“Three white crows perched in wind-blasted pines near the peak of an otherwise desolate mountaintop observed my ungraceful entrance with judgemental silence.”
I’m not sure if those are the exact words that started off that scene in The Drum Called, but the presence has never left me despite all these years and events that came after.
So when I turned around and encountered [someone] that appeared to be me, but wasn’t me, I was surprised to see their dress and regalia invoking the presence of those same three white crows as if I were encountering them anew.
So much has changed. My perception. My beliefs. I have been altered by all the hammers against my soul, both good and bad. Surely there is no connection between who I am now and who was thrown against the shattered rock at the foot of those wind-blasted pines. Right?
In The Drum Called, one of the white crows descends to land beside me in a humanoid form. They mock me severely (and deservingly) and ruthlessly enjoy watching my face being ripped off by a justifiably upset bear.
That same crow is before me again. Humanoid but covered in symbols I can see instead of being blinded by. We don’t say a word to each other. There is only silence in the way weathered stone is silent.
I would have thought that all the spiritual changes I have been through, all the path-tasting and path-rejecting I have done, would have sent me away from that paradigm. I’m no shaman. I’m no intercessor. I am not required to maintain balance in the universe, to upset that same balance, or to play out any prophesy.
I study the White Crow for a long time, reading the symbols on their regalia like reading one of my archived posts. I have an understanding of some, and questions about others, but the White Crow remains knowingly silent.
I nod, and turn to walk away back to the Waking. There was no Bear to rip my face off this time, and no mocking laughter biting my heels as I went.