Amazing what we will see if we just start looking and asking questions. One thing leads to another, connections are made, knowledge and understanding expand. Maybe the world makes a little more sense, or maybe we just learn to appreciate common motifs interpreted through different perspectives. As I was looking at images of the Greek god Apollo, I noticed this one with a black bird in it and immediately thought of Rainbow Crow who became blackened by soot bringing fire from the Creator to his animal pals slowly freezing to death on earth (see last post). I figured the bird must have some meaning, so I Googled it.
Apollo, the sun god–and god of music and reason–had many lovers. One was Coronis, who was pregnant with his child. In one of his many absences, he became fearful that she would take another lover, so he enlisted the help of a white raven to spy on her. The news wasn’t good, and in his anger Apollo turned the white raven black. He also killed Coronis but saved the child and named him Asclepius, then trained him in the healing arts. Asclepius, we may know, grew up to become the “father of modern medicine.”
It might be easy to feel sorry for the raven (an example of “shooting” the messenger), but after all it’s a symbol of change, a symbol of the passage from innocence to knowledge–and like Rainbow Crow, the raven is rewarded by becoming sacred to Apollo. In the background, I hear dragonfly whispering to me, warning that I might get burned for curiosity but also reassuring me that the rewards might be great. Maybe it will give birth to a great healing.
Journey of the Dragonfly 