 Dear Friends,
On 5th October 2005, some of you will have received an email from us in which we described an amazing sight we'd just seen in our garden: four pairs of ravens doing the most incredible flying display, spiralling higher and higher as they rode the thermals above our home.
Now ravens have always been very special to us. Sensing that they are messengers of the unseen worlds, we'd always regarded it as a great gift to be allowed to spot one of these massive birds, with their diamond-shaped tails and voices that sound almost human. Well, we knew that a pair of ravens lived near us, but we had no idea there were four pairs! So you can understand how the sight of all those magical birds – right above our house – seemed to us to be a great portent of some kind, not just for ourselves, but for many people with whom we are connected.
We watched the ravens until they had flown so high we could no longer see them, even with binoculars. Then we rushed inside to consult Claire Nahmad's Summoning Angels, which has a really interesting section on birds and their meanings. Claire writes: 'The raven is a symbol of foreknowledge, and was the companion of Bran ('raven') the Blessed, god of the underworld and Keeper of the Secret Knowledge. The perfect blending of the darkness and the light in the raven can bring us a deep healing called 'the resolution of opposites', wherein profound conflicts long held within us are brought into harmony. This is why the raven is associated with the sun gods Apollo and Lugh, and was anciently regarded as the morning bird of joy and light. His croak says, 'Bless your shadow self with the light of Love!'
This message seemed wonderfully appropriate for the moment, for we felt that not just we, but also very many people, were going through something of a dark tunnel in 2005, and needed to know that there was a purpose to it all, and that the outcome would be positive; wonderful, even. This perception was confirmed by many of you in the letters we received in response to last month's call for help – lots of Cygnus members expressed deep empathy with us, for they, too, were in the same boat. One of the letters – from Rose Titchiner – so beautifully expressed the inner churning many of us are going through, and what the meaning of it all is in our spiritual process, that we've published it for you to read on page 9.
Meanwhile, to return to the ravens..... After reading Claire's words, we rang her, because we felt she should know about the ravens, too. Now Claire is really good at understanding portents! As soon as we told her that there were four pairs, and that they were spiralling higher and higher, she said: 'Oh – a higher octave!' Later, she also came across a legend which states that four pairs of ravens were the first creatures to emerge from the Oneness as Creation began, and will be the last creatures to return when everything goes back to Source. Wow.
Now the best portents are always to be understood on many levels, and in many ways, so we reflected deeply on the process of embracing darkness with light, and moving to a higher octave. In terms of Cygnus, for instance, what could that mean? Could Cygnus pass through this narrow place – the birth canal of financial difficulties we told you about in our last letter – and be born into a higher octave? Well, we knew this had to be so, but for the life of us we couldn't see how.
And that brings us to the main point of this letter – because you are showing us how, and you have become the 'midwife'! We are filled with gratitude – a kind of reverence, even – towards you for your huge, open-hearted response to our plea for help in last month's letter. Your generous donations, orders, and other offers of help, and the kindness of many of you in becoming Cygnus Supporters, are giving Cygnus new life in the profoundest sense. And the vast amount of encouragement, appreciation and support we have received from you, plus the scores of brilliant ideas you have been giving us (many of which we'll be implementing in the coming months) have helped us not just materially, but spiritually as well. You have shown us how to be 'born' in a new way. You have shown us that now it's the right time to involve you all far more in what Cygnus is and does. Our (and by 'our' we mean 'your' too!) ideas about how exactly to do this will no doubt evolve over the coming months, with your help, but it is clear that developing a more 'interactive' Cygnus is the way forward.
As our first step towards this new, 'higher octave', we'd like to ask you to write book reviews for us, and we've put an advert with more details about this on page 14. We look forward to hearing more of your ideas on how else we could interact with you.
As usual, this month's issue is a January Sale. Many of the titles included have been offered to us by publishers specially for the sale. We have also added a sprinkling of brand new titles – Masaru Emoto, Julie Soskin and Gillian McKeith, for instance, all have new books out. And a wonderful old-fashioned novel – The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge, which is far too precious to be allowed to sink into oblivion – has just been brought back into print. Overall, it's a lovely selection and we're sure you'll find something in it that you or a friend could enjoy. We're sure you'll like the underlying message of this month's articles too: Never say die. There is always something we can do to create the changes we long to see. What all of us are doing, each in our own way, in our own lives, is working, despite how things may seem. By facing our challenges and finding ways to be truer to ourselves and to the love in our hearts, we can be, and we are, a major force for the Good.
So we hope you'll find yourselves able to continue supporting us during the coming year, as we hope to find many new ways of supporting you, and all those who are searching for new meaning in their lives. In the spirit of community and love, we wish you a wonderful 2006. And thanks for everything!
Ann, Geoff and all at Cygnus
 
Text & photographs © Cygnus Books 20-Jun-2006
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