For
over a year now it’s been my practice, if you will, to go by a wetlands area
right by my house. I go nearly every day. I began going there because I felt a
need for solace and this place drew me.
I had often gone there but not as a daily practice. If I don’t go or if
my schedule doesn’t allow time, I still manage to see it, send my love and say
hello and goodbye; often as I pass over the small bridge that overlooks my part
of the river.
This
place has become my spiritual home, my refuge. I love it because of the birds,
the small river that is sometimes just mudflats or rivulets of water braiding
and moving over the pale sand; because of the way the sky looks over the trees,
the reeds and the river and reflected in the river too. I love the wind or the
stillness there. I love it when the trees are fully clothed in leaves or slowly
shedding them as all the colors of the fall dance in the autumn lights and the
colors reflected in the river draw from the season’s palette. I love the sounds
of the woodland birds all around; the rattling of the kingfisher as it circles
around the river and disappears back into the trees.
My
special place is the back part of the river. There is a pair of eagles that
live there. I first saw one of them over eight years ago, before anyone knew we
had an eagle in the area. They have been raising their young every season since.
I mostly see them on the river side; many people see them on the street side
across the river from me because they go to see the eagle’s nest and the young.
They have to sit in a parking lot which now has a designated eagle viewing area
to see the eagles and their nest. My view, when the eagles are around, gives me
the chance to see them drink the river or to come soaring round the bend in the
river toward their home area. I see them take breaks from raising their young
and doing other things as well but I’ll leave some stories for another
time.
Just the
other day I saw a deer come onto the mudflats to drink. I never saw a deer there
before but someone I met at the river said there was a deer path from the
street side that led all the way down to the river across from my lookout area.
The
park I go to, my lookout area, is small but gives me a beautiful view all
around. The beauty of it comes through is so many ways but clearly going there
nearly every day brings a special relationship with it. It provides the chance
for chance things to occur, like seeing the deer. Which, by the way, not used
to seeing deer there, I first tried to figure out what kind of bird it was.
When it rearranged itself from drinking the river to standing up, I saw it
unfold into a small buck with antlers. Both of us were transformed.
It
might be a stretch to call going to the river, or the wetlands, a practice. It
has become a regular part of my life. It keeps me feeling connected and loved.
I go there to journey too. Being there is a way to be at home with my deepest
self. One day my notes from the river might be a book, right now they’re a way
to be present to what I have experienced which becomes a springboard for other
thoughts. I feel like I belong. I don’t go there just to see the birds but
sometimes curiosity about the osprey in the spring and summer and the eagles
too, get the best of me and I go hoping to see what they’ve been up to. The leaves
coming on the trees, I now know, mean I won’t be seeing the eagles so much. But
I do see them a lot this time of year. The osprey has, like clockwork, returned
on St. Patty’s Day. I go to welcome them. And in the fall, round about
mid-October, I wish them a safe journey because they head to South
America.
The
place I go is such a small park that few in the area know it. It has a name,
the same name as the street that leads to the small parking lot; but I renamed
it for the redwing blackbirds that live in the reeds as you pull into the lot.
I call it Okalee Lookout because “oka-lee” is the redwing’s song. Naming it was
sort of a revelation. It showed me how much I felt a sense of connection here
and how the name could be anything so long as I know where I meant and didn’t
feel possessive about it. Even though it’s my wetlands and my river, I know I
belong to it just as much as it belongs to me.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
§
Went
by the river just now, around 11:30 A.M. with Lynn to say hello to the eagles
and a quick thank you. Well, both were
in the tree over and just off to the right of the osprey platform downriver. I
guess, never thought of this, their view there encompasses the whole of the
river and their home area. Maybe they’re keeping an eye out for the pesky
osprey that pinned their kid down in late summer. I told them about that incident. In fact,
told them twice because I saw it twice. Adolescent eagles soon grow to be the
fierce mama and papa we have living with us but osprey are daring creatures
themselves and probably tired of eagles trying to steal from them.
§
It
is always special to go there when it’s a day like this, a special time set
aside for celebration. Our T day dinner is small this year but I’m feeling good
and grateful.
§
The
sky is overcast and its cold, I think mid-thirties. The leaves on the last hold
out in front of our house have carpeted our front yard and it seems like we
didn’t knock ourselves out raking. It’s another gift for today. The blanket of
leaves looks like it should and keeps that harsh cold and stone emptiness of
winter away for another day. The river
was high and the sky was beautiful in it. When the eagle drinks the river it’s
drinking the sky’s reflection. When I go there, I don’t seem to be tasting the
river but I am quenching my thirst and finding the comfort and connection I
have come to love and need. I am truly
grateful.
§
And
I forgot to add that for the first time, I believe, I saw a marsh hawk there, a
harrier. Lynn saw it also and even says she thought she saw two. Now that would
be something since I don’t believe that they travel together. But this is my
journey bird and so it was especially beautiful to see it clear as I did, on
this day.
