For some reason, last sleep I had a wyrd dream about cassowaries. Even in my many shamanic vision dreams over the years, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I can remember any cassowaries in my dream space.... 

I was wandering through a densely forested area of dream space when three of them (one white, one male, one female) came and found me and circled me chiding me like a lost hatchling strayed from the group, "There you are, _______!" (They called me by my spirit name) "We have been looking everywhere and everywhen for you -- we're late for the next lesson for you hatchlings!"  Then they herded me to the secret place off the path deeper in the forest for the next teachings on fate/free will and the dance of time.

Now, I know that in real life, cassowaries are shy loners but extremely stubborn territorial with deadly claws so they can be dangerous become the big baddies of the avian world if confronted. And they are the closest thing we still have to dinosaurs and you do NOT mess with them as they will gladly eff you up if they feel threatened. If you are ever on a beach in Australia or New Guinea and a cassowary takes over your umbrella and blanket area, you just let them stay there as long as they want until they decide on their own to leave. And that they are also the only animal that can spread the seeds of a large number of rainforest trees so they are forest creators/protectors.

BUT my dream cassowaries, the nine of them were super friendly with me like we were the oldest of friends and (re)introduced me to the two young hatchlings who were there to learn along with me. The adult cassowaries were all very nice and protective of me and were trying to fluff my hair and clothes like I had baby hatchling feathers. And they all enjoyed getting scritches under the chin and on their head where their adult feet couldn't reach to scratch without causing damage from their sharp claws. Even the three white regal ones enjoyed the chin scratches while the other six (three male markings, three female markings) were rather more muppety personalities/movements. 

Then all the adult cassowary started speaking in prophecies of what MUST be, what MAY be but could be altered, and what is entirely a choice of free will. Like a lecture of fated events and possibilities and we had to try to figure out by the quality of the prophecies as they were spoken which of the three categories it fell into. (But I'm not supposed to talk about the content of what they saw/shared.) They spoke only in prophetic perhapses of what WILL be, what MAY yet be but is statistically most likely, and what paths can still be CHOSEN if action is taken. And they moved their necks a bit like the fireys dance from Labyrinth (only they never took their heads off or exchanged them or anything liked that) 

It all ended in a weirdly cryptic ululating song/dance about what they do and don't know and the relation of free will to fate and a coordinated very avian circle dance number that they taught me and the hatchlings then demanded we get up to dance with them to learn what scratches can't be crossed and what patterns can be reworked in the dancing and how to use scratch-dance patterns to always protect the egg and the forest. It started by singing a ululating song about the cosmic dance between fate and free will which turned into a singing circle dance to teach us hatchlings then after the first round of them dancing it around us was finished, they told us hatchlings to come join them in the circle dance so we could learn the dance to honor the scratches that cannot be crossed, how to alter the scratch patterns you may as you dance, and where you can draw any path of marks you please, and the importance of weaving a dance to protect the eggs and the world forest. And then for the third round of it the adults removed themselves out of the circle to observe us singing/dancing this part of the time dance and then gave us prophecy worded critiques afterward and then we all sang/danced it for a fourth and final time at the end of which point I woke up.

I can't share the individual names or the collective name they gave themselves in the dream when I respectfully asked them what they wished to be called, but my brain translated the collective name as something akin to the fates/norns only more so, because they don't just deal with fated things but also what free will can still alter. 

I don't actually know what language the cosmic cassowaries were speaking/singing in the dream to teach me and the two hatchling cassowaries -- in spirit dreams, it's more thought/intention and the spoken language(s) translates no matter the species or how the spoken/sung words sound. It ululated a lot though.

So anyway. Today on New Year's Eve, my thoughts have been full of dancing cassowaries and enigmatic prophecies and contemplating the interplay of fate vs free will, in individuals and societies, and how to think of it all as a cosmic dance and how our place in the dance affects the whole.