The Crane

The crane has long been a sacred bird across Europe and the Middle East. In the ancient town of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey, which was occupied as early as 7400BC, cranes were among the wild creatures portrayed in murals in the houses. A crane’s wing which probably formed part of a ritual costume was also found during the excavations. Is this an indication of the antiquity of the Crane Dance, supposedly invented by the hero Theseus in Classical times? According to legend, Theseus invented the dance to honour Apollo, a Greek God with shamanic connections, to celebrate his defeat of the bull-headed Minotaur. Huge horned cattle, wild and dangerous and still a long way from domestication, were a predominant part of Çatalhöyük‘s ritual and culture.

A reconstruction of Çatalhöyük’s murals, depicting a pair of dancing cranes.

An elaborate, costumed crane dance was also documented among the Ostiak shamans of Siberia in the 18^th century. Some of the reliefs carved into the stone pillars of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey also likely represent cranes, and compellingly, their legs appear to be more human than bird-like. They may in fact represent a shaman in crane-guise. Further links between the crane and shamanism come from the myths of Celtic Britain and Scandinavia, where shamans and Gods often possessed a craneskin bag which had various magical and ritualistic attributes.

Dancing cranes. Wikicommons.

The importance of the crane may derive from their renowned propensity to dance. This is often linked to courtship but entire groups of cranes can join in an elaborate, circular dance which would have been spectacular to watch and may have emulated by the human observers.

They also migrate in huge flocks, spending the winter in southern Europe and the Middle East before moving to northern climes to breed. This migration, linked to the twin balance points of the spring and autumn equinoxes, is key to their importance in Broken Skies.

Another characteristic of the crane is their migrating flight path, up to 10,000 metres above earth. The crane is the highest-flying bird known, and people on the ground watching the flocks flying higher and higher until they vanished from view would have believed them to fly as high as the stars. This is why I believe the sacred Benu-bird, which as I’ve discussed before was linked to the dawn of creation and the axis around which creation revolves, was originally a crane, and their unique journey to the stars is the reason for their ancient reverence.

Jozefzu, Wikicommons.

The Cedar and the World Tree

The World Tree, and its counterpart the Holy Mountain in mountainous regions such as India, forms the axis of existence around which all worlds are fixed. It is the source of life and death, the source of wisdom and prophecy and the indelible record of all things that have ever been. Shamans, deities and seers commonly acquire their gifts from the World Tree after great sacrifice. The Scandinavian God Odin spent nine days hanging on Yggdrasil and sacrificed an eye in return for his prophetic gifts. The God Tir endured similar sacrifice. According to esoteric legend, the cross on which Jesus was sacrificed was made from the trunk of the Tree of Life in Eden.

The celestial counterpart of the World Tree is the Milky Way, which flows across the night sky from the stars of Scorpio to the stars of Cygnus, now portrayed as a swan but once a vulture, and the former Pole Star Deneb. It is no accident that the original T-shaped ‘Tau’ Cross of Middle Eastern mysticism mirrors the four stars of the Sky Vulture.

The Tiwaz (Tir) rune, representing the God Tir who was hanged on the World Tree.

 A Methodist stained glass window. Chris Light, Wikicommons.

Just like the Milky Way, the World Tree is commonly topped by a bird: an eagle in Norse myth; the zu-bird in ancient Sumer (modern Iraq); a macaw in Mayan myth. Around its base is coiled a serpent or dragon, occasionally a scorpion. Representations include the Norse Nidhogg, the serpent coiled around the Biblical Tree of Knowledge, and the Vedic Naga-serpent Vasuki who was coiled around Mount Mandara. Scorpio was once depicted as a serpent in many cosmologies.

A replica of a totem pole, itself a representation of the World Tree, in Ketchikan, Alaska. W. Knight, Wikicommons.

The World Tree has been linked to many different species. Yggdrasil in Scandinavian lore is commonly described as an ash, known for its longevity and its ability to reshoot even when it is felled or toppled. It has been suggested that Yggdrasil was originally a yew, an evergreen and near-immortal tree whose boughs, leaves and berries are deadly poisonous.

In Middle Eastern countries, the cedar was likely the sacred tree, as seen in the 4000-year-old Epic of Gilgamesh. The cedar grows to immense heights, is evergreen – universally seen as a symbol of eternal life – and the prolific resin found in its cones has long been used for healing, purifying and magical purposes. It also has mild psychoactive effects, as I have described in Broken Skies. Cedar forests were probably once common across the Middle East although by the recorded historical period they were largely limited only to Lebanon, whose flag depicts a cedar.

In Broken Skies, the cedar represents the earthly counterpart of the celestial axis and is used in all shamanic rites, and it is also where the dead are left for the vultures to devour and guide their spirits back to the All.

Drifting Stars: The End of the Golden Age

The Golden Age, Pietro da Cortona. Wikicommons.

Legends from cultures as diverse as the Greeks, Aztecs and Tibetans talk of a one-time Golden Age where the world was in perfect and blissful harmony. Thanks to cosmic or human agency, this came to an end and the world was condemned to strife and hardship, but with the hope that at some time in the distant future, the Golden Age could be restored. Adam and Eve’s eviction from the Garden of Eden is one of the most well-known variants.

                        The Garden of Eden

Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, in their epic book Hamlet’s Mill, have analysed these worldwide myths and linked them to a phenomenon called Precession of the Equinoxes. This is caused by a wobble in the earth’s axis, whereby it drifts in a 26,000-year cycle. From Earth we see this as a slow drift in the location of the Pole Star and also as a shift in the Zodiacal constellation housing the sun during any particular month. A vast number of myths, sacred buildings and cultural practices worldwide have been linked to the monitoring of and the attempt to control this drift.

The Egyptian Sphinx, believed to align to the rising of the constellation Leo, the lion, in its celestial position of c10,000BC.

Many of the myths are linked to a celestial mill, linked to the Milky Way and the cosmic axis, which ground out good fortune during the Golden Age but subsequently broke or became corrupted and ground out only hardship as linked to the present world. This links to the drift of the star Deneb, the ‘true’ pole star, from its axis as discussed last week and which forms the background to the story told in Broken Skies.

Churning the Milky Ocean, from a Vedic (Hindu) epic.

This drift would cause little effect on Earth. It was not suddenly wrenched from its true balance as the stories suggest, but simply drifts in its natural cycle just as it rotates and orbits the sun. But disorder in the heavens was linked to disorder on Earth: as above, as below.

And the stories do contain a grain of truth. Soon after the shift of Deneb (Benu in Broken Skies) from true, a vast comet is known to have smashed into Earth, causing vast floods, fires and toxic fallout which plunged the Earth back into the Ice Age, caused countless extinctions and left humans worldwide fighting for their survival. Just as the stories told.

Deneb: the former Pole Star

Deneb is the brightest star in the constellation of Cygnus, the swan. It sits in at the top of the Milky Way, the celestial and otherworldly axis around which existence was believed to turn, and it was also the Pole Star around 17,000-15,000BC. Researcher Andrew Collins believes Deneb to have had a far greater significance to human sky-watchers than any subsequent pole star, by virtue of its association with the Milky Way and the cosmic axis. This explains the long and widespread significance of swans, geese and other waterfowl as soul-guides and otherworldly messengers.

The Milky Way in cultures worldwide is represented as the World Tree whose roots reach into the underworld while its branches touch the sky. This in turn is represented by the wooden totem poles of many shamanic cultures. These are very commonly topped by a bird. Is this an ancient memory of the time when Deneb crowned the sky?

A replica of a totem pole in Ketchikan, Alaska. W. Knight, Wikicommons.

A 17^th-century drawing of Yggdrasil, the World Tree of Scandinavian myth. 

In Broken Skies, Deneb is Benu, the star which reflects the heart of existence, and around it circles the four stars of the soaring Sky Vulture.

Bennu was the Egyptian bird of creation. At dawn on the first day, the Earth God Geb in the form of a goose laid the primeval egg from which emerged the Sun God Ra in the form of the bennu bird. The benben stone, a sacred Egyptian relic which may have been the capstone of the Great Pyramid, is also linked to this bird.

                         The Bennu bird.

                       White Crane. Wikicommons.

The bennu was depicted as a heron perched on the primeval mound of creation. Archaeologists and alternative researchers have linked this to the ancient site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. I believe the bennu bird was originally a crane, for reasons I will come back to in a later post, and the crane is one of the most revered birds in Broken Skies, as it was in many shamanic traditions across Europe.

As centuries passed, Deneb drifted from its position as the axis of creation. In Broken Skies, and in myths around the world, this was associated with disaster and devastation which mirrors true historical events. I will return to that next week.

The Skies and the Soul Trail

Soaring vultures. P.Jeganathan, Wikicommons.

Last week, I talked about the vulture and its role in guiding the deceased to the afterlife, and also perhaps guiding newborn spirits back again.

Birds worldwide are portrayed as spirit guides, by virtue of their gift of flight which gives access to the sky-realms where the spirit world is often located. Spirit-flight is a common shamanic gift. The Pole Star, around which all the skies and by reflection all of creation revolves, is often seen as the birth-point and destination of all spirits.

The Milky Way. Benh Lieu Song, Wikicommons.

The Milky Way is a thick band of stars across the night sky which we see as we look along the long and star-filled axis from the centre of our plate-shaped galaxy. It is often seen as a celestial river flowing across the sky and is known as a spirit road in many shamanic traditions, which is ascended by shamans seeking spiritual insights and by the deceased journeying to the afterlife. In Baltic and Estonian tradition, it is known as the Pathway of Birds and is linked to both spiritual and migratory journeys, and I’ve named it The Soul Trail in Broken Skies.

‘Milky Way’ derives from a Greek myth where the infant Hercules was unwittingly suckled by the Goddess Hera who splashed milk across the sky when the ruse was discovered. This probably stems from an older tradition: the Milky Way is also associated with milk in Egyptian and Hindu lore.

Cygnus. The long neck of the bird soars down the Milky Way.

At its northern peak is the constellation of Cygnus, the swan. The swan is a common spirit guide in northern cultures and the location of this asterism on the Milky Way may stem from this ancient belief. Researcher Andrew Collins has suggested that Cygnus was once a vulture, and I have taken this view in Broken Skies. The four major stars uncannily represent the body, curved wings and tail of a soaring vulture. Here is its celestial counterpart as it guides souls to the next life as it devours their bodies on earth. As above, as below.

The Vulture in the Irin’s cosmology.