Revisited by Eagle

Lessons from nature on the occasion of my 53rd year.

When you ask for a sign and nature delivers. ©SL Sourwine

Today is my 53rd birthday. As birthdays go it’s lovely—I get to have one, people I love from all over the world are reaching out and reminding me I’m special to them, I’m getting ice cream soon… But to be honest it’s been a hell of a year. In many ways I’ve not found my feet at all since coming back to Canada from Scotland. My income evaporated, I’ve been bouncing between places to stay, I owe great people money, and my sense of ‘corporate’ self value has been deeply rocked as my considerable skill and experience seemed invisible on the job market for anything besides my previous career. I’ve been quite cast adrift.

And yet, my favourite words, there has been the most wonderful things in this time too. I’ve been able to help my parents after 25 years of being absentee from daily life. And I’m much more helpful these days than I would have been then anyway! I know my nieces and nephew who are all under three. I’ve reconnected with the landscape of my childhood, where all this love came from in the first place for nature and the understanding of what peace comes when we allow ourselves to be a part of it. I’ve sold art and made things I’ve never tried before.

So like this powerful landscape of southern Saskatchewan I find myself in, the pressure has been volatile and capable of producing great storms. The severe storm warnings appear regularly on my phone and in my heart as I try to figure out how to navigate this next phase of my life. To figure out how to be ME and thrive in these new circumstances. I forget the lessons from nature, that I was raised in these storms. It’s normal. I remember that they often clear the air of oppressive heat and bring much needed moisture. The hail and the winds remind it’s not always up to us.

That’s when Eagle came for me. Again. (Those of you who’ve been here for a while will remember that I dreamed an eagle brought me this story I am trying so hard to write. You can read about it here.) When I was even younger and confused and uncertain about which way my life would go I was given an eagle feather as a gift from a Lakota friend who told me it was always mine.

This time Eagle brought me another message. If it can find me here so can I. It has taken me a couple of weeks to digest it into words so I could share. It’s two-fold. You cast a much bigger shadow than you know. And it is not mine to worry about casting the shadow, it’s mine to worry about caring for myself and what I am. To go all in on the minutes and words and gifts I have access to right now and not worry so much about how the sun is making me look to others. This was a young golden eagle. The shadow is a promise of fierceness to be. A symbol it doesn’t even know it inhabits yet.

And that made me think of this story I’m trying to write. How all these feelings I have felt must be familiar to Erna and the members of Columba’s monastic community cast on an island in the Hebrides to build something that didn’t exist yet.

But it will.

Susie

The young Golden Eagle who brought my message.