“Raven Magic”
“Raven Magic” - created July 5th, 2021
THE MANDALA PROJECT - How it came to life
If you know someone whose day would be brightened by this Mandala, please pass it along! Even more magical, with a love note from you!
The Mandala Project: #31
This is the most mystical, mind-bending experience the Mandalas have offered so far.
It’s a bit of a tale, so I offer you two ways to engage. Either through this video story, or if you prefer, the written words and images beneath that.
I hope you’ll find it as magical an unfolding as I did!
On my birthday last March, I followed an invitation from my guides on an Animas course to go out for a long forest wander with an open, curious heart.
On my travels that morning, I met this Raven in the bottom of a fallen tree.
The Crone Raven - first meeting March 20th, 2021
She was AWESOME.
In every encounter I've had with Raven up until now, I’ve felt a very masculine energy, but this one was absolutely a ‘she’. She had a very Crone-like energy. Wise. Elder. Ancient.
I sensed her to be a guide to the underworld, and I knew I’d visit her often as I continued exploring the shadow realms. Fast forward a few months to early July of this year, when she became hugely significant in the mysterious emergence of this Raven Mandala.
Following Death’s Lead
It was a hot afternoon and I was taking my dog swimming to a place that requires driving about 5kms on the Trans-Canada highway, a major roadway with two lanes in either direction and a median dividing them.
About a kilometre into the drive, lying by the median in the centre of the highway was a dead raven.
I felt saddened to see it, and as I continued driving I was wondering what might've happened. “Likely hit by a car, not sure how, perhaps not paying attention.” I carried on, thinking that was the end of it.
The next day I was driving back again (we were in the midst of a heat wave so I was taking Lily swimming a lot) and the raven’s body was still there, but now I had a very strong urge, or perhaps a question, rising up.
It felt like there was something wanting to happen, like maybe collect its body and bring it into the forest, just to not have it be there on the side of this busy highway.
I was wondering how to best go about it. It would be a fairly dangerous undertaking to park and cross this busy highway, and to be kneeling in the middle of it. I also thought with the heat there might be maggots…could I maybe get a garbage bag and put it around it?
That afternoon as I was contemplating what the best course of action was, I decided to do a drumming journey and ask the Raven what kind of support it wanted or needed. I was shown two things very quickly:
One was to park on the right-hand side of the highway, sit on the hood of my car and drum for it. And the second was to make a mandala. No urgency, just at some point in the mandala-making adventure to make one in honour of this Raven’s death.
Trusting the Mystery
The next day I was out walking quite close to home and noticed a couple of stumps, one in particular that had a lot of vibrant bright green moss around it. While I wasn’t sure I would make the Raven mandala that day, if I did, it felt like this might be the backdrop.
But then I thought, “I want to go to where the Crone Raven is, there might be something there that wants to inform this process.” She was across the road and twenty minutes into a different part of the forest, but her energy felt absolutely connected to this Raven in some important way.
When I got there, the mosquitoes were insane—there was no way I’d last for two minutes without being swarmed and eaten alive. Cancel, cancel—I looped back and started to make my way home and was coming down a steep hill when I noticed some wet, black bark on the side of the trail.
My first thought was, “Hey, that kind of looks like raven feathers,” and then, “nope, carry on.” But as I kept walking, I was immediately pulled back toward it, almost like whiplash. Something said, “Get that, you need it.”
“God, probably all kinds of bugs and crap in it, very soggy and wet…”, I hesitated as I picked up a couple of handfuls. Then closer to home I found a Robin egg. Very cool, yes, definitely somehow this needed to be in the mix. I dropped by the house, doused myself in bug spray and then went back to the mossy green stump from earlier.
Nearby was a flat rock that seemed like a perfect platform to build on. Once it was in place in the centre of the stump, I start playing with the bark, wondering if I could somehow make it into the shape of a raven in flight.
First fumbling effort, work in progress…
As I was working away a storm in the distance was gaining momentum. The wind was getting stronger and thunder kept rumbling and cracking through the darkening sky, urging me to work faster.
I got it to a place of, “Okay, okay. It kinda worked…” just as the first raindrops started falling.
Took a few photos and beat it for home, getting in the door just as the sky opened up and all hell broke loose in the forest.
Once inside, I scanned through the photos to see if anything coherent had emerged and thought, “Yeah, not bad. It's not bad. Kinda what I was going for. But there's one feather that’s not in the right place, it’s slightly out of balance.” This sometimes happens, I see something later with some distance and perspective and will try and go back out to pull it a bit more together. But with this one, I was pretty sure the storm was going to destroy it first.
Unexpected Collaborators
About three hours later the energy of the storm had passed through and the outside world was calm again. It was about eight in the evening and really beautiful light and I felt called back out. “Just going to go see if it's still in place. And if it is, maybe rearrange a couple of things and make it look more how I want it to.”
Was surprised to find the raven/bark completely intact, miraculously not pummelled, so I made a couple of tweaks and photographed the revised version.
Mandala #31: Raven Magic
And then things got wild.
Once in a while I'll take a photo of the Mandala in its location, and as I crouched low and to the side of it to do that, everything shifted. It felt like a veil was being pulled back, a kind of shimmer in the time/space field.
As I looked more closely at the shape of the Raven, I was astounded at what I was seeing.
My first effort pre-storm was kinda raven-like, and also maybe a bit sparrow looking. In the bird family for sure, but perhaps not exactly a raven. Which was fine, points for effort Wiltzen.
Then I saw what Nature did with it.
From this angle, after the storm, the pile of wet bark had transformed into a beautifully shaped Raven, with a head far more intricate and precise than the triangle-y type shape I’d pulled off .
And not only more raven-like—but in the lineage of the Crone Raven.
No question about it. It was so stunning. I sat there in wonder. Like how…?
How could this be? I came out here with my rudimentary efforts (me human make sculpture of raven) and the storm said, “Thanks for getting us started. We've got it from here.” And the thunder and the wind and the rain and the lightning and the spirit of the Raven—all of it came together and brought this Raven into wholeness.
This is next-level playing in the realm of mystery.
I’m actively participating in a creative game that’s bigger than I understand.
Something’s been stirring, and it’s revealing itself more and more transparently, nudging me to remember. To re-discover. To reconnect.
The next day I took my drum and drove back to the highway to drum near the dead raven’s body, and it was gone.
Whether a predator took it away, or someone had moved it off the highway, in my experience it had transformed into wholeness, and left this realm.
This Mandala revealed that we’re co-creating with a force that’s deeply engaged and powerfully collaborative. The invitation is to keep pulling on the thread and following where it's leading.
There are connections we’ve lost touch with that haven’t lost us. They’ve always been right here, and they’re always guiding the way.
We live in a culture that supports and encourages the ideal of self-sufficiency, and most of us spend our lives striving for it. It’s a myth, and believing it comes with a steep price.