fantasy – Crow and Flame

The Crow Doesn’t Leave

There’s no magic wand where one day your PTSD is gone. You don’t just wake up healed, whole, untouched by what carved its marks into you. Healing isn’t a finish line or a tidy before-and-after. No—healing is a journey made of forward steps and backward ones. It’s a dance you didn’t ask to learn, and after a while, dancing becomes exhausting.

Last night, I was triggered.

Panic rose fast, sharp and suffocating. It gripped my throat, curled around my lungs, and settled on my chest with the weight of an anvil. Every breath felt earned. Every second stretched thin. My body reacted before my mind could reason, as if danger still lived in the room with me.

I wanted to scream. Instead, I bit my lips and tongue, holding back the sobs, trying to stay quiet, trying to stay contained. I focused on my breathing like I’ve been taught—counting, grounding, reaching for the tools I’ve gathered over years of trying to survive myself. But the fear kept tightening, panic drowning out logic, memory overpowering the present.

Eventually, the urge came—the familiar, shame-laced instinct to hurt myself just enough to snap back into focus. To feel something I could control. To anchor myself in pain instead of terror. And even knowing why that urge exists didn’t make it disappear.

In those moments, the old voices came rushing in too.

You’re weak.

You should be past this by now.

You’re failing at healing.

I felt worthless. Like a failure. Like all the work I’ve done—therapy, reflection, growth—meant nothing because here I was again, shaking, unraveling, exhausted by my own nervous system.

This is where the Crow appears.

The Crow is not gentle reassurance or blind optimism. The Crow is witness. It perches in the dark and does not flinch. It knows what survival looks like up close. It reminds me that naming the storm is not the same as being consumed by it.

And the Flame—quiet, stubborn, flickering low in my chest—did not go out. Even under the weight of panic, even when fear pressed hard against my ribs, the Flame remained. Not roaring. Not triumphant. Just alive.

Healing doesn’t mean you never get triggered again. It means you learn how to sit beside the ashes without setting yourself on fire. It means you learn when to let the Crow keep watch while you rest. It means trusting that a small Flame is still enough light to find your way back to yourself.

Some nights, healing looks like progress and clarity and peace.

Other nights, it looks like sitting on the floor, breath shallow, heart racing, whispering I am safe, I am here, this will pass.

Both are part of the journey.

If you’re reading this and it feels familiar—if your body still remembers things your mind wishes it could forget—you are not broken. You are not weak. You are not failing.

You are a survivor carrying a watchful Crow and a living Flame.

And even when the dance is exhausting, even when you stumble backward, the Flame still burns—and the Crow does not leave.

🖤🔥

Crow and the Wold, The Mythology, Symbolism, and the Story We Carry

Crow and Wolf: Mythology, Symbolism, and the Story We Carry

Across cultures and centuries, the crow and the wolf show up together—shadow companions wandering through the world’s oldest stories. They appear in Norse sagas, Native traditions, Celtic lore, and modern psychology, each carrying a message about survival, vision, intuition, loyalty, and transformation.

Yet beyond myth, the crow and the wolf reflect two forces within us:

the watcher and the wanderer, the mind and the body, the dark-winged insight and the fierce-hearted instinct.

🐺 The Wolf — Pathfinding, Loyalty, and the Wild Self

In myth, wolves are rarely just animals. They’re thresholds. Teachers. Mirrors.

Norse mythology gives us Fenrir, the untamable force; Geri and Freki, companions of Odin; wolves who symbolize both destruction and fierce devotion.

Native stories often portray the wolf as a guide—a keeper of knowledge, a symbol of endurance, family, and instinctual wisdom. The wolf teaches survival, but also connection. Wolves do not thrive alone; they thrive in community, in loyalty, in shared responsibility.

Celtic tradition links wolves to shape-shifting, intuition, and the in-between places where the human soul meets the wild.

Symbolically, the wolf becomes:

Instinct Courage Resilience Shadow strength The part of you that refuses to die

The wolf is the version of yourself that survived what tried to break you.

It knows the terrain of your past. It remembers the long winters.

🪶 The Crow — Intelligence, Mystery, Insight, and Transformation

Crows navigate myth with equal intensity.

In Norse mythology, Huginn and Muninn—thought and memory—are Odin’s crows (ravens technically, but in symbolism the line blurs). They fly across the world and return with knowledge. They are the watchers, the seekers of truth.

In Celtic lore, crows are tied to the Morrígan, goddess of battle and sovereignty, symbolizing prophecy, fate, and the power to transform.

In Native traditions, crows are creators, tricksters, teachers—beings who bring light, challenge assumptions, and hold wisdom in their dark wings.

Symbolically, the crow becomes:

Awareness Intuition Rebirth Shadow work The part of you that watches and understands

The crow is the voice inside you that sees what you couldn’t see before.

The guide who says, “There is another way—let me show you.”

🐺🪶 Together — A Mythic Partnership

In nature, the relationship is real: ravens and wolves work together.

The crow leads the wolf.

The wolf shares the feast.

Each brings what the other lacks.

Myth amplifies the following:

the crow and the wolf are companions in the unseen world, bridging instinct and intelligence, earth and sky, the living and the symbolic.

Together, they represent:

Survival + Insight Instinct + Intuition and The grounded self + the higher self Shadow + understanding Body + mind The journey + the guide

Where the wolf navigates the terrain, the crow interprets it.

Where the wolf survives the night, the crow makes meaning of it in the morning.

In your healing journey, these two archetypes become internal forces.

The wolf is your nervous system—your fight, your endurance, your primal memory.

The crow is your awareness—your insight, your ability to understand what once overwhelmed you.

Healing doesn’t ask you to choose one.

It asks you to partner them.

When you let them walk together, you gain both protection and perspective.

Both bravery and clarity.

Both the ability to feel and the ability to see.

Maybe you’ve been the wolf longer than you meant to—always on edge, always sensing danger, always trying to outrun what hunts you.

Maybe the crow in you is just now learning to speak—teaching you how to observe without fear, how to rise above patterns, how to rewrite the story.

Both are sacred.

Both are needed.

Both are part of your becoming.

You are not only the survivor who walked through the forest.

You are also the witness perched above the treeline

guiding yourself home.

When the Holidays Arrive and Your Heart Feels Far Away

The holidays have a way of lighting up what’s missing.

They bring out the warmth, yes — the soft glow of connection, tradition, and belonging — but they also illuminate the empty chairs, the unsaid words, the relationships that feel frayed at the edges, or the family you love yet can’t safely be close to.

Grief walks into the season quietly, like a crow landing on a frosted branch — uninvited, but impossibly honest.

It reminds you of what was lost, what could have been, or what never existed in the first place.

And flame — the part of you still alive, still trying, still here — flickers against the cold, trying to make sense of all these feelings at once.

Grief Doesn’t Care About the Calendar

It doesn’t wait politely for January.

It rises when the music starts playing in the stores, when the lights go up on the houses, when everyone around you seems to be celebrating something you can barely breathe through.

Your grief may come from death.

It may come from distance — physical or emotional.

It may come from a family that should have felt like home but didn’t.

It may come from the version of you who learned to survive the holidays by shrinking, pleasing, pretending.

Whatever shape it takes, it’s valid.

You don’t owe anyone a cheerful version of yourself.

You’re Not Broken for Feeling Heavy This Time of Year

Some seasons feel like reunions.

Others feel like reminders.

If your family relationships are strained, you may be navigating guilt, longing, resentment, or hope — sometimes all in the same breath.

If you’re far from the people you love, distance becomes its own kind of ache.

If you’ve lost someone, every tradition becomes a ghost you both want to see and can’t bear to.

And still, the world moves on with its jingling bells and sparkle.

You’re expected to “be merry.”

But you’re allowed to be human instead.

The Crow: Naming What Hurts

The crow teaches us to acknowledge the shadows.

To sit with the truth instead of decorating over it.

To say:

“This year feels different.” “I’m grieving someone who won’t be at the table.” “My family is complicated.” “I love them, but I need distance.” “I love them, but they’re gone.” “I’m not okay, and that’s not a failure.”

There is healing in naming what the world asks you to hide.

The Flame: Making Space for Yourself

The flame isn’t about forcing positivity — it’s about creating small warmth in the places grief has gone numb.

It can look like:

Starting a new ritual that feels gentle, not forced Spending the holiday with chosen family, or by yourself Going outside for air when the emotions feel too big Allowing yourself to skip the events that drain you Letting joy in slowly, without guilt Honoring your grief without letting it swallow you

The flame says, “You get to choose how you move through this season.”

You’re Allowed to Redefine What This Time of Year Means to You

Traditions don’t have to be inherited — they can be created.

Connection doesn’t have to be forced — it can be found.

Family doesn’t have to be blood — it can be chosen.

Grief doesn’t have to be hidden — it can be honored.

And healing doesn’t have to look bright — sometimes it looks like a small flame burning steadily through the dark.

This Year, Let Your Heart Be the Guide

Not expectations.

Not pressure.

Not old patterns.

Not other people’s comfort.

Just your truth.

However you navigate the holidays — with sorrow, with love, with distance, with tenderness, with numbness, with hope — know this:

Your grief is a testament to your capacity to love.

Your boundaries are a testament to your capacity to grow.

And your flame, no matter how soft, is still burning.

The Wolf and the Raven: A Wild Lesson in Companionship, Healing, and the Parts of Ourselves That Still Believe in Each Other

There’s a language spoken in the forests long before humans learned to name their wounds. A quiet, instinctive agreement between a creature of the sky and a creature of the earth:

the raven and the wolf.

They move through the world like a promise made in the dark—

one who sees,

one who hunts,

both who trust.

And if you listen closely, their partnership begins to echo something almost unbearably human.

Ravens call to wolves with a voice sharp as cold air, guiding them toward what waits beyond the next ridge. They are the mapmakers of the sky, tracing possibilities into the wind.

Sometimes, in our hardest seasons, we need a “raven” in our lives—

someone whose view isn’t blurred by the storm in our chest.

Someone who can see the exit when all we see are walls.

Someone who whispers, “This way. There’s more for you than the fear you’re standing in.”

It is sacred work, letting another person widen your world.

And terrifying, if you spent years learning not to rely on anyone.

Wolves crack open the heavy carcasses that ravens cannot enter alone. They make the impossible reachable.

Healing feels like that sometimes—

standing before a memory too large to approach,

a grief too dense to hold,

a story your hands are too tired to pry open.

Then someone sits beside you—

a friend, a therapist, a partner,

someone who doesn’t flinch at your trembling—

and their presence becomes the strength you borrow.

Not because you are weak,

but because some doors were never meant to be unlocked alone.

Ravens have been known to watch over wolf pups—dark wings protecting small bodies, calling warnings into the trees.

Wolves return the favor simply by being wolves:

loyal, fierce, unyielding in their devotion.

In human terms, this looks like the people who check on you after the panic attack hits.

The ones who notice when your voice goes small.

The ones who remind you what’s real when trauma drags you into yesterday.

The ones who say, “I’m here,” and mean it with their whole being.

Healing is not self-sufficiency.

Healing is safe connection.

In old stories, the wolf and raven appear as sacred companions.

Strength and sight.

Instinct and intuition.

Earth and sky.

Together, they represent a truth we resist but desperately need:

We are not meant to heal the parts of us that howl without also listening to the parts that know how to fly.

Inside you, there is a wolf—

the survivor,

the fighter,

the part that made sure you stayed alive.

Inside you, there is a raven—

the intuitive one,

the watcher,

the part that knows when it’s time to soften.

Healing happens when they stop tearing each other apart.

When your strength learns to trust your sensitivity.

When your vigilance stops mistaking safety for danger.

When your intuition is no longer exiled from the pack.

The Wild Truth: We Heal Through Partnership, Not Isolation.

The wolf does not apologize for needing the raven.

The raven does not shrink for needing the wolf.

There is no shame in interdependence.

Only survival woven into something beautiful.

Maybe we are more like them than we realize—

built for connection,

wired for companionship,

meant to be seen from above and protected from beside.

Maybe the part of you that is tired of being strong is simply longing for a raven.

Maybe the part of you that sees too much from the sky is longing for a wolf.

Either way, both parts belong.

Both parts are sacred.

Both parts deserve a place in the story of your healing.

Atlas of Sadness: Crow Reflections on the Weight We Carry

Intro: The Heavy Days

There are mornings when the simple act of existing feels like too much.

The alarm rings, sunlight spills across the floor, and still—your body resists. The weight of sadness presses down like gravity, like Atlas holding up the sky.

On those days, even the smallest tasks—getting out of bed, showering, brushing your hair—feel like climbing a mountain made of stone. Depression doesn’t always look like tears; sometimes it’s stillness so thick it swallows sound.

I know that stillness. I’ve lived inside it.

But I’ve also learned that healing isn’t about grand gestures—it’s about tiny acts of defiance.

It’s the decision to open the blinds.

To let sunlight touch your face.

To press your bare feet into the grass, even when your mind whispers that it doesn’t matter.

The Weight of the Sky

Crow sits on the branch of a barren tree, wings tucked close.

The air is heavy, the sky low.

She does not try to lift it—she simply breathes beneath it.

Even the watcher must rest.

The Mundane as Medicine

Depression tells us that there’s no point. That nothing will change. But the truth is, every small act you take in defiance of that voice is change.

When I am at my lowest, I start with the most basic things:

Wash my face. Drink water. Sit in the sunlight, even if I don’t feel its warmth yet.

These are not cures—they’re reminders. Each act says: I am still here.

And sometimes, being here is the bravest thing we can do.

The body often remembers what the spirit forgets.

When I walk outside barefoot, the earth doesn’t ask me to smile or be better—it just holds me. The grass doesn’t judge my unwashed hair or tired eyes. It accepts me exactly as I am. That kind of acceptance, I’ve learned, can be healing too.

The Feather Falls

A single feather drifts to the ground.

It is not a loss—it is a release.

Crow watches it settle, light and slow, and then looks to the horizon.

There is a softness in letting go of what cannot be lifted today.

Learning to Move Again

Some days, movement feels impossible.

But movement doesn’t have to mean running or productivity—it can mean sitting by the window, noticing a breeze, or listening to birds call in the distance.

Depression shrinks the world until it fits inside your chest.

The work of healing is learning to widen it again—one breath, one step, one open window at a time.

If all you did today was get up, you have already won something invisible and enormous.

The Rising

Crow spreads her wings at dusk, shaking off the dust of the day.

She does not soar high tonight—just enough to feel the wind again.

Even the smallest rise is still flight.

Reflection

You do not have to carry the whole sky.

You only have to carry yourself through this day.

Let the light touch your face.

Let the earth hold your feet.

Let the breath return, even if it trembles.

The sadness may not vanish, but you are still here beneath it—alive, breathing, worthy of gentleness.

And that is everything.

Feathered Breath: A Guided Meditation to Calm

Intro: Finding Stillness in the Storm

Healing isn’t always grand or visible. Sometimes it begins with something as simple as a breath — one conscious inhale after a thousand shallow ones.

When my mind races and my chest tightens, I’ve learned to return to the rhythm of my breath. The body remembers what the heart forgets: that calm can be reclaimed, one breath at a time.

Nature has become my teacher in this — the slow sway of branches, the rise and fall of wings, the way a feather drifts instead of fights the air. Crows, in their quiet vigilance, remind me to watch without judgment. They teach that stillness is not weakness, but awareness.

This guided meditation uses breath and the image of a feather to help you release tension and find balance within the body, mind, and spirit.

Guided Breathing: Feather and Crow

Find a comfortable place to sit.

Let your hands rest in your lap or by your sides.

If you wish, hold a feather — or simply imagine one, light and dark, resting in your palm.

Crow Interlude I: The Watcher

A crow perches nearby, watching in silence.

She does not rush or interfere — only witnesses.

Let her still gaze remind you that you, too, can watch your thoughts come and go without needing to chase them.

Step 1: Grounding the Body

Feel the weight of your body supported by the earth beneath you.

Notice where you are held — by the chair, by the ground, by gravity itself.

Take a slow breath in through your nose for a count of four.

Hold for two.

Exhale gently through your mouth for a count of six.

Repeat this three times.

With each exhale, imagine releasing what no longer serves you — the tightness in your chest, the restless energy, the self-doubt.

Crow Interlude II: The Breath Between Wings

Crow lifts from her branch, wings spreading wide.

Between each downbeat is a pause — a stillness where the air holds her.

Notice the spaces between your breaths —

the quiet resting place that exists between effort and ease.

Step 2: The Feather Exercise

Bring your attention to the feather in your hand or mind’s eye.

Notice its softness, its delicate balance of strength and fragility.

As you inhale, imagine the feather rising — lifted gently by air.

As you exhale, see it floating down, slow and effortless.

Breathe with the feather:

Inhale — rise.

Exhale — release.

Let your breath follow that rhythm, fluid and unforced.

If thoughts come, let them drift like loose down — seen, but not grasped.

Crow Interlude III: The Quiet Return

The crow settles again, feathers folding neatly.

She tilts her head, watching the horizon where the light shifts from shadow to gold.

You have done enough. You have breathed. You have returned.

Step 3: Closing the Practice

Bring your awareness back to your body.

Notice the ease in your breath, the steadiness in your heartbeat.

Place your hand over your heart and whisper softly:

“I am safe. I am grounded. I am free to breathe.”

Take one final slow breath in through the nose and exhale fully through the mouth.

When you are ready, open your eyes.

Reflection

Each breath is a small act of trust — in your body, in the present moment, in your ability to return to yourself. The feather reminds us that we don’t have to force peace; we only have to allow it.

The crow reminds us to witness without fear. To see what is and still choose to stay.

I Never Knew

There are moments in healing when the past rises like smoke — not to haunt, but to be seen. For so long, I carried stories stitched in silence, believing pain was proof of love and endurance was safety. But healing has taught me to unlearn. To loosen the old knots of shame, to lift my gaze, to let creation become confession. When I draw, when I write, when I listen to the crows outside my window, I remember that truth has wings.

This poem is for the part of me that once hid, and for every woman learning to speak again — not in whispers, but in flight.

I never knew what I never knew.

Every word uttered, I accepted as true.

I built myself up to make you proud,

and tore myself down when you said I was too loud.

The higher I climbed, the harder I fell—

broken memories I’ll never tell.

⸻

Crow watches.

From the fence line of my memory, she tilts her head,

black eyes gleaming like obsidian truth.

She has seen this pattern before—

the fledgling mistaking the cage for sky.

She croaks a sound like warning, like mourning, like wake up.

⸻

Believing you were my guide,

believing you would stay by my side,

I took each onslaught to heart.

Every word, a lash and cut, slicing me apart.

The perfect doll, I sewed myself together

with needle and thread—

hiding with a razor under my bed.

I tear myself apart when you tell me I’m all wrong,

building up the walls inside to keep myself strong.

Poison infiltrates my mind.

⸻

Crow circles.

Feathers catch the wind like memory—

a dark shimmer of knowing.

She lands beside me, close enough to hear my breath.

“Release,” she whispers, “is not forgetting.

It is remembering without the chain.”

⸻

So I open my palms to the sky.

Ash, feather, thread—let them scatter.

What was once silence becomes song.

What was once fear becomes flight.

And the crow—

my witness, my teacher, my reflection—

rises.

So do I.

Light the Dark

Face the Sun. Be the Hope.

Visions play in her eyes,

A poignant cinema of her own life.

She dances in the past,

Praying history doesn’t last.

Targeted violence reincarnated,

Haunting cries with serrated edges.

Agony rains.

Shadows stain the walls of memory.

A crow lands on the edge of her window, silent but knowing. Its black feathers absorb the light, yet its eyes glimmer with an understanding she cannot name. It tilts its head, curious, patient, a witness to her storms.

His glance lands upon me, a crazed gaze,

A question burning:

Is she insane?

Lost in space, waiting in vain.

Shutters close on her eyes

Before an image she despises.

Scars illustrate a fate

That she’s finally ready to realize.

Another crow descends from the twilight sky, wings slicing through the dusk. It circles, calling softly, like a bell tolling for remembrance. Each caw reminds her: your pain is real, but it is not all that you are.

She lives in the darkness.

She is the light.

Dance with the stars.

Glow in the night.

She lives amongst the constellations,

A nebula falling like heaven’s consolation.

From the shadowed branches, crows gather. One steps forward, ruffling feathers in the cool night air. It perches boldly, meeting her gaze. Its presence whispers: courage. Watch. Learn. Transform. Each feather a lesson in resilience, each shadow a map of strength.

Her heartbeat aligns with the universe,

A rhythm pulsing through the cosmos.

Every scar, every cry,

A note in her symphony of survival.

The crows watch, always watch,

As if carrying the memory of her pain

And the promise of her flight.

She lifts her arms toward the moon,

Breathing the night into her lungs,

Exhaling fear, releasing sorrow.

She is not bound by yesterday.

She is starlight. She is wind.

She is hope incarnate.

A final crow lifts from the forest floor, ascending, wings spread wide. It vanishes into the constellation-strewn sky, a reminder: light the dark. Face the sun. Be the hope. You, too, can rise.