Introduction
In times of disaster, the ancients gathered around fires and altars to propitiate the gods for relief. Perhaps these quixotic forces could be appeased with animal sacrifices or promises of fidelity. Today ecologies worldwide are shifting drastically in the wake of the Anthropocene. Ocean temperatures rise, sending icy mammoths crashing into the sea. Plastic chokes remote beaches. Species of all kinds are endangered, the casualties of a crisis of mass extinction.
In a time of environmental degradation and societal unrest, the artists and poets of Young Ravens gather around proverbial creative fires to send up prayers for this irreplaceable planet.
A silver river runs through all these works, and it is this: even the most mundane experience with nature opens the observer to an encounter with the magical, the numinous, the eternal. The gulls of Jenn Powers’s “Salt Water” and Ahrend Torrey’s “Recognizing Eternity” preside over this issue, inviting readers to embark on this sparkling expanse and soak in nature’s glories. Other artists explore the nature of our relationships with each other. In “The Universe is Yours,” Vivian Wagner thanks Emily for reminding her how to be grounded in the present and appreciate the shining now.
Shadows also twine through our existence, though—from the sudden loss of a loved one, the casual killing of other terrestrial beings, or the desecration of sacred spaces, to the question of whether more awaits us beyond this life. If so, what sort of resurrection do we hope for, the soil-deep nourishment of earth recycling death into life, or the divine promise of peace and celestial mansions for the soul? We wonder together, wandering in ink and image towards a new understanding of our world.
Perhaps these prayers will not stop the steady destruction. Yet, perhaps they will create the world anew, imbue readers with the knowledge that the earth is too precious to lose, that in losing the earth each is in danger of losing oneself.
In a time of environmental degradation and societal unrest, the artists and poets of Young Ravens gather around proverbial creative fires to send up prayers for this irreplaceable planet.
A silver river runs through all these works, and it is this: even the most mundane experience with nature opens the observer to an encounter with the magical, the numinous, the eternal. The gulls of Jenn Powers’s “Salt Water” and Ahrend Torrey’s “Recognizing Eternity” preside over this issue, inviting readers to embark on this sparkling expanse and soak in nature’s glories. Other artists explore the nature of our relationships with each other. In “The Universe is Yours,” Vivian Wagner thanks Emily for reminding her how to be grounded in the present and appreciate the shining now.
Shadows also twine through our existence, though—from the sudden loss of a loved one, the casual killing of other terrestrial beings, or the desecration of sacred spaces, to the question of whether more awaits us beyond this life. If so, what sort of resurrection do we hope for, the soil-deep nourishment of earth recycling death into life, or the divine promise of peace and celestial mansions for the soul? We wonder together, wandering in ink and image towards a new understanding of our world.
Perhaps these prayers will not stop the steady destruction. Yet, perhaps they will create the world anew, imbue readers with the knowledge that the earth is too precious to lose, that in losing the earth each is in danger of losing oneself.