"What's in a name?"

I am not White Raven for many of the reasons you might expect, at least consciously, but it's a good name, it's my chosen name, and the more I go on, the more I think it might have chosen me ;-)

Talecrows

To cut a very long story short, the Talecrow became a symbol of a very creative, intense and strange part of my life, one of the events of which was the start of the end of my marriage and the start of the rest of my life: not, I must add, because of the end of my marriage, but because it marked a huge growing and "finding myself" period, an exploration which will, I now know, never stop. The word "transformation" or "metamorphosis" springs to mind; about the only thing of myself that I know remained intact was my sense of humour ;-)

A year later, in September of 1995, I fulfilled a promise to myself. When I had been online the first time, as a student, I knew that I was very likely to become addicted to it (and how right I was, too!) so I told myself firmly that we would not go online until we were financially stable. Two years into our marriage we were, even if other things were going wrong, so my husband got us a modem, set us up with Demon Internet, and I chose my "handle" - White Raven. It was a direct spin-off from the Talecrow, but I did not want to use the name Talecrow. The raven version seemed right; the crow did not. The fact that ravens are black I explained away by saying that I'm blonde, so I couldn't possibly be a normal raven. ;-)

The naming of our account, annwn.demon.co.uk, came from my husband; I had wanted to use Avalon, but he thought that would be taken, and suggested Annwn. I had never heard of it, but liked the idea of a Welsh-Celtic Otherworld, and thus the seed of the site was born. (Web hosting was not offered for another year.) Annwn, as much as White Raven, took on a life of its own, but it probably deserves its own story some other time.

Birds

This did rather throw me for a loop. It seemed as if the wyrd was in full working order. Obviously, I didn't read this book until the appropriate time for me to appreciate it: by now, Annwn was established, and growing at a rate of knots I had not expected. All along, White Raven and the Celtic theme were associated. And, like some cosmic joke, I found that the messenger birds in my novel were the same birds, near enough, to the messenger birds in a Greek myth I'd never heard. I was fascinated.

I suppose from that point on, my site decided that it wanted to be more of a Celtic site than I had originally planned. I have been mistaken for a pagan, and the story continues. I have always denied being associated with one particular tradition, because none seemed right for me. But do read on, and you'll find a few different viewpoints.

The path onwards

People either associate White Raven with Celtic myth, or with Native American tradition - but the Native American way is not my way: I feel that I need to get in touch with my own traditions, first. It still amuses me that the white raven with its many attributes should closely match my own traits: quick thinking, adaptable, sea-loving (Branwen is a goddess of the sea, but I don't identify with her tragedy; if I am a Branwen, then I've written my own myth along the way, albeit not a very easy one!) and a messenger... for what else is a Webmistress? But it seems like the wyrd has been a guiding force, revealing information bit by bit, insights, just as I needed them.

The most recent chapter has been the Druid Animal Oracle. That has a twist of its own, since my first nickname online was Getafix the Druid ;-) and Tom, who introduced me to all this wondrous wyrd in the first place, is an Astérix fan and recently, completely without being asked, brought me a ton of Asterix toys to play with! (You can see that there are many levels to this story, all interweaving and dancing playfully around my chosen name... though who did the choosing is quite another matter ;-)

A couple of years ago, when I came to the United States to live, I found a copy of the Druid Animal Oracle in a book shop in Mountain View. The first card at the top of the pack was, of course, the Raven. I fell in love with those images, beautifully drawn as they were, but I had no money and I did not feel like I needed any more cards and oracles. (I have a very strong instinct for when it is the right time to use something, and it wasn't then.) To stretch the twist further still, the first real friend I made online at university, Jackie, recently got online herself and popped into my mailbox at the time all this stuff was happening - what was that I said about cycles and circles, endlessly repeating? ;-) Jackie and I share the best part of ten years and some very entertaining coicidences...

Lately, really only as much as six to eight weeks gone, I've felt a strong pull towards being outdoors, the need to have an antidote to suburban Silly Con Valley. This about coincided with moving into Little Blue Moon, my new home, with its little private deck and flower garden (another twist within a twist, and another story in itself, I think). This was heightened very much by Tom's and my July visit to John and Alana, two pagan friends of his who live up in Oregon - their personal jungle and earth-saving aura was incredibly peaceful and soothing to me, and I began to think about whether I needed to shift my own philosophy towards something more, well, pagan. I still have a problem with following any named path, but right now I'm just following White Raven's wyrdnose.

So, shortly afterwards, I treated myself to a seasonal rituals book by Vivianne Crowley, whose Earth healing rite back in my university days was the first introduction I had to any pagan faith and which, I suppose, touched me as the memory is strong to this day. I also looked at cards, and came out with the Druid Animal Tarot. This led me to start divining again, after quite some time, and once again has opened doors for me. The rational reason for buying these was that I felt I needed the imagery to help me focus on a little project I have going, called Ravensmeet; yet the real reason was that "it is time". I have since gone to the Druidry site and am looking into taking the course in Druidry. It is likely that this is what the Talecrow was trying to tell me all along.