The Raven's Cure

Gilbert Williams - Gathering Flowers

"Should auld acquaitance be forgot

and never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaitance be forgot 

and days for auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne my dear, 

for auld lang syne

We'll take a cup of kindness yet

for auld lang syne."

- Auld Lang Syne (for the Good and Old Times, the Song Nobody Knows)

We are all looking for a cure. We are all looking for answers. 

Nobody is looking after pain and doubts. This world is full of chaos already.

We all want, and want badly. We want to be understood, we want to be accepted, we want to be perfect to a society that is in the edge of destruction. It means adapting to this freaking scenario. 

And we keep wanting... we keep waiting. 

So, people wait. People stand in their high positions, expecting someone to show'em a helping hand. People await for the one who's going to listen to their conquests and disgraces. People wait, disregarding other people's waiting.

Because no one extends his hands first. Nobody shares their ears and understanding, because after all, they all think they deserve the first place. Then, everyone stands for last. A last that never comes, it doesn't matter how long someone awaits.

Nietzsche once said: "The Good and the Bad must be returned. But why exactly to the one who did the good or the bad?"

Those are hard words to us, free-thinkers and lightworkers. It's a punch in the heart, but it's a rule set by the Universe, and we are aware of that. It's is known the power of the Violet Flame, which transmutes negativity into positivity. So, this rule might simply "break", by changing the Bad into Goodness. Although, this is not that simple... for we can only live our own lives, and take care of our own actions. 

To relate on the main topic, let's put like this:

- A does an act of kindness to B, who was deeply sad and needed some comfort;

- B was hurt by C, because C also felt deep sorrow and bitterness;

- Afterwards, A needs some comfort himself, but B turns his back on A;

- Plus, B forgives C, and provides him some tenderness;

- C changes his destructive behavior, because he was loved;

- A, the one who broke the chain of hate, is all alone and hurt, because B turned his back on him.

The Good was returned to the One who, first, did the Bad. And the Bad came back to that who, first, did the Good. It's up to someone else to heal A, or, as a lightworker, A could use the Violet Flame or any other enlightenment assistance. But this is not a rule, it's an exception. In a regular chain, A would remain sad, or would spread anger and hatred all around... and the cycle would start over again. 

The world as we know it is not ready to take action. People just don't know how to behave, they don't know how to be grateful. It's not a merely wicked behavior, it is an unconsciouss answer to the ego. Instead of being thankful and aware, many (MANY!) people choose to be "morally good" and wide blind. However, a selfish moral is the grid of their pain. The chosen blindness is the proof of how weak they are to face a mirror.

So, they want, and want, and want. And never take the first step. When a single blessed being decides to do something good, he is crushed. He has his feelings thrown into the ground, with all community spiting on them. And the chain of pain and anger starts over again.

I supposed there won't be a healing while people misunderstood the meaning of "gratefullness and kindness". For no joyful seed can grow into a dry land.

But people just want to be cured. That's all they need after all. We need a last cup of kindness.

I asked for help, but all I had was judgement.

The Raven's Childhood

"What one fears one destroys."

- Chief Dan George

“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.”

                                                                                                                    

-Edgar Allan Poe

Essay over a psychanalisis session, performed when I was 10 years old. By that time, I used to be agressive, enraged, lonesome and thoughtful. In fact, nothing really changed, only my perspective about the world around me, according to my current age and experiences, including memories from the past (check out The Raven's Memories). My mother couldn't understand my tough behavior and the way I stood for my beliefs, even challenging her authority. As it uses to happen with everything people do not understand, she set me up with a Psychologist. I well remember about a single session (I only went on 4 or 5 anyway).

This was what happened:

P: For psychologist

B: For myself 

The psychologist gave me a sheet and pencils, because she was explained that I loved to draw. So I started drawing, and asked to not be bothered. There was silence.

P: Oh! What is this?

B: It's a lion.

P: Why a lion?

B: They were sacred in Egypt.
P: And why does it have 3 tails?

B: Because it's a symbol of power.
P: How so?

B: The 3 is like a balance, with 3 tails it gets stronger.

Then, I started to draw more tails.

P: Why are you giving it more tails?

B: Because 7 is more powerful. It's like eternal. 

P: Who told you that stuff?

B: I just know it.

And my last detail on the lion was a crown (which I knew was a golden crown).

Daniel in the Lion's Den by Peter Paul Rubens

Later on, my mother was told I had great imagination. 

But I always knew it was further than that. And many, many children suffers with the same derogate. They took the childhood "in a stride", they laugh at kids abilities to see beyond, they understimate every word and every artistic expression. By other side, they punish what they consider to be a bad behavior, without even trying to understand the real reasons behind.

It's easier to judge someone as mental ill and throw them to the professionals to take care. I am not putting in evidence the caring parents have upon their children. I believe their intentions are the best, however, there's no way to deny it misses information.

Many kids, specially the newborn of this Era, carry memories of past journeys, ancient knowledges, very high vibes, and it's simply hard to them to adapt to this chaos we are living. 

So comes the diagnosis of Hyperactivity, Asperger,  OCD, and other peculiar problems, which could easily be overcome by letting the kid release his/her most amazing gifts. Also keeping in touch with nature, with animals, trees, stones, and the most important: respecting their timing and vision of the things.

I wish caretakers do not lock their offspring into a cage. I wish someday, all the kids will be heared. So, mankind will understand the true nature of this new generation: Half Angel, Half human.

"It's not good health to adapt into a society which is deeply ill." - Krishnamurti

The Raven's Native Nature - Bear Medicine

Post in: English/Portuguese


My darlings...


We came into a time where pain is unavoidable. The soul is deeply hurt, and the pride of false
notion of straight true living do not allows one's healing

This is the time to look inside, the time to live for your trueself other than the other. Because you can't help, if you are not whole. If one doesn't feel complete, one cannot fill another's heart of comfort and peacefulness.

People gotta think of themselves and in all the energies that move them on, in order to accomplish a greater ideal. Because One is All, and once you've find the truth and your brothers also find their own reason, the world will be in peace. 

We cannot think for the others. We cannot take decisions for them. We cannot heal if we are not healty. We cannot interfere, if people don't want intervention. 

That's why revolution is needed. Internal, not external. If you save the One, you can save All.

They will return again, all over the Earth, they are returning again...ancient teachings of the Earth, ancient songs of the Earth..they are returning again...

American Native Prophecies - Excerpts from a song by His Crazy Horse

______________________________________________________________________________

Meus queridos..

Vivemos em um tempo onde a dor é inevitável. A alma está profundamente machucada, e o orgulho trazido pela falsa noção de vida "correta" não nos permite alcançar a cura.

É tempo de olhar dentro, tempo de viver pelo seu verdadeiro "Eu", antes de viver pelos outros. Porque você não pode ajudar, se não estiver inteiro. Se Um não se sente completo, não pode preencher os corações com paz e conforto.

As pessoas precisam pensar nelas mesmas, e na energia que move suas vidas, para que possam alcançar um ideal maior. Porque Um é Tudo, e uma vez que haja encontrado a sua verdade, e seus irmãos hajam encontrado as próprias razões de existência, o mundo estará em paz.

Não podemos pensar pelos outros. Não podemos tomar decisões pelos outros. Não podemos curar, se não estamos curados. Não podemos interferir, se alguém não deseja intervenção.

Por isso a revolução é necessária. Interna, não externa. Se salvar o Um, poderá salvar o Todo.

Eles retornarão, por toda a Terra, eles estão regressando novamente...ensinamentos antigos da Terra, canções antigas da Terra..eles estão regressando novamente...

Profecias dos Nativos Americanos - Excerto da canção de Cavalo Maluco

The Raven's Feelings

You could have been my friend.

And if you did, I would carry you in moments of disgrace. I would be your retreat when the storm came, I would fight your wars and believe your most unbelievable thought.

I'd walk your shoes and step your steps, if this was important to you. I'd share my words and my silence as well.

I'd have you as my sanctuary, and ask you nothing but comfort if my world was fallen apart.   

But you decided to be disloyal. You decided trangression and be unfaithful to your own self. You decided to throw back in fear and hide every single emotion and every memory as a shadow from the past. 

So, you are not my friend.

Wherever this past was touched by darkness, don't forget the joys and deep feelings that brought us where we are now. Once, love and intimacy enlighted our path, and doesn't matter what I am or you are, but at that time, We Were like that. And we laugh like that.

Rainy days are gone. Sunlight shines upon lovers that know nothing but betrayal.  The Moon echoes a sad serenade every night, for the loneliness she touches with all her Brightness. Empty times we are living… Colder people we are trying to reach. 

And all I was hoping for was a warm friendship. Cold winds arising.  Nice memories vanishing in apathy.  Then, Raven is crawling instead of flying.

Raven P.

The Raven's Memories

Courage and tenderness in someone's eyes give you the strenght to move on. One step forward and it changes everything.

Distance only makes the journey more incredible, but I heard that hearts joined together for once, will share a bond for always. So, even when we see each other splited by lands and seas, we can trust our feelings of unity. Maybe this is the sand that moves the gear. Maybe it is the power that turns the wheel of fortune and allows us to gather the memories lost along the way. 

No one can explain the connection. The answer comes from ancient wisdom and beliefs that transcend our vil understanding.

Pagan legends talk about Raven's as messengers of existence.  They are there at birth, they are there at war, they are there at death; they are there to keep memories and be the reasonable guardians of thoughts. 

Odin, father of the Aesir, was constantly represented in companion of his crows Hugin and Munin (Thought and Memory, respectively). As the main God from Nordic mythology, Odin represented weighing and strength, and his words were taken by other gods as absolute. A poem illustrates the importance of Hugin and Munin to comprehension of psychological theory that circles the legends.

"Hugin and Munin fly each day over the spacious earth.

I fear for Hugin, that he come not back,

yet more anxious am I for Munin."

It is obviously an inner reflection about ourselves. Just as Odin, the ancients enjoyed to disguise their messages, so they would be well received as if they came from the gods themselves. And who can say they weren’t sacred anyway? Well, after all, Hugin and Munin represent the past and the present. Memories keep alive everything we were and everyone who crossed our paths, as thoughts heal our wounds and allow us to make a better history.   

But we constantly look after memories. We prefer to go for them, than keep going with our own ideas. Is this so bad? I don’t think so.

Morrigan, the celtic goddess of war and birth, was also represented as or in companion of ravens. Sometimes, she assumed a raven form to send messages to warriors or to sign a new birth. What this suppose to mean?

Raven brings life, and new life is born with ancient spirit. So, the raven carries the memories from another time, but also the possibility of building a whole new story through thoughts.  

Even so, one cannot exist without other. And again, memories will reunite old fellows in order to face ancient challenges by the new point of view created by our present thoughts. Our ability to think is what makes possible the reunion of souls, it’s their reason to be.

Uther Pendragon, in the masterpiece of literature “The Mists of Avalon” (Marion Zimmer Bradley, 1979), tells Igraine about his deep feelings, that can only be explained by rescuing old memories:

"I cannot regret it. They tell us in the temple that true joy is found only in freedom from the Wheel that is death and rebirth, that we must come to despise earthly joy and suffering, and long only for the peace of the presence of the eternal. Yet I love this life on Earth, Morgan*, and I love you with a love that is stronger than death, and if sin is the price of binding us together, life after life across the ages, then I will sin joyfully and without regret, so that it brings me back to you, my beloved!"

So, if death is only a start over, the ones who shared bonds in the beginning will be connected until the very end. And there’s no reason to fight against that beautiful reunion of spirits, even if it means changing our entire plans. Because when the time comes, we will see there’s no greater gift than feeling whole again and be the most important event in someone else's life.

*Morgan was Igraine’s name in another life.

 

Romeo&Juliet (1968)

Para quem me conhece, não é novidade meu fascínio sobre a literatura estrangeira, sobretudo as obras de William Shakespeare. Tenho predileção pela dramaturgia shakespeariana, embora as comédias também me atraiam em menor cadência.

Como não podia deixar de ser, Romeu e Julieta, os amantes de Verona, encantaram-me ao primeiro contato, nas aulas de filosofia do ensino médio. Lembro-me como se fosse ontem, meu amado mestre André Rotta, recitando trechos da obra, os quais clamava à sua dama quando mais jovens. Meus olhos brilhavam de admiração pela beleza das composições e, é claro, pela ousadia de um professor de ensino médio recitar tais poesias numa classe repleta de alunos escarnecedores.

O canal TCM, famoso pela apresentação de filmes clássicos, lançou a "semana dos namorados", juntamente com o quadro "Éramos muito jovens" no mês de fevereiro. Entre tantos filmes e séries consagrados, na minha opinião, o maior destaque foi Romeu e Julieta (1968), dirigido magistralmente por Franco Zeffirelli. Uma obra-prima do cinema, ganhador de 2 Oscars e mais 14 premiações, é embriagante do início ao fim. O cenário maravilhoso de campos e vilas remonta a Itália do século XVI, bem como o figurino apurado dos personagens. Sem dúvida, a atuação dos protagonistas Leonard Whiting (Romeu) e Olivia Hussey (Julieta) impressiona pela realidade conferida aos atos, aos olhares, às palavras doces proferidas pelos jovens.

A história, por si só, é belíssima, e a conotação romântica indiscutível. Em certo ponto, as lágrimas são inevitáveis. Talvez o mais fascinante desta obra, seja a capacidade que tem de fazer o público ingressar na pele das personagens, viver aquela realidade, naquele momento, como se a vida real fosse mero detalhe mediante tamanho amor.

Sim, identificar-se é maravilhoso. Quando os olhares dos jovens distintos se encontram na multidão do baile de máscaras, a familiariedade é intensa demais para ser ignorada. Existe algum apaixonado que nunca experimentou aquela sensação? Olhos que brilham ao encontrar a pessoa amada. Ou ainda a felicidade que sentimos ao perceber que fazemos os olhos de alguém reluzirem desta maneira... é indescritível.

As músicas tema, ambas de mesma melodia e diferente letra, encaixam-se na trama, na medida em que mergulham o espectador na melancolia da história. "What is a Youth" e "A Time for Us" conferem ao filme ares de tristeza e esperança. Tristeza pelo relacionamento tolhido pelo ódio sem fundamento entre os Capuleto e os Montecchio, e esperança pelo amor perpétuo entre os jovens venezianos. Romeu e Julieta nos mostram que qualquer amor pode prosperar, desde que tenhamos coragem para assumir nossos sentimentos.

"What is a youth? Impetuous fire.

What is a maid? Ice and desire. The world wags on."

"A time for us, at last to see

When chains are torn, by courage born of a love that's free."

"Prodigioso é o nascimento do amor, para que deva amar meu inimigo abominado!"

Dizendo isso, Julieta reconhece o poder que os sentimentos têm de atingir o inatingível, de unir os inimigos jurados, de transformar o ódio em fé. A leitura da obra é altamente recomendada, e o tema parece ser mais atual do que nunca, já que vivemos em um período conturbado, em que todos competem contra todos e reina a desarmonia. O filme é fantástico e já entrou para minha lista de favoritos. Contudo, é um filme complexo, que demanda tempo e vontade para compreender os mínimos detalhes, desde a belíssima poesia até os atos cativantes.

O encontro das mãos é, certamente, a cena mais marcante da película.

Romeo:
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a
tender kiss.

Juliet:
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your
hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims'
hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy
palmers' kiss.

E que algum dia, todos os amores sejam verdadeiros.

The Raven’s Wings – to all Broken Hearts

Seven billion people around you, and still solitude embracing your heart tonight. Constantly, we fight battles against ourselves and the world we live, trying to engage among empty feelings and the beautiful words they are embued with. Meaningless fights to fill the hollow left by trust and betrayal.

Glad is the one who never felt loneliness knocking at the chamber door. And alive are all the others. Ancient knowledge tell us about living and happiness, death and return, harmony and chaos, living and suffering. It sounds simple when told by someone’s lips, but the truth seems far from ordinary.

Socrates, the philosopher, was delighted to show mankind the guiding spirit inside each one, or, how it came to be called, the “DAEMON” inside. Daemon shall not be confused with malevolous christian demons, since the Daemon is a self-consciousness entity with nothing but good intentions. In other ways, Daemon is part of us, a blessing from the Origins, a companionship and guidance that allows us to follow our path relying on these holy-selves. If we take it as truth, we’ll find no sense in loneliness. We are enough for ourselves, and a complement for another. And that’s it.

Nevertheless, we grow up hungering for love and cherish. Most of times, we give our best to get nothing in exchange. Unfair as it can be, we keep moving on, putting a fake smile on face and trying to reach someone’s heart, hoping desperately a gentle soul who will make us feel safe and true. And for a long while, we live using the mask of normality (read The Raven’s Mask article), hiding ourselves behind a wall of shame and sorrow. We barely realized it’s all superficial and unnecessary, since the real sadness is lied on our tired folded wings.

Sometimes, the sky is too blue. Sometimes, the brightness of sun is too sparkling to allow eyes to see in front of them. Sometimes, the rainy clouds are to heavy to be supported by such delicate wings. And sometimes, people just get tired of flying so long by someone’s side. That’s just the way it is. We are all ephemeral in this life, and so does everything about us.

And by that time, when we see ourselves fallen into the rough ground, we feel like we might never fly that way again. We think about our broken wings and the reason why they suddenly feel so oppresive, the same wings that once made us felt like gods, flying above any problem, with such a pride that can only be overwhelmed by the sky we used to flight on. But the truth is, we might not be considering the possibility of just being tired. Just tired of flying, because something hit us so hard, that we felt impossible to keep going. But it doesnt mean there’s something wrong about us.

The wings are not broken, but our heart is. We still have that desire of trusting, we still desire to love and be loved, and take care and be cared, that’s the meaning of these wings. But it can only be reached when the heart is healed, because it is the fountain of all conquests and all goodness we may try in life.

To achieve confidence again is painful and demands fully commitment to yourself and to the one you gave the chance of healing your heart. Even so, you might get disappointed and restart all over, never missing the dream of happiness. It’s dangerous, yet fabulous.

A sweet song called “Sanctuary”, sung by Utada Hikaru says: Nothing is whole and nothing is broken. It’s certainly a message for we all who aspire for spreading the wings again, moved by the will of the heart. Because we need one another, and nobody can harm us, if we understand that our world doesn’t stop because someone pulled us to the ground.

Don’t be afraid of flying again, of trusting again. The most important person of your life will listen when your heart calls, and won’t let you fall.

To illustrate, this is a song of my favorite japanese group, Aqua Timez, subbed in spanish. It is named “Alones”, and it’s about fragile folded wings and the way we can suddenly be healed of our fears, when we appreciate the beautiful things in life and the kind people around us.

P.S: Post dedicated to a friend, and to everyone who is feeling the weight of broken love fluttering over the heart.