Hawk Eyes

I ask myself every so often – usually while in the throes of a headache or in a routine with little time for writing – whether I should give up on this project that creeps slower than I thought. That’s a serious question when so many more immediate or important needs loom over each day. Yesterday was that weighty kind of day when I sat at the morning table rather than writing at the morning table, not unusual of late . . .

I noticed a large hawk perched in the tree outside the window, at first just his tightly folded back side looming in my range – a foreboding figure cloaked in a dark spread of cape. Its head began to turn nearly 300 degrees from one side to the other, as I thought only owls could do; its head would turn to the right and continue over that right shoulder until its head faced over the left shoulder; and having done that, it would turn its head to the left and continue round until it was looking over the right shoulder – and after I had seen its beak and features from all these many angles, and it had sort of proven to me all that it could do with its limber neck, that is when it carefully turned its body around, as a tightrope walker might do, upon the branch to face me so that I could observe it front wise too – and there it remained for more than an hour. Its mode was not hunting but observation, sometimes directly at me in the window, sometimes at a squirrel obliviously eating nuts on the ground eight feet beneath the hawk’s talons, sometimes at a thing in the distance or nearby. I took many pictures, and His Majesty was not bothered in the least by my clicking and flashing and occasional bumps on the window pane – eyes like a hawk, as the saying goes – and so I knew this hawk was not oblivious to me, but somehow even wanted me to see it perched there on the branch like an answer to a prayer – for that’s what answers do, I thought, they just sit there, present themselves, don’t ask or deliberate or shift or fly away – they present themselves, as is, as are, as am. Take it or leave it. That’s how the hawk sat there.

I got up with trepidation and quiet to fetch my book, Animal Speak by Ted Andrews, which is about the meaning of various animal totems and sightings, the spiritual meaning for ourselves as we sight these creatures and interpret them in context of the circumstances or questions in our lives – and yes, the hawk waited for me; almost, I would say awaited my return, for I saw its eyes fix upon the window till I got there and sat down again – they are messengers, the book says, and they represent creative energy and a long range view of creative projects. They are also great protectors of that energy – certainly I saw its aspect of protection in that great dark cape it presented to me at the first sighting, as though showing me what massive wraps were at its disposal – that – and then of course the circular eye watch, like a beam of light from a lighthouse, to show me what kind of range it took to guard me. Then I thought about the stance it took – patience in observation – I kept thinking of that word, stance . . . was that it’s message?  And what about patience?

In this case, there really is a full circle (300 degrees, anyway) happy ending to the dark morning, as it began, because I started to write something I had been putting off for a long time, and finished more than I would have thought – through the clatter of other needs and voices at my side – a stance.  In the end, it was that hour long stance of patient observation that moved me . . .