Crow Magic

 

In the heart of the Bolognese Mountains well hidden among very tall and old pine trees, is a seemingly abandoned mansion. The property is close to my home, but it was only in the past year that we discovered it by taking an alternative route through the winding mountain roads. And ever since I first laid eyes on the place I have been drawn to it, coming up with reasons to drive past even when it is the longer way to wherever.

This place has horror movie charm +++ yet I have always felt very peaceful there. Of course we’ve stopped by and had a look around safely from the outdoors as the place is in a state of heavy decay. Which is very sad considering it was built in the 1800s by one of the area’s most famous and eccentric characters. Count Cesare Mattei was an inventor who created a medical therapy: electrohomeopathy. This made the nobleman quite rich and he lived in a castle very close to where the abandoned mansion is located. The mansion was built as a place for medical and spiritual refugee and many of European super-rich sought private treatment there. It looks to have been abandoned for several years. 

Fast forward to Halloween 2022 and we are driving past the mansion. For some reason either because I was lost in thoughts or more likely chattering away about something I missed seeing the place as we had drove by. I realized this after we had passed and were higher up on the mountain, so my husband who was driving said there is no way you should miss your abandoned villa on Halloween and turned the car around. 

This time around I purposefully took a long look at the mansion when I saw above the main doorway a very large, and I mean an abnormally large crow standing on the ledge above the doorway. It was shuffling about and moving its wings as if ready to take flight. My mind went to she will swoop out in front of the car. It happened so quickly and as my mind was processing what I was seeing my husband said I thought I just saw a very large black bird moving around on the ledge above the doorway. And of course I was amazed that he saw her too! 

Some might think we saw the Goddess Morrigan or a cryptid or that we both had a bad case of pareidolia caused by the black casing of the floodlight near the door. We did go back two days later to investigate and noted the placement of the light. But if it was a trick of the eye why had this never happened before? 

Halloween is my husband’s birthday; the beginning of Samhain season, for some witches the ending and beginning of a new year. It is the season most associated with the Goddess Morrigan many a witch's patron diety. 

We were called to that place and even turned around specifically to witness the beautiful impossibly large black crow, a good omen, and reminder that our world is indeed a mysterious place. 

Blessed are the witches! 

"Wherever crows are, there is magic. They are symbols of creation and spiritual strength. They remind us to look for opportunities to create and manifest the magic of life. They are messengers calling to us about the creation and magic that is alive within our world everyday and available to us."  

~Ted Andrews

                                                               Blessed Samhain xo

Image Credits

With the exception of the photos of the mansion which are mine, excluding the drone image which I found uncredited on an internet search, the crow is from Wiki and the Witch image from TUMBLR. I do try to give credit to original creators whenever possible. 

Cernunnos Monte Bibele

The Horned God

God of Nature, Life, Fertility

A series of photographs I took of wild mountain goats during a recent excursion to Monte Bibele, ancient holy site of the Central European Celts.

Reflections of a Witch

Reflections of a Witch ~ Italy 2017 

"Sorcery's deepest secrets are inscribed in the Land. They are etched in the bark of trees, and they are announced in the gurgle of streams and rivers. Learn to read these things, and there's nothing you can't know. The wind carries these sorcerous secrets; the earth hides them in her bosom, and yet, to eyes that really see, there's no real trouble finding them. You'll have more troubles really using your eyes to their fullest potential than you ever will with generous Nature revealing her treasures."

Italy 2017  ~ Lily 

Th’ treasure-horde of old is more than mere gold
It is th’ art that constrains th’ rain to speak again
It is th’ art that pries open th’ hidden eyes
It is th’ art that makes bloom th’ rot-dead tree
& leaps th’ Hedge that never dies.


-The Resurrection of the Meadow

David Abram says it best, when he says:

"Each place has its own mind, its own psyche.
Oak, madrone, Douglas fir, red-tailed hawk, serpentine in the sandstone,
a certain scale to the topography,
drenching rains in the winter, fog off-shore in the summer, salmon surging in the streams -
all these together make up a particular state of mind,
a place-specific intelligence shared by all the humans that dwell therein,
but also by the coyotes yapping in those valleys,
by the bobcats and the ferns and the spiders,
by all beings who live and make their way in that zone.
Each place its own psyche.
Each sky its own blue."

An excerpt from Forgetting Human, pt. IV The Spirit-Language and the Sorcery of Sense by Robin Artisson

The entire series of Forgetting Human is available on the American Folkloric Witchcraft blog.

I felt this connection to the land very deeply when I was in Northern Italy this past Autumn 2017. There, in the magic of the "sunset place," the land is at peace with her people, and I was blessed to be gifted with a treasure from the spirits who reside nearby in an ancient necropolis. I will write further on this in another blog post.



Image credit (top) Massimo Teodorani aka Totemtag