After a few days of rest, I already feel the momentum building for the new direction that my life is about to take. I’m no longer wandering around, not sure of what I want. I know what I want, in fact I know exactly what I want, and that requires the revelation of a different side of me. I suppose that’s the new adventure – the exploration of being someone different. It’s a little scary. I feel myself wanting to go back to the same old habits, but I’ve known for a while now that this is just not going to work anymore. I’ve known this since I arrived in Japan, because while I was there something strange would happen often. Something that I didn’t tell anyone, but I want to say it now. During that time, I very often saw a crow. A singular crow. It would call out to me as I walked around the neighbourhood, it would turn up wherever I went. I tried not to be superstitious, but it really happened a lot and I started to be a little afraid. I felt that it may not have been a good omen, but I did not jump to conclusions and I tried to let the meaning of it come to me.
I later discovered that in Shinto that there exists Yatagarasu, the crow god. It symbolises renaissance. Rebirth and new life. It makes sense to me. I still remember one morning, as I was taking my coffee by the window, I heard the call loud and clear. It was drizzling a little. The sky was sombre and so was my mood… but when I heard the crow call I knew exactly what it meant. I was letting go of the old version of me and moving into my new skin. Yatagarasu continues to follow me into Australia. Changing your life is not a fast process. It is slow and it very often feels uncomfortable. Uneasy. During my time in Japan, and even now, I have a heavy feeling at the bottom of my heart. A sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Fear of the unknown. The more I try to fight it, the more I fear the change and the more paralysed I become. Perhaps that’s also the reason why I stopped writing for a while. But that’s okay, because even a race car driver needs to slow her car down before she changes direction.
And I think that Australia is the perfect place to do it. As I have mentioned before, even though I lived in a quiet area in Japan, I still felt a lot of noise. People moving around, carrying on their daily lives. They may not have been loud, but they provided a soft, constant drone in the background. But in Australia, I don’t feel it. People have more space here, at least where I’m from. They are far away, physically and mentally. People do not often traverse your personal space in Australia, in the same way that may happen routinely in many parts of Japan. I also find it easier to be invisible here – I don’t look out of place, and so I find that I can sink into the underlying silence in any situation. The place I like to be when I am afraid. But even in the silence I cannot escape Yatagarasu, the three legged crow who lives in the sun. He will come to visit me wherever I am, whatever I do, because when the time to move on with your life is here then it moves you, whether you like it or not.
Yatagarasu is not only a symbol of new life but is also a guide. When people in Japan see this sign, I think it means that good fortune and happiness is close. So even though it may be human to fear the unknown, there are plenty of reasons to not be afraid as well. In the silence, and with all the space that living in Australia provides me, I’m able to slow down and listen. I could say that I’m listening to the guidance of a three-legged crow if I wanted to be a story teller, but the truth is that I’m listening to the guidance of my heart. My heart tells me that it’s time to do things that had previously scared me, there is no other choice. I’ve already made the decision to leave the comfortable haze of indecision. Choosing everything at once was making me miss out on the pleasure of dedicating myself to one thing for a while, and after years of yearning for it the moment is finally here. The old version of me is gone, I left her in Japan. It’s time to go on a new journey, if you want to come with me. One where I will be learning how to make myself at home, elsewhere.
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