Take only pictures, leave only footprints

Symbols, totems, and an odd morning to end 09

Richard Charpentier Notes from Rich 3 Comments

Happy New Year everyone!  Welcome to 2010!  For some reason, it seems to me that little has changed.  I mean, yesterday was Thursday, today is Friday.  It’s not like I went to bed last night (Thursday) and woke up on Tuesday or something……

Ah well.  Even though I don’t feel extremely changed this morning, I did feel extremely unsettled yesterday morning.  Why?  A very odd experience for the morning, and I’m going to share it.

Around quarter of 6 I woke up yesterday.  You know the early morning wakeup.  Get up for a moment, then get back to that warm bed and go back to sleep.  That was the plan, and I was well on my way to a morning of sleeping in until 7:00 a.m. when something odd happened.

A few minutes after 6 a.m. my Macbook Pro booted itself up.  Randomly.  I didn’t setup a boot schedule, nothing had changed on the system.  Why did the computer boot itself up?  I have no idea, but I decided to get out of bed and check the computer.  Flicking on the light in the livingroom area I heard something on the roof, and it distracted me from the computer.

There was a raven on my roof.  It gave a little squawk when I turned the light on, but it didn’t take off.  The raven was right next to the skylight in the front of the Airstream, and it made a second low noise.  So……I said hello.  And the raven squawked back to me!

Weird.

The raven stuck around responding with different noises to any sound I made.  Finally I asked, “Who are you” to the raven.  At that moment, the raven took off.

Odd wake up, eh?

Talking with Sadira yesterday I found that the raven could have been a very good sign.  She’s got a book of symbols and totems, so she looked up the raven.  Seems to me they herald endings and new beginnings.  Kind of appropriate for the New Year.  Of course, they symbolize a lot to different cultures, so at some point you’ve got to be selective and decide to pick whatever symbolic meaning you want to assign.  Personally, I’m going with new beginnings!

Well, there you have it.  My New Year’s eve morning held a very odd wakeup, but now that I’ve had that wakeup I am telling myself it just means big new beginnings are ahead of me.  I hope your new beginnings and New Year are great as well.  And watch for your symbols and signs…….often the don’t show up on your roof as in my case!  🙂

Comments 3

  1. Don’t forget you still got an invite to come to Lake Havasu for a photo trip to a great ghost town near here. While it’s too cold to go to the high country it’s the only time to be out in the low desert. The town of Swanase was a mining town along the Bill Williams river and the last time I was there there were several buildings standing. Got a spare room here and it’s only an hour or so to the site. Your only danger is that you will be exposed to film- black and white film at that- but I could bring a digital SLR along so you won’t feel like your caught in a time trap. Of course if we get you into the darkroom you may get hooked.
    I still want to get up to Prescott to see your print operation. I don’t have a digital printer so have been getting my color printed in Phoenix and some canvas printed back east.
    Cheers
    Jim

  2. I have to say, I was a bit jealous of your raven experience, but was so happy to share it (in your story) Birds are usually huge spiritual protectors in most cultures…and ravens? Wonderful!

    Happy New Year!
    .-= sadira´s last blog ..First Day :: 2010 =-.

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