Aviana, 20th Century Crane Goddess by Judith Shaw

People think that goddesses only came into being long, long ago. People think goddesses are only found in ancient mythology. But people are wrong.  I know because I am Aviana, the Wetlands Crane Goddess who helped create the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Reserve of New Mexico. I first manifest on Earth as an Otherworldly force in the early 1900s. It was the migrating birds and waterfowl, in particular sandhill cranes, who called me into being.  

You see before Euro-Americans arrived in the land of the American Southwest, the Rio Grande was a mighty river which flooded every year bringing life and renewal to the land. These wetlands were a favorite wintering habitat of the Sandhill Cranes. They left their summer nesting grounds of Alaska, Canada and the northern United States and headed south for the winter.  Every year in November hundreds of thousand of cranes arrived in New Mexico. Here they fed on grasses and small animals throughout the short winter days. 

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