Before all you animal lovers and vegetarians jump over me, I would like to state that OF COURSE I did not kill this bird. This morning, while my husband and I were walking the dog, we found this blackbird already dead under an oleander tree.
To me, it was a gift from Mother Nature. The body was in perfect condition, and not rigid yet, so we guess the bird had died by dawn today. We were not in the woods but in a park, so soon the blackbird would become food for rats or would be just thrown away by the thrashmen; for a Witch, that is an unholy way to end, so we took it home a made a proper goodbye ritual to release its spirit back into nature and honour its remnants by burying the body in the earth after the sun has set today.
Many, many cultures in the world have honoured the spirits of the animals, plants and all natural elements used by man to eat, heal and create. By offerings, man would “pay” what he took from Nature and, at the sime time, thank the animal for what he had given, whether it was food, skin, feathers, bone or remedies. Urban witches can’t do that anymore – I don’t know about other witches but I buy my food at the supermarket LOL! By making this simple and apparently useless ritual, I was trying not only to honour the spirit of the blackbird itself, but also the spirit of my ancestors the Guanches, who thought the blackbird were a symbol of good luck. There is very little fauna in the Canary Islands, so every single animal was a treasure to the Guanches.
I couldn’t help taking pics, most of it because this happens so rarely that I do not know when will I ever have the chance to do this again, but also because the beauty of the moment was too much to miss it. I find nothing morbid or dark in them; on the contrary, I see a symbol of regeneration and rebirth, a message of good luck for us, and the feeling of honouring the bird’s spirit has filled me with calm and balance. Actually I liked the pics I took so much that I’m thinking of preparing a whole series of prints about rituals and witchcraft.
Bye Bye Blackbird, thank you so much for this day, may your spirit fly free into the woods and be born again.
Oh this is beautiful.. You’re too funny “OF COURSE I did not kill this bird” lol..
The little bird has brought you a new creative gift, not useless at all
I have to note that we walk in parallels, today while I visited my in-laws for a national day feast, I noticed one of their little birds was missing from the cage.
They said they found it dead one morning. It was a sad but not so sad moment. I don’t often come across the thought of beautiful little things dying so it was a bit strange for me. And alas, here you are talking about a dead bird!
I have a set of druid animal oracle cards. The black bird “calls to us from the gateway between two worlds, urging us to follow a spiritual path or to become more self-aware.” He leads us to what is hidden within ourselves, urging us to to find truths in dreams & myths. He leads us to our motivations, potential, and the “haunting song of our soul.”
You can see the beauty in things many are afraid to even think about. In many cultures the death is celebrated and honoured, thank you for sharing the magic of your sacred moments.
Lorianne, of course we live in parallels! Aren’t we fairy sisters
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Zoe, thanks so much for that quote, I can absolutely relate it to what I’m going through in life right now!
Krista, I truly believe death is just a change of shape – there is a quote from Vladimir Nabokov that goes “Life has been but a great awakening. I can’t see why death shouldn’t be even a greater one” – I think it explains the concept way better than I can!