©2021 Michael Raven
crows on high wires laugh at distinctions cityscape? natureside? waiting for roadkill meals
shackles/
©2021 Michael Raven
i can be free
once i find the will
to cast of the shackles
with which
the world binds me
Silly man. The shackles were provided and placed by you…
John Lame Deer Quotes
But even a medicine man like myself has to have some money, because you force me to live in your make-believe world where I can’t get along without it.
John Lame Deer
Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it.
Woniya wakan—the holy air—which renews all by its breath.
Woniya, woniya wakan—spirit, life, breath, renewal—it means all that. Woniya—we sit together, don’t touch, but something is there; we feel it between us, as a presence.
A good way to start thinking about nature, talk about it. Rather: talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds as to our relatives.
John Lame Deer
The world in which you paint a picture in your mind, a picture which shows things different from what your eyes sees, that is the world from which I get my visions. I tell you this is the real world.
John Lame Deer
Pooh Sticks.
©2021 Michael Raven
With running rivulets developing from the snowmelt of the cloudless day, Sean thought it might be time to paint up some toothpicks and teach the kids a modified version of Pooh Sticks. He thought he might even let someone else win most of the races…
New eye Rx
Ugh! I need to learn how to see all over again. No wonder things have been a little out of focus lately.
I’ve been bug-eyeing it since I got them an hour ago.
No fun.
Brother Wolf; Sister Moon//The Cult
Embrace the wind with both arms
Stop the clouds dead in the sky
Hang your head no more
And beg no more
Brother wolf and sister moon
Your time has come
I’m in a Cult mood this week, although more in the mood for the early side of their music. Wild Hearted Son was the exception, but I’ve been feeling the urge to stream me some Love, Dreamtime and Electric.
While I like rocking out to the later music, the earlier tunes resonate with me more — quite possibly because of the Native American references in the lyrics, but the music seems a little less produced and I’m always a sucker for a lesser produced feel in my musical tastes instead of over-production (see: Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Cure circa Seventeen Seconds and Faith, Joy Division, early J&MC, early E&tB, etc.). I can appreciate higher production techniques, my ear just seems to like the empty spaces and raw feeling of music with less production.
If anything, I think digital music production has killed some of the raw sounds we used to hear from bands — which may seem odd, considering that I exclusively write music digitally these days, but that is because I am a solo “band” and I’ve always been better at constructing music than physically playing it (especially with my rheumatoid arthritis, which makes playing an exercise in torture some days).
Anyway — enjoy.
four winds/
©2021 Michael Raven
when i leave gift me to the four winds -- where i belong
fly/
©2021 Michael Raven
wolf dog brother
red rock tender
mother womb belly
raven sweating
shadows
sister of
the moon
dreamtime
with face to the wind
arms held out
we fly
we fly
night wind we
kiss the sun/
©2021 Michael Raven
i close my eyes and fall across the windsong flying spiritsingingsingsing the sun on at my back tall grass plains desert rolling sage blonde mother hair waves in the dry dirt sea sandstone and riverbed windsong mother skysong father relations all around me kiss the sun
Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one.
Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
My friend, why should you wish to shorten my life by taking from me my shadow?
Crazy Horse, to army surgeon Dr. Valentine T. McGillycuddy, who tried to take a photograph of him
