Waking Dream: Winged Spirits

(Thursday, April 6, 2017) moon waxing gibbous Leo / tarot seven of pentacles

Last night our yard was covered with wood ducks. Seven pairs. This morning as I walked down the front stone steps my ears were filled with the songs of birds. It made me so happy I wondered if my truest spirit animals are birds. Not mammals.

On my river walk at lunchtime today the brush was dancing with joyful, warbling sparrows. I did not seem to make them fearful when I passed closely by. Even the robins scurried along the path just a few feet in front of me. Feathered friends.

I crossed old highway 13 and walked into the small woods next to Oheyawahi. A hawk screeched with a loud rasp. I looked up at a red-tail circling directly over my head. Round and round. He was hunting. For what?

In a hundred feet or so I spied a flock of wild turkeys ambling through Acacia Cemetary. Ah ha! Do hawks eat such giant fowl?

I walked another couple hundred feet, to the Mendota Bridge, then turned back. As I re-entered the woods another large hawk, this one a white and grey yearling, flew less than thirty feet above me. I looked up. We made eye contact. I am sure of this because she floated low over my upturned face for several slow circumlocutions. I spun on my feet, gazing up at her beautiful outstretched wings.

Two bikers were nearing me on the trail so I started walking again. I contemplated Bonnie’s “dowsing” photography technique. Nature provides every message we need. I thought of my morning musing about spirit birds, and of the ducks, owls and pileated woodpeckers that make their homes in our yard. At the exact moment the pileated entered my conscious mind, an actual creature began hammering loudly on a tree along the river bank!

Day notes:

There is a shadow side to this hawk “dream.” Very close to the end of my walk a grey military cargo plane flew overhead. At as low an altitude as I have experienced. That night Trump bombed Syria.