Calling Card – Photo: L. Weikel
Calling Card
When I went out on our porch this morning to give it a quick sweep, I looked over the edge and found a calling card. Not, perhaps, the type you might be thinking I’d find, though.
It was not the digestive ‘leavings’ of a creature, thank goodness. Nor was it the entrails of an unfortunate victim of the various four legged and winged predators we have skulking around in our fields, forests, and skies.
Nope. It was a feather. A hawk feather, to be precise. And I could not be more delighted.
As I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before, when Hawk shows up in my life I always sit up and pay attention. Or I at least feel touched by a sense of specialness – sort of like I’m being given a gift from the Nature Spirits.
When I saw that feather laying on the ground this morning, nestled in the grass beside the huge stump of our now deceased English Walnut, a huge smile flashed across my face and my heart quickened. I propped my broom against one of the lattice-worked stools and nearly skipped down the steps, making my way around the back corner of the house to retrieve it.
What a prize!
Pursuing Tasty Snacks? Or…
Of course, on a purely mundane level, discovering a hawk feather quite close to one of my bird feeders does not bode well for my fine-feathered, mostly finch, friends who frequent those very feeders. That’s especially true when I realize that, at that very moment, there are no songbirds anywhere near the feeders. It’s as if they’ve all frozen in motion somewhere, playing avian statues.
And yet, aside from the single hawk feather, there’s no sign of a struggle; not anything close to an indication that a raptor may have snagged a snack and met a feisty refusenik who may even have succeeded in dislodging a feather of its predator.
So why remain on the level of the superficial, the physical, the obvious?
Bringing a Message
I’d much rather contemplate the possibility that Hawk is coming to me specifically to rekindle the flames of my passion for writing. That it may be whispering, “It’s time now, Lisa. Time to stop, take yourself to the creek, and go within. Time to remember why you write. And time to remember our quest many moons ago when we worked together to birth Owl Medicine.”
Yeah, maybe that’s what I want the Hawk feather to mean.
And truth be told it could mean that. It could also simply be calling me and bringing me the message to, “Pay attention.”
A lot has happened in the past few days – suddenly – to people who matter a great deal to me. People I love. And I want them to know how deeply I care, and how much I want them to recover and to get better quickly and easily.
So perhaps Hawk left its calling card to remind me, too, of the message that things (LIFE) can change drastically in the blink of an eye. We all know it; yet sometimes we need the reminder.
Maybe I will gain a little more understanding as the days unfold. Or maybe I just need to let myself be – the messenger.
(T-916)