“Who is Ravenwoman?”

“Who is Ravenwoman?”

This question gave me all sorts of ache until I realized I was reading two different questions in those three words. “Who is the person Ravenwoman?” and “What is the role of Ravenwoman?”. While I would love to just answer “I have no fucking clue.”, wipe my hands, and call it a day, I know that’s a bullshit answer. Warning: Wild Speculation Ahead.

I know it doesn’t make any sense for me to beg forgiveness for speculation, when Ravenwoman is a character from my dreams (and visions and hallucinations). I imagined her, after all, so she can be anything I want her to be, right? It’s not like I took any of the stories, fables, lore, and fiction that surrounds the name “Ravenwoman” and braided my own rope to hang myself with. Once I did have a name for her, I refused to look it up for several months. I didn’t want to “poison the well”, by allowing other variations of the character bleed over the character I have grown to know.

I’ve been dreaming of her for four years, but she has only had a name from me for two. Because of her habit of wearing my face, I mistook her for my “inner shamanka” (wince), “true self”, “higher self”, and/or “alternate self” for the first two years. She didn’t speak with words then, instead used my face to display various expressions of disgust or strained tolerance. For that time, there were no ravens, no pyres, no great piles of bones that went on far into the distance. It was just her, and me, and whatever journeys she was sending a very reluctant me on.

She did have a drum, one with a curious spiral type marking on the head. But when I tried to look at the marking, the spiral would turn and I would have to turn away, suddenly nauseous. When the pyres came, the drum went away. But by the time the pyres had come, I had become adept in playing the drum in my head, no need for music & headphones, no need for something to hit with my hand.

Ravenwoman, despite wearing my face (and sometimes, my deathmask) is not a reflection of me. Her height varies from a little taller than me, to considerably taller than me. Usually, she stands about 3 inches taller than my normal height. I never see her feet, her blood edged skirt covers her completely. So I don’t know if she has shoes or not, or even if she has human feet or not.

Her body’s frame only changes to remain proportional to her height. Though her clothes and cloak fit loose on her, it’s clear she is a heavyset woman. Do not mistake her girth for sluggishness. Her movements remind me of bears. Slow, methodical, and intentional, until she wants to move with a quickness. And then she outpaces the wind. She is able to onehandedly throw me several feet in the air without effort, and has done so, repeatedly.

I think once upon a time, Ravenwoman was a human woman. Her time in the boneyard has purged her of much of her humanity, much like the bonepyres burn away the lingering connections of the dead to the living. She wears my face, because she has forgotten her own. Or perhaps because her own has also decayed to the point where I am not able to face it squarely without an ill reaction. She has worn headdresses before, one of a giant raven head with a black beak and full feathered, one of a giant raven skull, bleached white from exposure with a backdrop of black feathers tipped with blood. (No, I didn’t write up the raven skull headdress.) But of late, she is content to wear my face. It doesn’t bother me anymore. I know she is not me.

Even though she has hinted that I will become something like her.

What I know of Ravenwoman’s “duties” in the boneyard: She Sings the bones. She Dances the bones. She protects the boneyard from those that would prey upon the bones and the fading vestiges of souls that clings to the pieces. She is a walking “Necromancers: Keep The Fuck Out” sign. Her fires are Devouring and Purging. The Devouring fires completely destroy the bones, reducing them to ash. But only those bones of those that are ready to fully leave life behind can be destroyed. The Purging fire deals with those unready bones, burning away the blood and marrow that represent the desire for living, the clinging instinct of self-preservation.

Even though I’ve never seen them do it, I know her ravens bring bones to the boneyard. At first they hid from me (not fucking likely), or were told to remain out of sight (totes likely). Slowly, I was introduced to their presence. If they had been displayed to me at first, I would have latched on to the idea of a Raven Totem(tm) and not let it go for anything. A grave mistake and a crushing fallacy. The ravens also act as her eyes, ears, and mouth in other worlds. I’ve yet to see any in the Waking that belong to her. Instead, I see crows that like to gossip about me to Some Other Guy.

Sometimes, the fires are not enough. Sometimes the souls need help to let go. That is when Ravenwoman sings the Crying of the Dead, and dances the Shaking of the Bones. While I understand very little of these two things, I am not comfortable speaking about them here. All I can say, is if you are touched by the Dead, then you already know of what I speak. If you are not, I can not help you understand.

Well, then. I guess I knew more of her than I thought I did. Even if most of what I’ve written is speculative bullshit, it’s of a scent that I can live with.

If I have not answered well, or if you have further questions about Ravenwoman, please comment below. Comments will be open for two weeks after posting. If you come across this post after comments have closed, I can be reached via my Tumblr’s Ask Keri Anything page, or send a message via Facebook.

Make of that, what you may.