The Crow or Raven
The Raven is an ancient religious symbol of the hermit.
The Raven (Corvus corax), also known as the Common Raven is the largest bird in the family CORVIDAE or CORVINI. Raven's closest relatives in the subspecies CORVUS include the crows. More distant Corvid cousins are Choughs and Magpies. There are many species of ravens around the world including the Australian Raven (Corvus coronoides) and Little Raven (Corvus mellori). They are omnivorous eaters, preferring to scavenge, but able to kill when necessary. They prefer carrion - dead sheep, cattle, but will also eat nestling birds and eggs, rodents, shellfish, insects, seeds, berries and grain.
Corvids are a highly successful species due to their high level of intelligence, flexibility, and adaptability. A tale told by Aesop informs us that the intelligence of corvids has long been known. A thirsty crow found a pitcher of water, but the water was too far below the rim for his beak to reach. The clever crow began dropping pebbles into the pitcher, raising the water level until it reached the brim, where she could quench her thirst.
Mythology
Native American: Black, to Native Americans, is a color of magical power, and only to be feared if misused. Raven's medicine is magic. She is the Great Mystery of the Void.Raven symbolizes the void - the mystery of that which is not yet formed. The iridescent blue and green that can be seen in the glossy black feathers of the raven represents the constant change of forms and shapes that emerge from the vast blackness of the void. In Native American tradition, Raven is the guardian of both ceremonial magic and healing circles. She is also the patron of smoke signals. Raven's element is air, and she is a messenger spirit, which Native American shamans use to project their magic over great distances. In many northwestern American Indian traditions, Raven is the Trickster, much like the Norse Loki. Observing ravens in nature, we find that they often steal food from under the noses of other animals, often working in pairs to distract the unfortunate beasts.
Australia: In Aborigine mythology, Raven tried to steal fire from seven sisters (the Pleides), and was charred black in the unsuccessful attempt.
Middle East: To Egyptians, ravens represented destruction and malevolence. However, Arabs call raven Abu Aajir - the Father of Omens.
Hebrew/Christian: In the Hebrew/Christian tradition ravens were considered unclean, representing impurity, mortification, destruction, deceit, and desolation. Ravens were cursed by Noah for not returning to the ark with news of the receding the flood. Yet, conversely, the Bible also says that ravens were the protectors of the prophets; they fed Elijah and Paul the Hermit in the wilderness. Also, ravens helped St. Cuthbert and St. Bernard. Because of this they took on the identity on the hermits themselves; solitary, mysterious, unlike other birds... In contradictory Christian traditions, ravens represent the solitude of the holy hermits, yet also the souls of wicked priests and witches.
European: Since ravens can be taught to speak, and have such a complex vocabulary of their own, they are connected symbolically to both wisdom and prophecy. But in Europe, at least from Christian times, ravens have several strikes against them: black is considered a negative color; ravens are carrion eaters; and they have a symbiotic relationship with man's oldest enemy, the wolf. In many western traditions raven represents darkness, destructiveness and evil. They are sometimes associated with deities of evil and of death. Both witches and the Devil were said to be able to take the shape of a raven. "To have a raven's knowledge" is an Irish proverb meaning to have a seer's supernatural powers. Raven is considered one of the oldest and wisest of animals. Also a bird of wisdom and prophecy.
After the battle with Ireland, Bran was decapitated, and his head became an oracle. Eventually Bran asked to have his head buried in what is now Tower Hill in London to protect Britain from invasion. Bran's Ravens are kept there to this day, as protection against invasion. During World War II, Tower Hill was bombed, and the ravens were lost. Winston Churchill, knowing full well the ancient legends, ordered the immediate replacement of ravens, and they were brought to Tower Hill from Celtic lands - the Welsh hills and Scottish Highlands.
Symbolism
Raven is a contrary spirit. On the negative side, Raven represents the profane, the devil, evil spirits, the trickster and thief, war and destruction, death and doom, the void. Yet in many cultures Raven also represents deep magic, the mystery of the unknown, death and transformation, creation, healing, wisdom, protection, and prophecy. Raven is both the symbol of the sun, and the symbol of a moonless night. She is the birth giving light in the center of our galaxy, and the black hole in the center of the universe, to which we are all traveling to our eventual extinction. Raven is the fatal touch of the Calleach in winter, the wisdom of Odin, the vessel of prophecy given to a seer, the mighty protector of the Western Isles, and the healing message of an Indian shaman. Raven is a complex bird, both in nature and in mythology.
Adelaide Crows
The Adelaide Football Club, nicknamed Crows, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League, based in Adelaide, South Australia. The club is based at AAMI Stadium (formerly Football Park) in West Lakes. The South Australian National Football League, who ran the local competition, had been seeking to enter a team in what was then the Victorian Football League since 1981. Protracted negotiations were brought to a head in 1990 after SANFL team, Port Adelaide, reached agreement with the VFL to enter their competition. Because the Port Adelaide Football Club, who at that time were one of the most successful football clubs in Australia, would have left the SANFL legal action was taken, and eventually the league agreed to enter the Adelaide team in 1991. The nickname "Crows" was inspired by the traditional "Croweaters" nickname for South Australia's State of Origin teams. The Crows won back-to-back premierships in 1997 and 1998 under coach Malcolm Blight, making it one of the most successful club in terms of achieving premiership success so soon after joining the AFL competition.
The Mandorla
The Mandorla is a symbol used during medieval Christianity.
It is an ancient symbol of two circles coming together and overlapping one another to form an almond shape in the middle.
"Vesica Piscis"
Jensen (1996) describes the mandorla as similar to the image of two mandalas (Sanskrit for circle) merging together until an almond shape is formed in the center. Also known as the "Vesica Piscis", symbolizing the interactions and interdependence of opposing worlds and forces, the circles may be taken to represent spirit and matter or heaven and earth (Baldock, 1990).
Mandorla is the Italian word for almond.
According to Biedermann (1994), the almond is an ancient symbol for the closing up of valuable contents in a hard, almost impenetrable shell. It is a mysterious image of concentration upon the light that shines from within. Christ's true nature is supposed to lie beneath the surface of the corporal (bodily) being. During medieval times, the almond was interpreted as a symbol of the embryo enclosed in the uterus. The form of the almond which suggests a stylized vulva may have contributed to such an interpretation (Biederman, 1994). It is also a variant of a halo which surrounds the whole body of the holy person (Bruce-Mitford, 1996).
According to Fontana (1994), the mandorla symbolizes power as well as spirituality, and is often appeared around the body of Christ to represent the Ascension (Fontana, 1994).
Stylized Fish - Icthus
Although the symbol may have its roots before the Christian movement began, the early Christians used the symbol as a method to describe the coming together of heaven and earth or spirit and matter. Also, the early Christians would make themselves known to one another by scrapping into the walls two lines indicating a stylized fish-which is the Mandorla. One would scratch a small circle in the wall, and another would come by and make another circle slightly overlapping, thus completing a Mandorla.
Reconciliation
Since man struggles between both heaven and earth the Mandorla instructs people how to reconcile. Christ and the Virgin Mary are often portrayed in the framework of the Mandorla. This reminds us that we do partake in the nature of heaven and earth. Christianity makes a wonderful affirmation of the feminine life by giving it a place in the Mandorla, and the Virgin Mary sits in majesty in the Mandorla as often as Christ. One can still see this symbol with Christ and Mary framed, in the west portals of the great cathedrals of Europe(Johnson, 1991).
Healing Nature
According to Johnson (1991), the mandorla is important to our torn world. It is the nature of cultural life to set good possibilities against bad and banish the bad so thoroughly that we tend to lose track of its existence. These banished elements make up our shadow, but they will not stay in exile forever, and about mid-life they come back like the Old Testament scapegoats returning from the dessert.
What can one do when the banished elements demand their time of reckoning? As Johnson(1991) put it, "It is time to understand the mandorla" (p.. 102).
The mandorla has a healing encouraging function. When one is so tired, discouraged or battered by life that one can no longer live in the tension of the opposites, the symbol can show what one can do. When the most Herculean efforts and the finest disciplines no longer can keep the painful contradictions of life at bay, one can find relief in the mandorla. The mandorla begins the healing of the split. The overlap generally is very thin at first, only a sliver of a new moon, but it is a beginning. As time passes, the greater the overlap, the greater and more complete is the healing. The mandorla binds together that which was torn a part (re ligio = the true function of religion) and made unwhole-unholy.
The mandorla is the place of poetry. It is similar to the duty of a true poet to take the fragmented world that we find ourselves in and make unity of it. When the images such as fire and a rose are overlapped, we have a mystical statement of unity; we have a rebirth once again. We begin to feel a safety and sureness in our fractured world, and the poet has provided us with a demonstration of synthesis. Great poetry makes such leaps and unites the beauty and the terror of existence. It has the ability to surprise and shock-to remind us that there are links between the things we always thought of as opposites.
Mandorla as Language
Johnson (1991) claims, the mandorla is demonstrated in a well-structured sentence. He says that is why we like to talk so much because it is restorative and healing. Good talk restores unity to a fragmented world. He says that to make any well-formed sentence is to make unity, or that the mandorla is formed every time the truth is told. It is similar to Freud's talking cure. When distressed, language that is properly used is highly curative. As long as we are provided the right container, we can make mandorlas of speech, and cure many things (Johnson, 1991). Also, all good stories are mandorlas. As they speak, gradually through the miracle of the story, they demonstrate that the opposites overlap and are finally the same.
Human Dimension of the Mandorla
Johnson (1991) views human life as the mandorla. Every human being has the potential for wholeness, and Christ is the prototype for this task. Every glance between a man and a woman is also a mandorla, a place where the great opposites of masculinity and femininity meet and honor one another. The mandorla is the divine container in which new creation begins to form and germinate. If we do have such a moment of unity, it will be brief, and then we return to the world of duality, but in that process that our opposites are created all over again, and a new experience of transformation is required again.
The timber mounted mandorla has the eremetical crow standing in the gateway between here and there. It represents the messenger and the witness. neither on earth or in heaven the hermit lives between worlds, not fully yet claimed by either, but finding both in each.
This particular plaque was made by Dynes Austin at Chevalier College, Bowral. It was presented to the hermit of Glastonbury, Ellenborough, NSW. It has come to hold in its meaning all that the solitary life requires and reveals.
Chris Chaplin msc