The Witch & the Raven: Ornithomancy & April’s Full Moon
“Why is a raven like a writing-desk? Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.””
Once upon a dark moon, a child was born. This was back when time was marked by stories and laughter instead of numbers and order. While her mother rested, the night gods cooed over the raven-haired girl and tucked blessings into her tiny fist. Any child born beneath a dark moon was also a child of the night gods. Nested by the sea, the girl lived a happy life. Yet, perhaps because she was the youngest of three sisters, all of whom inherited their mother's inky mane and sharp, watchful eyes, the girl born beneath the dark moon was curious and restless with wonder.
She had yet to learn that even without numbers and order, time reveals many things. Time highlights our successes and struggles, our secrets, and the what-ifs that bloom and die back in the garden of life. No matter the path we choose, life is full of yearnings, and sometimes, we wonder, what if?
One evening, the girl born beneath the dark moon overheard her mother's conversation with the night gods. The woman recounted a dream where she sprouted wings and flew away from her familiar tides and toward the mountains. She soared across deserts and hunted in great forests, and when she grew weary, she made a nest atop the moon. In the dream, her raven-haired mother was not a woman but a bird.
From the safety of her bed, the girl born beneath the dark moon danced with her mother's dream and eventually fell into one of her own. Her eyes closed, and her breath slowed, but a lingering question on her lips: No longer tethered to the earth, what waits for me in the land of birds?
The gods are always listening, don't you know? And the ones who roam at night rarely deny our wants. The shadows captured the girl's query as it tumbled toward the sea. They put it in a golden vase, added some seawater and sand, and shook the potion until a familiar prayer materialized in the storm – what if?
“Birds are more often messengers than magicians,” Little Witch observed from her editor's nook, a fort built from blankets quilts, and held together with heavy books and a few yards of string.
Madam Spider waved away the interruption. “Says the witch who has no feathers or beak or talons OR –” An explosion of pillows flung the spider into the air, her second interruption in under a minute. A furry face materialized amidst the wreckage. Little Witch smothered a giggle, and her familiar purred an apology.
Last week, when Little Witch was designing her editor's nook, Mother donated some of her old curtain tassels. Little Witch strung the red tassels in the nook's doorway and black tassels across the roof. She fitted white tassels with golden flecks to an armful of string and strung it across the interior of the fort, making sure it crissed and crossed as many times as possible. When Little Witch lay down in her nest of pillows and looked up, a homemade night sky looked back at her. The stars in her editor's nook didn't shimmer exactly like the stars in the backyard, but Little Witch thought they were equally inspiring.
“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly,” said Madam Spider the first evening they stargazed in the nook.
Little Witch glanced at her grimoire, which was already writing down Madam Spider's latest poetic morsel. She complimented her mentor.
“No need to flatter me, that was Langston Hughes,” she said. “Do you know why birds can fly and we can't?”
The girl shook her head, knowing that any mention of hollow bones and wings would not impress the spider.
“Because they have perfect faith! And to have faith is to have wings!” Madam Spidam Spider pointed her scepter at one of the fairies. The fairy blushed, flattered. “J.M. Barrie,” she responded before Little Witch could ask for the author.
Like Little Witch and the rest of her coven, Persephone loved the tassel fort, perhaps too much, because this wasn't the first time she'd launched a storyteller while trying to capture a dancing star.
Madam Spider floated down from her latest unexpected flight and landed atop Persephone's head. She whispered something into a fuzzy ear. A few licks of her paw later, she yawned, then mewed a response.
“Indeed! She DOES sing!” Madam Spider cackled and skated across Persephone's head and onto a silken thread. She glided over to a new pillow perch and gave Persephone a look that said, behave. She reopened her notebook, cleared her throat, and turned back to Little Witch, “The furry one reminded me that although you have no feathers, no beak, and no talons,” she put extra emphasis on each 'no.' “Yet you are blessed with the gift of song,” Madam Spider scanned the page, looking for where she'd left off in her story. “Perhaps you do know a thing or two about the gifts of birds.”
To be continued…
The Witch & the Raven: A Little Witch Tale – coming soon!
Come April's full moon, the wildflowers are whispering. Our seasonal harbinger, the hare, trades its den for a shelter made of sun, and birdsong blossoms as temperatures warm. You remind yourself that in animistic communities, bird-watching is a form of divination. People from the ancient Greek world called it ornithomancy.
From the Greek ornis "bird" and manteia "divination," practitioners of ornithomancy (the Romans called it augury) noted a bird's arrival, appearance, demeanor, flight pattern, and even their conversations – the language of the birds.
Collectively, birds chariot the arrival of spring. Even the raven, a famously misunderstood messenger, is more lively in spring. Not only are ravens busy nesting right now, but as carrion birds, they're clearing away the remains of winter. A group of ravens is called an unkindness, and if you overhear these creatures 'arguing' over food or territory this month, consider their conversations through the lens of an augur. Ravens are symbolic of mystery, and like fellow springtime messenger, Hecate, ravens allude to unexpected insight and victory, obstacles as opportunities for transformation.
Telling the Bees is now available for pre-order in the Little Witch Books shop! Order yours today!