Monday, July 2, 2012

Presence of the hawk

I have taken the red-tailed hawk out of my drum bag. He's a stuffed toy, but when I squeeze him he delivers an excellent recording of the hawk's skirling cry, Keeyrrrrr. When I want to save my vocal chords, I squeeze him instead of attempting to mimic the cry myself. I also use him to appeal to the child selves of participants in my workshops, and to encourage them to connect with the bird tribes - and remember they can fly - for shamanic dream journeying.
    I am sitting on the floor of a workshop space with some of the participants. Nearest to me are a young Asian man and woman. I am delighted to see that the idea of the hawk has come fully alive for them. Each of them now has a living red-tailed hawk. They handle their birds gently, though they are clearly very excited. Equally gently, I rub my toy hawk against the live birds. This is so good, so happy. My toy hawk - should I now call it a hawk fetish? - is bringing living hawks to those who are learning to fly.



I wake from this dream into the golden morning light with the sense that there are hawks in my house. I can feel the stir in the air where they passed. I track, with my inner sight, into the upstairs library, illuminated by a large skylight. I sense the hawks flying up, through the skylight, into the clear blue sky.
    I am always open to friendly visitations from the red-tailed hawk. I moved to a farm in upstate New York after a hawk dropped a feather between my knees when I was sitting under an old white oak behind the house wondering whether to make the move. Later the hawk appeared to wing the lucid dream journeys in which I met the ancient Native shaman, called Island Woman in my books, who taught me that dreaming is the key to soul healing. When I was engaged in writing my new book, Dreaming the Soul Back Home, hawk came to me, batting my arm with its wing while I was drumming for a circle, to carry me to a place of vision where I could renew my contact with Island Woman and her indigenous tradition of seeing and healing.
    Hawk brings the gift of vision. Look at the skull of a red-tailed hawk and you will find that half the space is reserved for the eyeballs. Like all the high-flying birds, it also brings the gift of being able to see what is going on down on the ground from a higher perspective and from different angles. And, at least for me, it is second to none as a mode of transportation.
    Tekateweiarikhtha, as Island Woman taught me to say in the Mohawk language. "I take off now beating my wings."

5 comments:

Patricia said...

It would be such a nice gift for me, to hear you say "Tekateweiarikhtha", to hear it from your voice. And then learn to say it myself.

Robert Moss said...

Patricia - Then you need to spread you wings and get yourself to one of my programs. We have two people flying from Australia to take my dream teacher training near Seattle in September, and other Australians who come all the way to the US just for my workshops.

doblin said...

When I awoke this morning, there was the sound of a hawk in the sky.

Patricia said...

Interesting you mention Australia, my son flies in from Melbourne on the 5th. Maybe next year Seattle and this year Turkey?

Barbara Butler McCoy said...

Hi - I'm catching up on my blog-reading and I happen to notice that you've moved from a post about Rome to a post about hawks, and I think of the practice of augury by the ancient Greeks and Romans ... perhaps a clue for a book?