Long-legged birds of the family Gruidae, with a long neck, a small head and a pointed beak. He is a master of flying: light, seemingly weightless he flies gracefully stretched and positioned in an elegant shape.
When asleep he stands stably on one leg on the ground. This leads to the overall impression of lightness on a solid foundation. Excessive effort is alien to him. During the flight he sounds a trumpet-like call.
Spirit Animal and Totem
Celtic mythology states that the god Ogma invented the Ogham script after observing the flight of the cranes.
Thus, the cranes symbolize secret knowledge that is represented in the Druid tradition by the Ogham script. The Ogham script is a tree language, the language of nature. Anyone who can read them can understand the wonders of nature.
The crane is also the spring messenger. It stands for the end of winter and the beginning of a new era. So he brings as a force animal a turn in your life.
The spirit animal crane
From time we can’t even remember, people came into contact with animals to benefit or learn from their qualities. In countless ancient cultures tribes or individual members of a tribe return their happiness to their accompanying animal spirits.
Each animal can become such a power animal that finds you when you open it and when you need it. For example, the Crane brings you the art of waiting patiently until the time is right to concentrate and focus on something.
Power of the crane
You will appreciate the crane medicine, if you to help someone in a difficult time of healing. To bring harmony and balance into your life, because you have found there an imbalance in one area. For example, by meditating, you want to hold a lengthy introspection that will lead you to solving a difficult matter.
Power animal oracle crane card pulled right around
The crane stands for hours on one leg and stares into the water. Then when the prey shows up, it can react as fast as lightning. So the crane brings you the art of patience. Let the crane show you how to manage to focus on your goals without being distracted by external circumstances.
The crane also teaches you to keep the balance in your life. Maybe you have been too busy or too little spiritual for yourself lately?
Bring back balance to your world. The crane also helps you if you want to get through meditation to solve a problem. In meditation, you focus entirely on the processes of your body – your breath, your heart. This introspection shows you the secret knowledge that lies hidden within you and invalidates all powers that affect you from the outside.
The crane is also a leader in the underworld. He helps by assisting others in the transition to death. Where death does not have to be meant in the sense of physical dying. It can also simply mean the end of one thing and the transition to another. Assisting others in this change is your job. With the crane, a turn can come into your own life, a new beginning is pending. But do not worry; it’s a good thing, as long as you stay alert and patient.
Symbolism and Meaning
Cranes are omnivores who gather their food as they move from the ground or out of the shallow water and thus count as the herons and storks to the so-called birds of passage. They sleep standing in knee-deep water, which serves as protection against enemies such as the fox. In autumn, the cranes also feed on the crop residues of the fields and the seed.
In order to minimize the damage to the farmers – and to provide enough food for the thousands of birds – nature conservation organizations switched to “distraction feeds” in the 1990s, as can be observed, for example, at Kranich Utkiek in Hohendorf.
Close up you will hardly see a crane in the wild. The animals are very shy and already fly at an approach to about 300 m. You have better chances of seeing Utkiek, but here you should definitely have a pair of binoculars. In their famous courtship the cranes are only occasionally allowed to experience in spring, this takes place mainly at the breeding grounds in northern climes.
While the animals were considered extremely rare until the end of the 1980s, their numbers have multiplied today. The cranes here find optimal conditions without interference from humans and agriculture, especially through the strict protected areas of the Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft National Park, which were declared in 1990.
About the crane is already reported in mythology as a lucky charm. It is found on ancient Egyptian grave plates as well as in Russian fairy tales, in India it is worshiped as God, in China as a divine messenger of heaven and as a symbol of wisdom and a long life, in Japan paper cranes are folded as good luck charms.
However, the crane is said to have gotten its name as “bird of luck” in Sweden, where its appearance in the spring heralds the end of the dark, cold time. No wonder that more and more visitors want to see these large, elegant birds close up (or relatively close by).
As a migratory species he lives in cross-border habitats. Crane pairs bind themselves for a lifetime. The pairs are found one to two years before the reproduction. This “engagement time” is used to find and create a suitable breeding ground. The “dances” of the cranes, early in the spring break, are an expression of inner excitement. These include jumps, wing flapping, zigzags and races in a circle. The young are nest breeders, follow the parents on the second day foraging, are fed by their parents in the first weeks of life with their bills, until they can look for food themselves. They are airworthy after about ten weeks.
The Chinese culture sees the crane as a symbol of longevity and happiness. Because of its high flight, the crane was considered as a mediator between heaven and earth. On the back of the cranes, the “immortals” traveled to the “Islands of the Blessed” to Western paradise. There the snow-white cranes announced eternal wisdom and immortality. The Dying Daoist Priest was also called “Transform into a Feathered Crane” (yü-hua). The serving deity “Boy of the White Crane” delivered messages and supported selfless heroes. In the “Game of the Crane” the qigong uses his lightness as a master of flying as well as his firm and towering position. His movements encourage elegant, stretched and stretched exercises.
As a re-enactment of the fight against the Minotaur, Theseus danced the Crane Dance with his followers, tracing the intricate paths of the Labyrinth to heroic combat. Crane and labyrinth combine here to become the symbol of rebirth. The return of the cranes in the spring make them a messenger of the awakened nature. If a single crane appeared outside normal times, it was considered an omen for war and death. Celtic popular belief assigns the Kranch to the mother goddess.
Belonging to the Moon, they represent the three phases of the vegetative cycle. The Celtic god of the sea, Manannan mac Lir, collected the mysterious, closely guarded treasures of the ocean in a sack of the crane’s skin, which are associated with the collective experience of the Great Mother as the moon goddess.
There is also a connection to Perseus, who also carried a crane bag, the u. a. the first alphabet included. According to another tradition, Hermes was animated by the bird flight of cranes to the alphabet. To the entourage of the Celtic god and king of the non-world and otherworld, Midir, belong three cranes guarding the gate of his kingdom.
In France, even today women are labeled as “cranes” as bad, avaricious or foolishly devalued. Because of his persistent stamina, “cranes” are also referred to as prostitutes on the street.
In Christianity, it is a symbol of love and loyalty (monogamy of the cranes), vigilance, righteousness, goodness and order in the monastic life. In Schillers, cranes of Ibykus, the cranes stand for justice and revenge, they convict the fled murderers of the poet Ibykus.
