A Magical Moment
To see something extraordinary three times is a blessing, and a message, and a gift. An extraordinary thing happened the other day that was such a good sign and omen, that I know you'll just love it.
When I looked out the front window, I saw a giant falcon fly into our Gravenstein apple tree, and perch on the lowest branch, only a few feet off the ground. This bird looked like a peregrine falcon to me, with distinctive striped/dappled patterns on its golden chest and on both sides, giant yellow-orange talons (that seemed as big as its head) and a beautiful, curved beak. It was watching activity at our neighbor's house across the street, where tree trimmers had been clearing branches away from overhead electrical lines. There was a pile of branches in front of our neighbor's driveway–and a mother and her young son had stopped to look at all the branches. The falcon watched all this with great interest, settling into our apple tree where it remained for about 10 minutes or so.
The falcon's head swiveled around to see me watching it–even though I was inside the house, about ten feet away from the window. I was amazed to see how alert and aware this bird was, and how keen its vision must be. After the falcon had rested in our apple tree for about ten minutes, it flew directly toward me (!!!) and then just up above me, to the right, to sit atop the roof over our front porch! It saw me watching it from a respectful distance inside the house. I could tell it was watching my every move, since any time I made even the slightest movement, the falcon swiveled its head to stare at me intently. The falcon also kept a close eye on our front yard, no doubt aware that we have a gopher who burrows there regularly.
After many minutes of sitting on the porch roof, the falcon flew off toward our backyard. I went to look out the kitchen window, and a few minutes later, the falcon flew right toward me a second time, (!!!) so I got a perfect view of its beautiful golden breast and outstretched wings–and then it flew up over the roof of our house. I returned to the living room, to see if I could spot it in the front yard, but saw no sign of it. I then returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, when I saw the falcon fly directly toward me a third time (!!!)–looking at me as it approached the house, and then landed atop our front porch roof once more.
This falcon was so gorgeous in full flight, and so regal when keeping watch on the yard, but the it's most remarkable quality was how much love I could palpably feel from being in the presence of this beautiful bird. I was especially overwhelmed with how much love it had shown me by flying directly toward me, while looking me in the eye, THREE times that afternoon. I see a lot of birds in our garden, including crows, bluejays, house finches, and hummingbirds–and in the entire 30 plus years I've lived here, yesterday was the first time a bird ever flew directly toward me while looking right at me the whole time. Only one other bird has flown up to a window and peered in at me on the other side, and that was a hummingbird several years ago, who seemed to be saying “Thank you!” to me, for having refilled the nectar in the hummingbird feeder. This summer I've also had a few hummingbirds hover close to me, and sometimes fly into a spray of water when I'm watering the yard. All of those moments are memorable, indeed, but this felt truly exceptional.
This bird looked like a young peregrine falcon. Peregrine falcons have been my favorite bird ever since I was a little girl, and saw one in a children's book. I'd been watching three baby peregrine falcons that hatched this Spring up at the top of UC Berkeley's campanile tower, where a Cal falcons camera monitor showed livestream video from their nesting box from the time their mother sat on the eggs, to the time the young peregrine's flight feathers came in, and up until their very first practice flights.
Blessing, Message, and Gift
There was so much love in this bird's visit that I spent quite a bit of time just soaking it in. This falcon had a truly majestic presence, and in addition to that, it seemed especially attuned with me–the way it flew directly toward me while clearly seeing me (inside my house) three times in a row. I am aware that to see something extraordinary three times is a blessing, and a message, and a gift.
What I'd been doing in the days before the peregrine's visit was honoring the memory of my dear beloved deceased friend and mentor, the American linguist, Dan “Moonhawk” Alford. Moonhawk often described himself as hanging out
“at the lonely intersection of language, physics, Native America and consciousness,”
and the few precious hours I spent hanging out with him at my first Language of Spirit conference in New Mexico was life-changing for me. Moonhawk has a way of illuminating important ideas, such as how language shapes consciousness, and he has a genius for inspiring people to think differently. Moonhawk pointed out how it might be, for example, that in Nature, “A does not always equal A,” because
“you can never step into the same river twice.”
Such a seemingly simple point gets to the heart of how our western science and logic was constructed with a mechanistic bias, while the natural world is ever-changing, generous, alive and profound.
Another mind-expanding point that Moonhawk made is that our English language is noun-based, which affects our view of the cosmos. Moonhawk pointed out that he's spent time with Native Americans who could talk for hours, or even for an entire day, without once uttering a single noun. Such a thing is mind-blowing to most westerners, whose thoughts shape the way they think to an extraordinary degree. Even the idea of God is a verb to Native Americans, and this mental conceptualization of reality is so different from typical western reductionist viewpoints, yet such a perfect match for quantum physicists, such as David Bohm, who'd met with Moonhawk and Leroy Little Bear at a special dialogue hosted by the Fetzer Institute in Michigan in 1992.
I'd been reading Moonhawk's articles on his website, after having watched a DVD documentary film honoring him and physicist David Bohm and Blackfoot indian Leroy Little Bear, called “The Language of Spirituality” this weekend. I'd been talking with Moonhawk in my heart for the past several days–hearing his jokes, witticisms, and responses in my heart–so it feels right that Moonhawk's spirit is so with me. And indeed the peregrine falcon's visit was a blessing, a message, and a gift.
As always, I encourage us all to keep asking my favorite question, “How good can it get?”
I invite you to watch the companion video to this blog post at:
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