Out of curiosity have you ever considered writing a short story? You have very hypnotic writing. Which is the same type of writing all the classic literature authors have such as Jack London, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, And Charles Dickens. Very wonderful!
6 years ago | 0
camelsandfriends
The Raven Just Behind Death To Become it to the Wolves Who Walk Behind:
The Long Dark Nights Where the Dead Hide
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Ravens are very interesting animals. Even if you know some of this stuff about them, I hope after reading you gain a new sense of respect for what they are.
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I. the crown for the king and the mantel for the one who will steal it
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Earlier I posted a photo that looked like Shadow a feathery crown around her neck. This photo here.
Shadow started fluffing up that feathery crown, called a mantel since going outdoors into her aviary. Looking at the photo you'll see that is quite dense and is good for protection from the cold. But it is also good for another kind of protection and the relationships of ravens to death and wolves of means that foretell life from death.
That mantel I want to show because it makes the raven what he is and it's always quite plainly stated, but not something tending to draw attention of anyone. It sort of makes her look like a rich victorian woman with an ostrich feather shawl or collar expecting to be cold. And that sort of what it is. It is feathers, it is protecting Shadow from the cold in the photo, and Shadow is a rich victorian woman.
She is not a rich victorian women.
And her main use for her mantel is not to protect her from the cold so much as it is to protect the body from carrion that spread bacteria and blood down the throat and without would make contact with the body-- increasing risk of infection every time a raven feeds on the dead.
This mantel is exactly why the raven is often depicted as survivors of during plagues, apocalypses and other large disasters where a high amount of disease may be festering. The raven keeps safe and can tolerate a much more densely population experiencing a sudden mass death.
Ravens are associated with good, but also with the bad due to their tolerance decay. It is disturbing for those that have experienced the black death to see a raven around again when so many were hopping around the corpses of people you probably knew. They are seen therefore to bring bad luck and death with them. Ravens are heavily tied with death, but they are not an omen foretelling it's arrival. But the followers that come in right after death has already visited.
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II. strength is weakness for those able to find another way around
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Ravens themselves recognize their need to follow on the heels of death and have long since learned to manipulate circumstances when required. In cold climates, carcasses are frozen solid and often covered with snow and then uncovered with death long gone leaving the raven with nothing to follow. In heavy snow and freezing temperatures a raven must be there near to the death of an elk to be able to utilize it as food. The following of death becoming a much too narrow time span for the raven to thrive, putting the species as a whole at risk in those regions.
Ravens despite having a rather large beak with what appears to be hardened crest as seen on parrots-- are actually softbills. That means there beaks have very little strength. They are basically just as useless as any songbird, only a bit stronger for the size of it. Parrots are hookbills and their crest or top beak is harder and shaped like a nut cracker. And they can crack nuts. Or break a bone. Ravens crest gives somewhat an appearance of power, but is really to heighten his sense of smell. To find the scent of death from a great distance. Not something parrots need to do.
But ravens need to scavenge to survive and a frozen elk is much too hard for them to peck open an entry. Being that if you count the elk they are easily second- well third after death-- of the scene of corpse due to their wide ariel view and strong tracking through scent. Arriving third place just isn't going to cut it in the winter months and in some places year round.
Ravens would be forced to wait for wolves to hunt the area and come across the corpse. And then open it. But how long would that be? It could be a long time or it could be never. This unknown is too important to leave to pure chance and the decision making skills of an individual raven to know how long to stay or to stay at all.
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III. the death of the raven for the life of the raven
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To unify themselves, ravens developed a collective conscious to take the unknown out of the equation and replace it with the known. Putting themselves back in control of what happens and not the control of predator density and chance. Leaving the elk behind to go out and find the wolves who easily spotted from far distances in contrast of wolf to snow.
If the wolves are feeding, the raven has found what he needs already. But if they are hunting, this could take awhile and wolves are known for being very unsuccessful at this for days at a time. The unknown factor coming into play again. The raven needs to tell the wolves where the corpse is and they will surely open it and take an easy kill.
But how would the wolves know what the raven wanted with no body language or vocalizations shared between them? What does the raven think finding wolves would do if the elk is miles away?
Ravens cognitive abilities are so great that the raven understood that showing up as a raven was all that was needed to bring the two things he needed together. Wolves are familiar with ravens being around, but only when their is corpse present.
A raven flying in to wolves triggered a dinner bell in their minds through previous association. However-- the confusion was likely much higher as this bond developed and was passed down through generations shared for the benefit of both animals. The wolves are still often somewhat perplex.
They just know that ravens = food. Ravens realize this and become death to be followed by the wolf. There is no communication between them, just the herding of the wolves by the very presence of the raven who moves closer and closer to the carcass and becomes an ever present dinner bell just off in the distance. They check it out. There isn't anything there again and again.
Until there is.
The wolf arriving as the raven would and the raven becoming the assured on time arrival of death. A paramount unspoken truth in a region where the climate and topography demand a level of precision that the following in of death lacks becoming a useless tool for the raven.
Instead the raven's ability to to solve complex problems and explore ideas that do not yet exist allowed the raven to choose to another way to get what he needs, using a different kind of tool-- the strength of the wolf. But what really solved this complex problem?
It was not the powerful jaws of the wolf that can get through to the carcass. The wolf and all his strength would never be there after all, if it weren't for the raven. His method of problem solving using the best of his abilities by using the best of his abilities-- the raven thought of nothing more than to think about himself.
Becoming himself now the answer and leaving the problem behind for the creation of new ideas never before in existence until now.
A gift from the raven to all of us, for the raven's sake.
7 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 54