Osiyo friends from another sleepless night in Hogtown, wondering what is to become of this short lil life I have lived here on the rock these past decades.

It’s an interesting thing when we awaken from a Glamour, which is one of the words that birds of transformation, like Raven, a greatly honored messenger in every Native tradition that I know – a bird of deep authenticity, ruthlessly so at times – and one which the Creator and the Ancestors entrust with messages – like to play around with.

Unfortunately for humans, they have a tendency to project their unhealed crap and fears outwardly, so Ravens (like Crows and Owls)  often get a bad rap in the collective and so their messages and medicine often get sent flying away because the unknowing are afraid.

Or they’re or just ignored – irrelevant.

And so  awakening from a glamour for a bird with those transformative, insightful tendencies can be a difficult experience.

Because as people who carry the Raven totem understand, this medicine requires quick changeups and adaptability to new situations rather regularly.

A glamour (not the feminist indoctrination mag or a posh fundraiser), is an illusory state.

The shiny rose colored mist that  floats across the face of your latest infatuation, until you wake up one day to realize the person you thought you were seeing was really not there at all, and just a manifestation of your own hopes and daydreams.

A glamour is like a total misunderstanding of your place on the job, when you’re going along thinking what you are doing is important work, you are doing well, and that you are somehow making a small difference, but then – something . . . perhaps a word, a look, an overheard conversation –

an extended lack of anything at all . . .

getting overlooked again, passed over for promotion again, put on the back burner again . . .

will conk you on the head and awaken you to the truth that you seem to be the only one who thinks so, and the proof is very much in the pudding all around you – as your wings are dusty for lack of a bird bath and your eyes are getting dim for lack of light, and you realize that you have immersed yourself into a dream that doesn’t give returns.

That is Raven Medicine – the sharp CRAAAKK (not Caw Caw, like Crow, but a real attention getter) which will show up and flap those big wings against your head and CRAAAK in your right ear until you finally, Finally get a clue and make the hard decision to make another change.

People with much bird medicine often have very changeable lives because, as we have seen these past few years, it doesn’t matter which side of the aisle a person sits on politically or socially.

If the truth doesn’t suit them, they will disregard it and attack the messenger.

It can be a tiresome gig.

And that is why, (and the cards are always on time) I was rather amused when Raven popped  up in this week’s cards  – to be the ring leader, no less.

Because this moment, as I am writing, is Raven time according to some Native Turtle traditions.

The time of Aries.

Which may bring some clarity to those of us who are hard-headed with that Ram in one or more of our significant houses or relationships.

Mine happens to be in my head where my Mom lives, in my Yellow Quadrant (mind), which in my Family Medicine Wheel is protected by Hawk.

So what do we do when Raven shows up to CRAAAAAAK at us that we have become irrelevant?

That our lives are really falling into a trash heap as we repeately do the same things every day trying and hoping that this time things will be different?

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes describes this tendency in her analysis of the Ugly Duckling – the Exiled Child.

Specifically, Dr. Estes notes that those of us who have come from homes where our gifts and talents weren’t recognized, accepted, acknowledged, or appreciated in tangible ways, have the tendency toward over achievement.

Of hanging on to the dying dream as the last wisp of  it wafts away before our eyes.

Of working ourselves into sickness and misery because, just one more and maybe someone will notice. . .

Isn’t that how we do?

So – usually, if we are hard headed and very devoted to delivering those messsages or doing that art, making that home, or whatever the dying dream may have been at the time of its birth – we will either miss the ending signs, or ignore them because the thought of having to regroup and find another path, start all over again is just so incredibly daunting.

But, that fear of another change is what keeps victims tied to abusers.

Keeps corporate slaves on the wheel.

The fear of irrelevance.

Some healers believe it is the greatest fear we can have.

To be completely invisible and unknown.

To not matter to another soul.

That is irrelevance. Disconnect.

So – what do we do when Raven comes flapping in all shiny and licorice eyed –

Craaking at us that it’s time to get a move on?

And when we have no energy or interest in facilitating more change?, thank you very much.

That question has been bugging me since Raven first showed up on my shoulder last summer when I started to realize that my personal reality is not aligning with my intellectual perception of life – which  is based on my own interpretations of my Big Brother Issa’s  lessons on truth and justice and love.

Not manifesting in reality for me.

Times like these feel like even God has abandoned you (Spirities call this Aridity – times in the wilderness, spiritual dryness) . . . , and so you sit and wait and wonder what in the world is going to happen to you – and if it really is even worth hanging around here much longer, since the work you came to do has either been ridiculed and ignored, or stolen and used by others to gain their own traction.

Leaving you sitting alone in a pile of dust and bug carcasses while they continue their high on the hog lives.

It is a jaw dropper and one of the most difficult things a human being might experience.

Because we’re still in this long timeuntime of the Rattlesnake unwinding itself from many years of going in perhaps the wrong direction, I brushed off Raven, and just thought . . .well, if I just try this .  . or maybe just one more day, one more week . . .

You know how that is. . .

So – finally, today was the day that the thing – you know the thing – hit and Raven showed me that it’s time for me to take a breather, count some crows and assess.

Sometimes, that is the sublime gift that Raven brings us.

Like Black Panther who helps us make friends with freedom and uncertainty, Raven shows up to bleat that truth in our ear.

Startle us out of the glamour.

To force us to sit in the rubble WITHOUT our current obsession whateverthatmaybe . . .  until we have enough energy to take out the trash and  sweep the floor in the morning.

The answers may come. They may not.

But, at the end of it all, Raven comes to ask us:

“Why are you doing this if nobody cares?”

And that, my friends is really the root of irrelevance.

Humanity’s greatest fear.

So, the Old Ones say the best thing to in a Time Like This, is to sit with it all and imagine yourself in the future, looking back at this time and thinking how proud of yourself you are that you made it, and moved on to find something better and brighter when the sun comes up again.

Dr. Estes refers to this necessary breaktime as sitting and breathing, smelling the air. . . waiting until you are ready to shake out your ruff and go back to the world like the Alpha Wolf you are.

Ravens and Wolves are ancient hunting partners, like Crows and Wolves.

And together, with Raven’s highy attuned radar, her cleverness, direct (sometimes rough to taste) truth, and medicine of transformation and Wolf’s tenacity and stamina, there can be no doubt that we who follow the wolves and birds and things of nature will find our ways through the overgrown thickets and underbrush that tangled our dream.

While we’re away from it all, howling at the moon and pondering the stars, . . . that is the time that we start thinking about throwing some gold – ie, getting rid of driftwood that’s holding us back.

I call it  the Chanel rule – always remove at least two items before you go out.

Dr. Estes calls it (in storyteller fashion), throwing gold.

My ole Mohawk Granny says when you get shocked by horseshit on your strawberries, you know it’s time for a Cool Change.

Which, in all the ole Gulls’ language means – just take it easy. Tidy up. Draw again. Write. Paint. Dream.

And stop paying attention about what the others are doing, or not – as the case may be . . .

If they want you, if they need you, they know where to find you.

And that’s some serious  Raven Medicine, from a heeler’s healers, my friends.

A’ho Grandmothers.

It is my honour to be your messenger.