As Rett and I drive through rural, central Ohio, and occasionally as we spot or hear the call of a Red-tailed Hawk over the skies at Merry Mount, we experience a sense of the sacred.
There is something about this indigenous raptor that suggests majesty, grace, and the angelic. Rett, often sees a large Red-tailed Hawk at the east end of Junk Road that she has named, “Your Majesty”.
This week, I began re-reading Sightings, a wonderful book by American author, philosopher, and ornithologist, Sam Keen. I share a pertinent passage about the mystical Red-tailed Hawk.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all claim a definitive knowledge of the nature, will, and purpose of God that was revealed to Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed, recorded in scripture, and mediated through cult, clergy, and creed. What the great monotheistic religions neglect to honor are the unique ways in which the experience of the holy comes to individuals. Being focused on the transcendent God, they tend to overlook the sacred moments-the sightings and peak experiences-when a solitary self stands in awe before the miracle of existence, is astonished by the grace of soaring Red-tailed Hawks, is moved by the beauty of a trumpeting stargazer lily, or is comforted by a sonorous symphony of frogs on a summer night….So a Red-tailed Hawk may become a living metaphor of the Divine.
In ancient Egyptian, Norse, and Native American folklore, Red-tailed Hawks were considered messengers from the Gods that delivered gifts of mental clarity and a broad perspective.
Make Me Red-Tailed Hawk
Make me red-tailed hawk, prince of feather, wing, flight, oh Lord of height, shape me to glide the roof of the storm, pilot the crease of the wind, oh let me see for once the small- ness of things, thinness of line between suburb and field, salt- marsh and bay, beauty and grief— teach me to lift, ebb, sail above the curse of gravity, of stone, oh Lord of whirlwind, make me hollow-boned, swift and light, twin of eagle, twin of owl, twin of sky, and I will skirr the breeze, yes, I will dance the air, oh and fields will go on blooming, bow- ing, cities pushing, crowding, plowing, but I will drift, and drift- ing, sing—yes, I will rise above the little things.
-Abigail Carroll
I leave you with the cry of a Red-tailed Hawk from the Macaulay Library at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
CPW
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