by Rauri Tor
On a foggy drive home from a summer dinner with my in-laws, an owl swooped down to grab a frog darting across the road. I had just been speaking with my mother-in-law about the anxiety that has manifested in my sister-in-law. My sister-in-law had begun to have panic attacks and my mother-in-law was on a quest for what she had done wrong to cause her daughter such distress. A conversation she had brought to me for reflection. I had just been telling my husband about the elusiveness of trauma. How those who traumatize are often traumatized and that there can be no true finger pointing when it comes to trauma when the most beautiful thing happened.
An owl swooped low in front of our moving vehicle. It was seeking a toad in the road. It skimmed the pavement in front of us only to realize we were just behind it. It turned mid-flight and hovered just above our windshield. I thought for a terrifying minute that we might hit it or that it may land on the windshield. At that moment I looked deeply into this creature’s eyes.
The words I had just said rang in my ears, I had just said, “Trauma knows no one to blame.” And through the darkness of this owl’s eyes I could see a sprawl of time, a connection of experience. Through the dark knowing I could sense the thin veil that weaves us all together in humanity, to experience. To experience is both a beautiful and dangerous thing. It allows us to feel everything from pleasure to pain and all that falls in between.
We are shadows in the light, holding and carrying pain but also experiencing all that this world has to offer. I thought about this as I stroked my son’s beautiful blonde curls in bed that night. How is it that life can have moments of such perfection and moments of unspeakable tragedy and hurt? There was something in that owl’s eyes that held a key to understanding this. Perhaps in a wilder time I could read it, but tonight I just need to wonder.
Rauri Tor is co-author with Theresa C.Dintino of The Oscan Oracle: from the Ancient Janarra of the Moon, a book and divination system from ancient Italian wise ones, the Janarra. The Oscan Oracle is a tool for you to use to access information from your spiritual guides, higher self and ancestors. It heals while also instructs and informs about the ways of the Janarra and the Moon. The Oscan Oracle also contains twelve moon meditations and a ritual for each of the twenty-one letters of the Oracle deck.
Learn more here.
Rauri Tor is of the ancient medicine lineage of the Italian Janarra as well as a Celtic Seer. She resides deep in the woods of the East Coast with her family, dog, cats, chickens, and a plethora of wild being allies. You can reach Rauri by email at: janarrarising@gmail.com
