Black River Raven
2021

Incantation:

primal Initiator

They live within the psyche of this place
part of its elemental presence
These ancient ancestral figures
Our deep time forebears

the image-story-maker recognises and honours their presence
They seep into his psyche
into his visceral world
Into his visual world

He imbibes their presence on the banks of this beautiful Black River
This is a central vein of life here
A sacred personhood herself
This is a profound liminal threshold

Together they honour their ancient ancestral connection
Bridging deep time
Renewing their mutual sacred bonds within nature

They look to the connective authority of the more-than-human in nature
Honouring other nature’s initiatory attributes
Honouring primal consciousness
Honouring connective consciousness

They look to the Great Cormorant to be their guide
She is a powerful presence herself
she is their spirit other
They call her their Black River Raven
their Sheshamen
She embodies the authority to initiate

This Great Black River Raven emerges from the depths of the river
Her vast underworld
She pierces its translucent portal to be manifest
She unfurls her iridescent cloak
With her shape-shifting psyche she assumes her role as initiator

She presides over acts of ritual dance
Over maturational process
Conducting threshold journeys and Rites of passage

She guides energy and focus
Bringing about a state of heightened ecological receptivity
Fostering a deeply attuned connective consciousness

She conducts these human kin in their ritual ceremonial dance
In their acts of honoring
their acts of transmutation
The enactment of their totemic identity

They begin to acquire the attributes of their primal selves
they acquire deep visceral attunement
Deep visceral identification within the connective web of nature
they acquire balance and reciprocity
This is a depth conditioning of their souls

In this way they balance and traverse the feminine and masculine spectrum
they Balance the psyche and the soma
they Balance self with other

This establishes the conditions for ecological equilibrium
and primal connective unity
The foundational psychic balance of their Earthminds

This lays the foundations for their earth consciousness
And the taking up of their earth responsibility
Allowing the processing of their totemic identity
In this way they are joined into the greater outerior psyche of nature

they are joined to their totemic other

And are able to cross the primordial threshold
Enabling attuned recognition of allied inter-connectivity across all of nature
They are able to comprehend the finely tuned flow of relationships 
Across the whole Earthland

they understand that this demands a state of deep respect
The condition of reverence
Their outflow of equity and mutuality
Across all parts of the nature system

their ecological consciousness is attuned
they can now operate as ecological beings

they dance through cyclic time
fulfilling their ritual journey
their responsibility to the Earthland

they emerge in their transformed state of consciousness
Part of ecological time
Agents of nature
They have renewed and fulfilled their responsibility for reciprocity

The Great Cormorant has completed her task as initiator
Fulfilled her own earth responsibilities
Given her gift as guide within the connective web of the Earthland

She furls her great wings
And dives to the depths of the Black River
She cleanses herself of the roles of guide and initiator
She reclaims her primal identity
Her primal consciousness flows as the river

We offer her thanks for this maturational journey
For the renewal of our psychic balance
For our ritual ceremonial dance within nature
We honour our more-than-human guide
Our Black River Raven

The Image Maker emerges into the present
Into a state of renewal
Embedded in the connective knowledge of his ancient Kin
Embodying a deep state of clarity of the sacredness of all nature

We offer this knowledge of our ritual ceremonial dance
this template of maturational development
This threshold journey into the bonds of nature.