I was very low the other day and almost decided not to go to Blackwater Refuge as I’d planned. But I did. Driving across the wide expanse of the Bay Bridge, my inner clouds began to float a bit in harmony with those reflected in the water. I had cigarettes in my car that I keep for a friend of mine who is “quitting” smoking. To keep her from buying a pack, she comes over once in awhile and I alot her one or two. So feeling like a wildish teenager, I smoked one as I drove–with each inhale that sense of spreading space.

A vulture atop a church spire tickled me so much I had to make a U=turn on the highway and go back to photograph his flaunting of “authority”.
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As I was driving down the long long straight straight road–Egypt Road–to the refuge, miles of farmland spread on each side, when suddenly a lightning bolt of feathered black and white struck the ground . “Ohmygod is that an eagle?!!” my brain screamed. So excited I was shaking, I stopped in the middle of the road (no shoulder), fumbled to get my camera free of its case, and jumped out of my car. He glared at me, charged a bit, wings up. “Get away from my lunch.” I respectfully got no closer but took picture after picture till I saw a truck coming fast down the road towards us. As I pulled away, looking in rear view mirror, I saw him soar up as the truck passed him. Better than a drug, his very being had charged me with vitality. And I wasn’t even at the sanctuary yet!

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Once there, the lightning bolt of eagle shifted to fluid ballet of cormorants, drying in the sun.

~~~~ Looking over the vast expanse of marsh and water, I felt like I could breathe as I hadn’t since I couldn’t remember when. Deep connected breath. Ahhhhhh. I felt home. There is a rhythm in such places–or I guess I should say everything feels in rhythm, feels like it is right, is just as it should be. And that rhythm permeates, creates a resonance in all who enter–if you let it.

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The trees danced, wavy reflections in deep amber water of a small creek, like other worlds I could fall into.
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Herons and egrets did their zen thing while mallards sparked emeralds and laughed like drunken sailors.

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Towards end of day, I heard a sound which went straight to my heart–the “hoo! hoo!” of tundra swans. All curves and glowing pearl in the growing dusk. I never see them without a mix of great joy and of sadness. I miss them so after having lived next to a flock of them one year, feeding them every morning–usually 100 lbs a day. I felt like I belonged with them in a way I never have with any other group. If I did not rise with the sun, they would hoot and whoop and beat their wings. Silly birds, fussy, preening–but I loved them.

It was a magic day and I felt fully alive. So that it was particularly disappointing to awake the next day feeling so down again. Sad. I think I am beginning to understand though what is going on. I’ve noticed this “backlash” a few times lately when I get really energized/charged. I think I am afraid of coming fully alive, being impassioned, engaged. The part of me that has been squooshed all my life–call it essence, core, the true self–is longing to emerge. All of the distractions and masks have been ripped away one by one the last few years. My work, addictive behaviors and relationships, the things I used to anaesthetize myself, to keep the beast caged. I don’t think I”ve ever really been fully engaged in life, more of an observer, delighting in it, but not really invested in a do or die way. The persona I created to survive likes it better that way, it’s safer. The one place I have been passionately engaged is in being Tiger’s mom, and that has been both the most joyful and terrifying experience of my life. So I am at the point, I think, where I am experiencing these two sides of myself in battle. Sometimes it feels like life and death. Not that I am actively wanting to die, but just not sure I can get past the part of me that gave up a long time ago.

I long to be in rhythm with my deepest self, to not let all the old defenses and patterns jangle me or jam me up, disconnect me. I long for it so much that at times the frustration of not being there makes me feel I could burst. The armoring in my body won’t let the energy flow and pain results. It almost was easier when my energy was so low that I didn’t feel the conflict. I also feel scared by winter’s cold harshness. The sun and nature give me the heat/vitality that I have not been generating myself.

The eagle gives me hope though–I keep seeing them almost every time I go near water now. In a blasted bare tree in the fog. In a nest looking out over the river. And even in stories. I was at a workshop about “oneness”–having all your parts be unified. And it began with the teacher telling a story about how beautiful all the birds in India are after a big rain. “But” she said, “the most beautiful of all is……….the eagle”. I got shivers before she even said it, knew it was coming. She told a story about a man who took an eagle egg and had his hen hatch it, and the eagle grew up thinking it was a chicken. Till one day an eagle flew over. He was so amazed by the sight and asked his mother if he could fly like that. And of course the mother said no. But the eagle himself dived down when he saw his son there, and taught him to fly. I had tears in my eyes by the end of the story. And hope that I may yet learn to fly.

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