Ravens and Writing

It began with a feather.

A big, glossy black one, lying just outside my snow-covered doorstep as if it had been placed there deliberately, though that didn’t make sense. The street was a swirling chaos of wind and snow; most things left outside were iced over or buried. But not this. The feather sat stark, pristine, untouched, a dark contrast against the white snow, as though it had been waiting for me.

I picked it up carefully and turned it in my hands. It was beautiful—impossibly smooth, the kind of object that felt meaningful even if I didn’t yet understand why. I tucked it into my coat pocket and stepped into the day.

The air was sharp and cold, biting at my cheeks as I trudged through the fresh snow. My hands stayed buried in my pockets, one of them absently brushing against the feather.

I almost missed it—a dark shape perched on a lamppost ahead. At first, I thought it was just another shadow in the winter landscape. But as I got closer, I saw it was a raven, its head tilted as if studying me.

The world seemed to hold its breath. No cars, no wind, no footsteps crunching in the snow—just me and the raven, locked in a silent exchange. My breath fogged in the space between us. Then, as if on cue, the bird let out a sharp caw and flew off, a blur of black against the pale sky.

I followed its flight until it disappeared, and that’s when I saw the sign. A weathered wooden one hanging above a shop I’d never noticed before, even though I walked this route often.

Moirai Atelier

The name tugged at something within me, a vague memory just out of reach. I pushed open the door, and the bell jingled softly as it shut behind me.

The air inside carried a mix of incense, old books, and coffee, a warm, nostalgic blend that pulled me further in. Tall wooden shelves lined the walls, filled with leather-bound books and curious treasures. A rolling wooden ladder leaned against the back wall, reaching up to a second-floor loft that made the shop feel endless—far larger than it had seemed from the outside.

Soft, warm light glimmered from ornate, colorful Moroccan brass lamps hanging overhead. A golden Buddha sat near the entrance, grinning as though it knew something I didn’t. A deep blue globe etched with constellations, a glittering beaded mask, and a tapestry depicting an intricate tree hung nearby, each object radiating an aura of hidden significance.

The counter stood empty, save for an old-timey cash register and a small stack of books waiting to be shelved. My fingers brushed along the spines as I wandered, the titles blurring together until one caught my eye. Gold text on a red spine read: The Language of Birds. It was thin, the kind of book that seemed made for forgotten corners, but something about it felt magnetic.

I opened it to a random page, and the first words I saw were, “Odin had two ravens—Huginn (thought) and Muninn (memory)—who flew about the world, delivering messages, gathering knowledge, and reporting back to him.”

I snapped the book shut, startled, and almost dropped it.

A large gray cat appeared, weaving itself between my feet in figure eights, purring softly. I heard faint steps and looked up to see a woman emerge from behind a beaded curtain, shuffling toward the counter with a box in her hands. Her eyes flicked to the cat, then to the book I held, before she set the box down and nodded in acknowledgment.

“Ah,” she said, smiling. “Looks like Dharma has found you.”

“What?” I asked, glancing between the cat and the book.

The woman pulled an object from the box and placed it on the counter—a round golden compass or stopwatch; I couldn’t quite tell from where I stood. “Can I get you something? Coffee? Tea?” she asked, her voice  had a light Indian accent.

I ordered a cup of tea and found a cozy green velvet armchair with a small table beside it. The cat followed me, leaping gracefully onto the chair’s arm and settling in as if it owned the place. I thumbed through the book’s pages while the woman disappeared into the back room. Moments later, she returned with a steaming cup of tea and set it down with care.

“Is Dharma the cat’s name?” I asked.

“He hasn’t told me his name,” she replied with a jokingly sly smile. “He doesn’t say much but is an excellent listener.”

I smiled back. “Ah, where are my manners,” I said, realizing I hadn’t introduced myself or asked for hers. “I’m—”

“Names are funny things, aren’t they?” she interrupted, her smile widening as though she already knew. “Sounds we are given that tell us so much and yet so little.”

I paused, unsure how to respond. Her silver hair caught the warm light from the lamps overhead, and her dark eyes held a quiet intensity. “You can call me Maya,” she said finally, her tone light but layered with something I couldn’t quite place. “It’s what most people call me, though Dharma might disagree.”

I glanced at the cat, now curled comfortably at my feet, its golden eyes half-closed but still watching me. “He seems pretty content,” I said.

“For now,” she replied, her voice teasing. “He doesn’t take to everyone, you know. But when he does, it usually means something’s in motion.”

“Hm?” I asked, intrigued. Hoping she would elaborate.

Maya’s eyes flicked toward the book in my hands. “Books like that have a way of finding people,” she said softly. “Even if you don’t know why at first.”

I looked down at the book. Its cover was embossed with a circle inside a hexagram, the overlapping triangles forming a six-pointed star. At the center of the star was a cube. “This one kinda called out to me,” I admitted.

“Mmmhmm,” Maya nodded, her lips curling into a knowing smile. She began unpacking the box on the counter, pulling out objects that glinted faintly in the warm light. Before I could ask more, a phone rang in the back and she excused herself, leaving me alone with the cat, the book, and a growing sense that I was exactly where I needed to be.

By the time I left the shop, the sky was a soft peach hue, the kind of winter sunset that makes everything feel timeless. The book was tucked under my arm, but I felt too restless to head straight home. I wandered through the park, the snow crunching underfoot.

I stopped at a crosswalk, and noticed a flyer pinned to the pole: Edgar Allan Poe Festival. The surreal coincidence tugged at me, given the events of the day. I questioned if I was reading too much into it or if I was lgoing stark raving mad. A few steps later, I muttered to myself, “Raviing” I laughed “Raven.” Just as the word left my mouth, a raven swooped down and landed on the park bench just ahead of me.

It cocked its head, puffed up its feathers, and made a deliberate clicking noise that is best described as the kind of noise someone makes when calling a cat—tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk.  For a moment, I froze, staring, in disbelief. The bird tilted its head again, making the sound once more as if beckoning me to come closer.

I held my breath as I approached, one cautious step at a time. The raven didn’t move, letting me come close enough to see the mischievous glint in its eye. In my pocket, the feather hummed faintly, almost vibrating.

I slowly took out the feather and held it up, unsure what I was expecting. The raven tilted its head, and took off, with a flutter of it’s wings, leaving a single black feather in its place. This one was smaller, rougher, but just as impossibly perfect. A token to let me know that I hadn’t just imagined that entire encounter.

That night, the dreams came. I was in a damp, mossy forest surrounded by whispers I couldn’t understand but felt in my chest. Looking up there were hundreds of ravens perched in the branches above me, their eyes glowing, like embers. They were watching, waiting. And then one spoke—not with words, but with a deep knowing that settled in my bones.

“Pay attention,” it seemed to say. “The universe is speaking.”

One of the ravens flew down and landed on the ground before me. It held something in its beak: a bottle of ink, with a key on the label. It dropped it at my feet, the black ink spilled onto the ground, spreading like living shadows.

The ink began to shift and swirl, arms reaching up and out, forming shapes and then —words. I couldn’t read them, but they glimmered, as if illuminated. The raven croaked and shrilled loudly, sharp and commanding, and I woke up with my heart pounding.

 

The next morning, I couldn’t shake the dream. I rummaged through my drawers until I found a bottle of ink among my art supplies, along with a fountain pen I’d used for an illustration project. I sat down at my kitchen table, the bottle open, the pen poised over a blank sheet of paper. But I didn’t know what to write…I let out a deep exasperated sigh and resigned to making art about the raven instead.

Later that afternoon, while I was working away at my easel, I heard a tapping. I turned around and froze, the raven pecked at the window. I must be hallucinating. I walked to the window, startling it. While watching it fly off, I noticed, it dropped something onto the sill: a small key. I opened the window hesitantly, worried that I might be dive bombed by the raven. I reached for the key. It was an intricate old bronze skeleton key with a round blue inset cameo at the top, in the blue cameo was a white rabbit. What a strange and pretty little key, I thought, I wonder where it came from.

My mind flickered to my favorite childhood story Alice in Wonderland, and then to the Mad Hatter’s riddle: Why is a raven like a writing desk? It had always seemed like nonsense, but now the riddle felt ominously relevant.

I put the key in my jewelry box, with the intention of taking it to Maya to help me investigate where such a key could have come from and considered eventually putting it on a necklace to wear.

That gave me a strange idea. I pulled the feather from my coat pocket and grabbed an exacto knife, and the bottle of ink and sat down at my desk. The raven appeared again in my peripheral vision, landing on a tree branch in the distance, its presence a weight I couldn’t ignore. I used the knife to cut the quill of the feather on a diagonal point, then dipped it in the ink. The dipped feather hovered over the paper, and then it moved, almost on its own. Words poured out, spilling onto the page in a steady, unbroken flow.

The first pages were fragments of a story: memories of the feather, the raven, the shop, the dream, the key. That sense of being guided, of following signs, and the events weaving together into something larger. As I wrote, the ink seemed to shimmer. The raven cawed from the tree, a sharp, impatient sound, as compelling me to keep going.

I wrote until the sun dipped below the horizon, and then I kept writing. The words felt alive, pulling me forward, telling a story I didn’t fully understand but couldn’t stop.

That night, the dreams were different. I wasn’t in the forest anymore; I was in a vast library, the kind that stretched endlessly in every direction. Shelves towered above me, filled with books bound in every imaginable color and texture. In the center of the room stood a writing desk. The raven was there, perched on the desk. As I approached the desk, he flew off and I woke up.  The days that followed felt like a blur. I wrote obsessively, the ink never seeming to run dry, the raven appearing every evening to perch outside my art studio window in view. Sometimes it brought me small objects: a shard of mirror, a piece of string, a playing card. Each one felt like a piece of a puzzle, though I didn’t know how they fit.

The book grew. It wasn’t just a story—it was a map, a universal language, a different way of seeing the world. The symbols on the pages began to make more sense, threading together like constellations in the night sky. The feather, the ink, the raven—they were all part of it,The snow began to melt as the days grew longer, but the raven kept coming back. Sometimes it came right up to the windowsill, other times it loomed further out in the yard just beyond the edge of my sight. When I would hear it caw, I sometimes cawed back in acknowledgment of my strange new friend. The book felt endless, its story unfurling like a map I had yet to decipher. The symbols, the patterns—they guided me, but they also led to more questions that I still wasn’t sure how to answer.

More and more, I found myself writing, alongside my daily art making. The signs, symbols—started to show up in my art, woven into pieces I didn’t fully understand but felt compelled to create. My studio is a mess of half-finished canvases, ink-stained papers, and fragments of a story that are beginning to come together into something.

Each day, I add a little more to the book and the art. The words and images feel inseparable, part of the same conversation. The universe whispers through strange synchronicities. I look for signals in the noise, guiding my hands, my heart and my thoughts. These experiences thread themselves into my work. I don’t know where this is leading, or when it will be complete. But for now I write, draw, paint, and share.