Crow Calls: Another Year of Messages

I renew my work for Na Morrigna each Lughnasadh, an auspicious time for making contracts. This year I asked what my work would be in the coming season, and if I should still bring messages back for my fellow devotees.

I stood at the cauldron with them, our hands clasped in a circle of four: myself, Anu, Badb, and Macha. As I felt our magic rise, I watched the cauldron, and what had been still clear water became a bubbling black fluid, like melted tar, but without that foul smell. The bubbles got larger and the roiling more vigorous, and then a large black crow burst from the cauldron, looking for a moment like it was made of tar, but then dripping the last of the fluid from its wings, it soared away with glistening feathers. More came bursting out, and as I locked eyes with Badb, I understood these to be new devotees, new warriors, new recruits to our cause, growing their wings and learning to fly with the rest of the flock.

One came out clutching a leg close to its chest, and I dropped Anu and Macha’s hands, instinctively putting my arm towards the wounded creature. It landed, and I splinted and healed the leg, and then gently unfolded one of its wings to heal the torn muscles there, as well. Magically healed, the bird launched into the sky, gouging me with its claws in the process, but the same magic healing I’d used on the bird I now used on my own arm, and watched the skin knit back together, leaving no blemish. I returned to my place in the circle, holding hands, and I understood that healing my fellow crows was again my calling, though that may not be a smooth and easy road, and I may need to heal myself as much as I heal others.

As I looked into the cauldron once more, I saw powerful magic, battle sorcery, wielded by the Crows, and Na Morrigna, flashing through the air. And below I saw myself, once again holding a banner, to help those in the air orient themselves to the ground beneath. A waymarker, a grounding rod, a light in the dark: this is my role, as messenger.

I asked if there was a specific message they had for me to bring back this time, and I was told that we must all do the work of learning to balance and regulate our emotions, and must not rely on our relationships to provide that balance; we need to find it in ourselves.

After a year and a half of a very changed world, I find myself struggling more with stressors than I used to. Shadow work is needful during difficult times, and a return to the basics of grounding, centering, and shielding, can create a bubble within which we can catch our breath.