Omen

stock photo of Hawk in flight from Wikimedia Commons.

After two and a half weeks of relative calm, my paying job turned nasty again on Friday – yet another case of insufficient resources to meet the expectations which weren’t communicated clearly to begin with.  Nothing I can’t work through, but it really threw me and it’s taken a day and a half to get myself righted (which in itself is an improvement – in past years it’s taken far longer).

If what I want most in life – my true calling – is a strong spiritual practice and service to the Goddess and God and all of Life, then that’s what I need to do, no matter what.  I’m very well acquainted with the Buddhist idea of “chop wood, carry water” but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in from the intellectual level to the emotional level.  In my case, it means practice even when (maybe especially when) my stress level is high.  It means practice even when I can’t see a time when my job will be back to “normal.”  It means practice even when it seems like I’ll be a beginner all my life.  

This afternoon I was leaving to run some errands when I looked North and saw a large, beautiful bird in flight.  Based on the size and the feathers on the wing tips I think it was a hawk of some description, but I’m no bird expert.  It soared for a few seconds, turned toward me, then dove toward the ground.

And then it disappeared.  

It didn’t go behind the trees, or behind the houses, and I didn’t lose it in the sun.  It simply was there, and then it wasn’t.

I’m not one to run to a book or the internet to look up meanings of animal oracles.  Different animals have different meanings in different cultures and I didn’t grow up learning any of them.  For me, they mean what they tell me at the time.  And this bird might as well have been pulling an aerial advertising banner saying “follow me.”  

Follow me into the Otherworld and learn what you need to learn.  Earn your living and then let it disappear while you do what you’re called to do.  Keep practicing, because it’s what your soul desires most.

I’m sure the more skeptical readers of this blog can think of a thousand “rational explanations” for what I saw.  So can I, but I no longer find it helpful to rationalize away all the magic in my life.  I needed magic this afternoon, and I found it.

Off to practice…