Raven

Common Raven.  Learn more about this bird at All About Birds

The raven flapped his wings, and, croaking his satisfaction, hopped to the feet of his master, and there held his bill open, ready for snapping up such lumps of meat as he should throw him. Of these he received about a score in rapid succession, without the smallest discomposure.

'That's all,' said Barnaby.

'More!' cried Grip. 'More!'" (Ch. 17) Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens

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Truthfully, I think this bird gets a bad rap.  People see it flying around and immediately think doom and gloom.  These black birds are only looking for easy food.  They're scavengers eating up carrion - helping to clean up the place - doing humanity a community service.

When I see a raven, I tend to think: be alert something is about to happen.  My belief is more in line with how the Native Americans (Hopi) see them – they are bringers of light and communicate the mysteries.

Maybe its their black feathers that cause people to jump to the wrong conclusion.  Similarly, this seems to be the tendency in how we treat anyone who may be a little different or doesn't do things in a certain way.

Perhaps we should be more like the raven and see the opportunities from our differences.  Be more open rather than my way or the highway in are approach with others when working on solving problems.    

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Lady Macbeth by John Singer Sargent

Spoken by Lady Macbeth, Macbeth Act 1 Scene 5

 The raven himself is hoarse

 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

 Under my battlements. Come, you spirits

 That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

 And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

 Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;

 Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

 That no compunctious visitings of nature

 Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

 The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,

 And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,

 Wherever in your sightless substances

 You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,

 And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

 Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

 To cry ‘Hold, hold!’

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One of my favorite readings of the Raven by Poe read byVincent Price