https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=r7cLxGcK_Ew
Ravens seem to be all over the place in mythologies. Why can’t we agree on them? Some cultures see them as an evil omen, some as wise. There are some Native American cultures that have them a part of the creation story, bringing life. Ravens definitely have different meanings in different cultures. And that’s also maybe a way to talk about something very important is that we have to be careful about symbolism. Symbolism is not a simple system of meaning. It’s not like this means that, this means that, this means that. But symbolism, although we’re surprised sometimes to find that there are some pretty universal symbols, universal images which mean the same in all cultures, but there are sometimes variations. And that’s because symbolism happens as a network, in a network of relationships. And so, for example, let’s say a raven, like I don’t know what it is in Native American culture, but a raven has a multiplicity of things which makes it a raven, which makes us able to see that it’s a raven. It’s black, it’s a bird, it eats flesh, it has different aspects to it. And so the question is, what aspects are being pulled together to symbolize something in a story or in a certain, let’s say, pattern of symbols? And so that’s really important because a lot of people, they get these, like, if those of you that have seen my reading list, you’ll notice that I have no dictionary of symbols in my reading list because I think those dictionaries of symbols often do us a, they don’t help us sometimes. They can be a little helpful, but I don’t tend to look at them because things don’t have meaning in themselves. This is the whole process of the logos that I’ve talked about before, that meaning comes when things are brought together. The communion is how meaning happens. And so the communion of characteristics, the communion of images in a story, this is how meaning happens. And so that’s how symbolism functions. So in the Bible, the raven definitely has to do with, or in Christianity in general, I would say the raven definitely has to do with this lost potential or like this lost, this image of, is it an image of death, an image of a mismatch between heaven and earth in a sense. So you get this image of Inoa who sends out the raven and the purpose of the bird is to find dry land, right? The bird needs to land, find the ground. So the spirit has to come down and touch the earth so that the new world can begin. You have to have that connection. So Noah sends out these birds. So it’s finally the dove which succeeds, obviously it’s a white bird, makes sense. It’s light that comes down and hits the earth and finds life, finds this branch. But the raven is sent out and there are these weird traditions and this imagery. If you look it up, if you look like medieval image of Noah’s Ark online, you will find that there are images of the raven which came down and feasted on the dead bodies that are floating in the water. And so that’s why the raven didn’t come back. And so there really is this idea of this possibility which is sent out and doesn’t connect with earth in a proper manner. But there’s almost this idea, I don’t totally understand it. Maybe Medceer would have better insight into this. But there’s this idea in a certain manner of the, in the Bible, this idea of the scapegoat or the, you know, the sin offering where people would put their sins on this beast and then the beast would leave the camp and would just kind of go wander off into the desert. And so there’s this idea about this raven which doesn’t, isn’t able to find the ground but somehow is part of the process, the last remnants of this dead world. It has to kind of expiate them and, you know, go out and feed on these dead bodies. So hopefully that answers something a little bit about the raven. [“The Last Supper”]