The winds picked up with a low modulating howl as the big black raven sang its song.

"Where is this song from", I asked myself.

Then there was silence, and I could hear my heart pounding, and my breath rising within me.

The sun bounched light off a thousand leaves, and their dance of patterns took me far away, to a place many years ago, when I was a child, back into the cottonwood groves where I grew up.

It was the same song I had heard when I was gathering wood with my brother. In that moment, I knew the bird was the healer in another form and another time, the time of no time.

The smooth black feaathers of her large head shimmered with iridenscence colors and she opened up her wings as it to embrace me. She was not just a bird anymore, but a messenger, an angel, a healer.