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Pack Totem Meditation
Oiseta felt a drop of sweat roll down her cheek. She breathed in, inhaling the sweet smoke of the wood and herbs burned in
the smoke house.
Her belly felt hollow, and her knees weak. She hadn't eaten since the night before, and she had been up since dawn, meditating.
Grandfather Thunder, she thought. She wanted to add more, to ask for his guidance and wisdom for the pack, but suddenly she
felt a gust of wind that didn't shift her hair or cool her sweat-covered skin, a breeze that didn't touch the physical world.
The smoke house walls disappeared as a great dark cloud appeared before her, flashing lightning. A murder of crows flew out
of the cloud toward her. She felt their wing-feathers brush her skin and her hair.
She closed her eyes and raised her face to the sky, and she could see it all still. Lightning flashed once more, and it was
gone.
Personal Totem Meditation
Oiseta sat at the great obsidian stone in the center of the Caern, and stared at her reflections in the great dark glass.
She reached a hand out, and her fingers slipped across the shiny surface. The surface was rough, and her face was reflected
a thousand times, and that made her think of the Lady of Many Faces, Chimera, the Totem-Spirit who rules over secrets and
dreams.
Oh, Ever-Changing One, Oiseta murmured. Bring to me wisdom and enlightenment, and guide me in my journeys and my studies.
Help me to learn as much as I can, and to understand what I learn.
As she stared at her multiple reflections in front of her, they began to shift and change, and she saw many strange and wonderous
things in the dark glass. Her own face changed; she saw herself young and old, happy and sad, so full of pride and self-satisfaction
that Oiseta wanted to smash her own image, and so pitiful and afraid that it broke her heart to look at her own face.
The face shifted, as well, became her mother's face, her sister's, Onera's face and Zyanya's, and became a girl's face, a
face that looked so much like her own, and yet different, that Oiseta wondered if that was her child.
Oiseta wept, and moved away from the stone, and knew Chimera had accepted. She closed her eyes and began to pray.
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