babies every time one adult lands nearby. I haven’t seen the hatchlings as the nest faces the ravine with a three-story drop to the path below but the deep calls of the parents and the more high-pitched cries of the little ones are unmistakable. (My friend Connie managed to get a great photo of the nest and its fuzzy inhabitants.)Raven Magic
Raven Magic
Ravens have blessed my cohousing community since it was formed almost 25 years ago. Watching them ride the thermals is a source of pleasure for many of us. However, over the last several weeks I’ve been wondering what it means to have a mated pair take up residence on my home.
According to Jamie Sams’ and David Carson’s Medicine Cards, Raven is magical shape-shifter who portends change. Often, they say, the change is unexpected but transformative, refashioning life’s challenges into great blessings.
This is a time of transformation for me. For the first time since earning my Ph.D. in 1999, I won’t be teaching in the fall semester. For twenty years, I have plied my academic trade. Writing and publishing three books and innumerable articles. Last fall was the first year I didn’t attend the American Academy of Religion conference since graduate school and I don’t expect to attend any future conferences. It seems strange that this will be the first summer in twenty years I won’t spend preparing for future classes.
After I published the third of my academic books, my friends asked me what my next project would be. I didn’t have any plans for additional academic work. It was then I decided to learn how to write fiction. I had begun my professional career as a technical writer producing policy and procedure manual along with computer user manuals. Graduate school taught me a different form of writing, so I was confident I could learn still another style of writing. Over the last several years, I have been applying my writing skills toward fiction. I have self-published two books, The Baron’s Box and The Third Way with another, tentatively entitled The Hybrid, in preparation.
Besides learning the craft of the novel, I have had to learn marketing techniques. Choosing to self-publish means that there is no publishing house behind me pushing my novels out to interested readers. However, I’ve discovered even if a book is traditional published it is up to the writer to do the bulk of its promotions.
So I can see some changes coming into my life:
more time for writing and perhaps an accelerated publication schedule, an enhanced focus on the marketing side of the business with a goal of getting my work in front of more willing eyes. Not teaching means more time to devote to the other important parts of my life including my community, my church and my sweet husband.
But, Raven portends unexpected change, challenges becoming great blessings, the possibility of experiencing a little more of life’s magic. Maybe this is the time to willingly enter the void, the center of all creativity. Perhaps I will follow my neighbor-babies out of the nest and into some great beyond. We’ll see.
