Re: [tied] Re: Religion

Mark Odegard wrote:

>
> Glen Gordon wrote:
>
> > >And a connection with the Raven as well. I forgot MITHRA in one
> > >of my messages about, I knew I was missing someOne.
> >
> > The raven is the Divine Creatrix - The Goddess, a European concept.
>
> Someone remind me. Isn't the raven something of a carrion eater?
> Gimbutas says many of the Old Europeans practiced excarnation with
> their dead (leaving them to the birds, a la the Zoroastrians).

Ravens, and their close cousins the crows, are optunistic feeders and
will eat carrion. They are also amazingly social and are second to none in
avian intellegence. I have observed them many, many times and delt with
them one-on-one in the wild. It is easy to understand, if you get this
close to them, why they had such high regard in ancient cultures. Our
ancestors, living close to nature, would have recognized these higher
qualities over other birds. Their manner of walking and studying a
situation and theit own inscrutability surely inspired the ancients to think
they were something special in the animal world. They were right.
Steve