Little Black Bird: A Mystical Mother's Vision

Since my son moved out unexpectedly last summer, I have had multiple visions involving the symbolism of the blackbird - which would be helpful for you to know before reading this story of a vision I had on March 1.

That, and when he first came into this world, looking to nurse, I called him Little Bird.

In the most significant vision last October, he showed himself to me as a Raven, in the context of the Pacific Northwest story of how the Raven followed his curiosity and put the sun back into the sky. That was when I knew I truly had to let him go - to do what he is meant to do.

The following is the medicine I've been walking with the past two weeks, over the arch of my forty-fifth birthday. The medicine of continuing to let go of what was never permanently mine and what was never actually me. To feel the truth of what is left. In him. In myself.

Part 1. There’s a black bird, black feathers. It is limp, maybe dead, but I can’t tell if it’s dead. Its feathers are oily and it is skinny and weak.

Spindly, bones jagged, half gone. 

I want to cry and feel it in my body now. The panic rising.

Is this bird my son? My son is gone. Oh my God, is this where he is now?  

Part 2. The bird is lying on the earthen ground and I see the ecosystem begin to come to support it.

Earthworms, grasshoppers, crawly things, bugs, bacteria - they come.

Together with their collective strength they lift the bird and walk/carry it to a grassy mound in the distance. 

I am watching.

Part 3. I begin yelling in hysteria.

My baby bird has fallen, oh my God, this must be what has happened.

Why can't I get a clear vision? A clear answer? I know nothing. I haven't been able to reach him and this is the kind of thing that can happen when I can't keep my eyes on him.

The panic rises in me. This is why my heart has been hurting. He is gone and I couldn’t stop this. How did it come to this?

I am alone and yelling, crying, hysterical. Yelling for somebody help me with no response.

Scanning, scanning, hysterical. Alone and powerless to do anything about any of it.

Part 4. The living crawling things lift up my little bird, limp, and carry him to a common spot, a mound, to care for him.

I’m still panicked. I’m scanning, my mind darting for help.

Unable to feel a full emotion, another one starts before one finishes. Frazzled beyond rationale as I watch. 

Just then strong hands come down on my shoulders from behind. They steady me instantly. A rush of warmth comes through my body.

I am told to run the Diamond Light current through me and through the Earth to the bird.

I do and I can and this is what I can do.

I am reminded of my medicine and that what I can do is true. 

Part 5. It is revealed that the strong hands on my shoulders belong to Rowan.

He is here from the future, as his steady and wise adult self.

Rowan from the future said, “You have to show me, mom. You show me how to be by being it." 

He hands me a feather.

Part 6. I watch as the creatures carry little bird to the earth mound. I can’t tell if it’s dead now.

I have trouble steadying myself against the dissociation enough to see it clearly.

I want to know but also I don't. It's all too much.

I begin to panic more, causing the dissociation to ramp up.

I am scanning in my head and looking around me for help.

Scanning for any help, please God please. 

Older Rowan behind me reassures me that it’s okay to feel each feeling fully without popping up and out of it. And so that is what I steady myself and begin doing.

Part 7. Older Rowan tells me that the bird was not ever him. It was me.

A part of myself.

"The annoying parts," he says directly.

The parts unable to feel fully, the jumpy and stressed-out non-self.

The reasons why my heart hurts. 

The inauthentic spaces because fear had embedded there.

He is whole. I am whole. I am glad to see this old me now be taken away.

It did not survive. 

8. Red and black come flooding into the vision. Tribal colors and I see a flying bird with streams of orange and gold, like fire, radiating from it. 

Then Rowan and I are dancing, at a pow wow, in full tribal dress.

We are dancing and laughing together with more joy than ever, like we’ve figured out the secret to Life and we are sharing it.

Laughing and dancing, stomping our feet.

Arms raised and holding hands. There is so much joy.

It is a future him and future me. Or an eternal him and an eternal me.

The essence of each of us being represented here.

Drummers drum, we stomp and dance in our red and black.

We are beyond all that has happened. We are souls, magicians, medicine keepers.

Once again we are reminded of who we are and of true meaning.

Once again he has reminded me. My teacher and equal, a soul I love in every life time, in every form.

I have called you my little bird.

I have called you My Son My Sun.

I have called you the name you whispered to me, but your father didn't want to spell it the way you showed me.

You said, "Call me Rohan." In Sanskrit: masculine, Ascending.

I love you eternally. I love you in any form and beyond time. Thank you for the medicine that continues to wake, shake, and transform me.

How many times did we read this book? The boy became the Raven, left the mother, and took the sun back to the sky.