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Meet Heather Blakey
Raven courtesy of Lyndia Radice
Best
Place to Start
at Soul Food New features, interviews, prompts, publications and Patrons keep Soul Food one of the busiest and most fascinating sites on the net. However, it can all become a wee overwhelming. Without doubt, the best place to begin digging, to discover the treasure that lies within Soul Food, is within the Box of Wonderment. The Box of Wonderment is magical box that is being filled with all the main writing prompts on this site. Contact
the Webmaster: You can reach Heather Blakey, the sole operator of Soul Food, by posting on one of the Soul Food bloggers or by sending a clearly identified, subject specific email to heatherblakey at dailywriting.net When Heather has recovered from running from one end of this estate to the other, has done with the dusting and polishing needed to make the place looks good for unannounced guests, she will make contact. Of course, if the servants finally arrive to lend a hand, she may reach you sooner.
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Heather Blakey "I pray to the birds.
I write so that messages from my heart will soar upwards, out along the wires of cyber space, to my readership. Just as the birds begin each day with a song I am called to write on a daily basis. At LaTrobe Secondary College. where I worked as an English teacher, I was aware that there was a colony of crows, or Ravens as they are sometimes called. These glorious black creatures soar down to the gum trees, watching, waiting for leftovers. Some folk believe that they are menacing but I have always been fascinated by them and always stop to acknowledge their presence. At one stage I had my students observing them and using their observations as a prompt for writing. One Year 10 student undertook extensive research and found out about their prevalence in literature. He demonstrated that literature testifies that we were not the first to have looked to the heavens to watch the splendid Raven. Many consider the Raven to be evil and sinister in character and there
are numerous superstitions concerning them. Edgar Allan Poe's 'The
Raven' describes the black bird as being
grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, ominous, a tempter, evil, lonely, ancient
and demon-like. However there are numerous instances where the Crow acted
as a messenger and a guide. Ravens led the Boeotians to a place where
they founded a new city; guided Alexander to the shrine of Jupiter Ammon
in Egypt and later foretold his death;guided people from the island of
Thera when they emigrated to Libya; a golden raven guided the Emperor
Jimmu of Japan, in the 7th century A.D, as he marched to war; were, according
to Aelian, a messenger of King Marres of Eygpt In 'The Bible' there are a number of references to the raven. In Luke 12V 22-24 it says Then Jesus said to his disciples "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about you body, what you will wear. Life is more important than food, and the body more important than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them." 'In Genesis viii. 6-7 we hear that after forty days "Noah…sent out the raven which went forth and did not return until the waters dried up above the earth…." The beautiful Raven guides my writing. It has become my totem, a symbol to express who I am and how I want to live. I like to believe that like the Raven I am a guide, a messenger, who leads others to find their unique voice. I believe that the Raven carries the messages of my heart out into cyber space. Her blackness represents the notion of beginning, just as the symbols of the maternal night and primeval darkness represent beginning. For me the Raven represents creative power and spiritual strength. When I sat by my husbands bedside at the Epworth hospital here in Melbourne, after he had been operated on for bowel cancer, I noted the black crow that came to sit on the spire outside our window. She bought with her the collective energy of my patrons, people from all around the world who had stopped to think of us and pray for our well-being. A solitary figure, the crow reminded me to look for strength from within, that out of darkness comes light and fresh beginning. Her iridescence spoke of magic and awakening. Today I give thanks to that Raven and formally
acknowledge her as my guide.
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