Get High: Gifts from the Flightiest of Souls.
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Who knows the exact sound of feathers and hollow bones raking through air?
I am that wild wing-beat, drumbeat.
I am a drifter of my own creation.
Will you find me there in the golden mist, sun-drops falling from my feathers?
Will you hold the dark and lovely parts of my windblown tears, so tired from flying, but too tired to land?
Can I know that you will not crush the twisted light in me that gives me breath to screech at the heavens?
Will you watch me soar?
Don’t compress the clouds that give me flight unless you are ready to see my claws lifting off into the damp, moon- soaked skies of my violent resistance.
Branches
Sitting in the branches can provide quite a view. I was sitting in the branches of a pin oak tree, looking down at the path of my life, illuminated like a glowing river.
I was looking all the way back to birth, and could see flickers of light, even before that, faded soul-memories from long ago.
There were twists and turns on this veined path, and there were people and animals who joined or left the path at many different mile markers as I followed it forward to the present moment.
As I sat in the branches, the leaves around me changed too. I could feel those leaves brushing up against my feathers. The leaves were thick, having changed overnight, from closed, spring leaves to the tougher, full, open leaves of summer.
When I was four years old, my brother found me chopping the trunk of a baby pin oak tree with a plastic toy ax. He stopped me, uprooted the sapling, and moved it to a place in the yard where it could reach the sun.
The tree grew and grew, and he called it my tree. I had tried to destroy it, yet now it was my tree. I loved that tree. I watered it, and it sheltered me in lonely times. We breathed the same air.
There were many times, from underneath that tree, I stared up the street and tried to catch a glimpse of my future. I didn’t see anyone coming, but I was waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Impatient for it to begin.
The path behind was illuminated, the path ahead was invisible. I knew it existed, but I could not yet see it… and so it goes with air. Air is invisible.
I was jealous of the birds that flew overhead, going wherever they were going. They had wings to get there. They did not see their journey as a path, a single road, but instead they took in the entire terrain, the full geography as their view.
They saw it all. I often dreamed of flying at that time, and I remember scraping my belly on a razor-sharp pointed mountaintop in a dream. That never happened to the birds.
Eagle
Halfway through this life, I began to realize that I had never seen a bald eagle in Nature. This was surprising. I began a delicate quest to see one.
The reason that bald eagle quest was delicate was because it had to be like seeing a firefly. It had to feel amazing and unexpected, like the first time you see that first sparse light of the firefly in summer, after a long winter.
You realize then that you had forgotten about this magnificent lighted, winged creature. I knew what I did not want — I did not want to go to the preserve where everyone told me I would see a bald eagle.
So, the subtle, shy quest for the eagle continued. About one year into my exploration of breath work and meditation, I was overwhelmed with choosing an intention for my session. I had so many thoughts and feelings.
I had about 10 different Intentions. As I started the breath work, the intention became clear as I connected with this message: the way to God is through the animals. It was an intense, amazing session.
I connected with pieces of my life purpose, ancestral themes and magic. After that, I poured myself into Nature once again, and noticed the animals all around me.
I began to observe and journal about these experiences, noticing what I was thinking and feeling when I saw a particular animal.
I researched the nature of each animal that I came into contact with, which included all sorts of birds, at least five foxes in a two-month period, a turkey vulture in my yard and then 12 flying overhead, raccoons, opossums, a hummingbird that flew in front of my face, grazing me with his beak for at least 10 whole seconds.
This was a profound time for me, yet still no eagle.
One year later, I was sitting in a circle, with a teacher I respected.
He said, “Set an intention for the New Year that you can grow into, and it should take some time to come up with this, but when it’s right, you will get a bell. You will know.”
At that moment, I wrote this in my journal: I wonder if my intention is still “the way to God is through the animals”?
In that exact moment, a flash of hugeness, a thrust of air and feathers and beak flew toward the window and landed in a tree. When I saw it, there were shadows and I couldn’t be certain, but I gasped, and the group barely noticed my gasp.
I looked to the tree, with half-closed eyes, and found it, my first bald eagle, there in Nature. It was unplanned, it was synchronistic, it was beautiful. The eagle stared back. The intention clearly just got a strong and clear confirmation.
The moments felt unreal and crazy and magnificent, but actually there is nothing crazy in these moments of our lives, only wonder and peace and love that move like electricity, making circuits between us and the Universe.
Air
Eagles are strong, bold, and beautiful. They fly through the air with grace as they hunt. At the age of 44, everything hit me like a sudden weight, suffocating me, knocking the air right out of my lungs.
Deep water filled all of the airy parts and spaces inside of me. Air is our life force. Through our breath, we communicate. Air is invisible.
I was a directionless arrow flying through the wind, my targets sprawled out to the West, South, East and North. So naked in vulnerability and the truth that I could not find my truth.
I was hunting, but the prey was airy and light, and it was possible that it didn’t exist at all.
So, I would like to tell you that I got it all figured out easily and quickly. I would like to tell you that the intention and the eagle inspired a clear-cut path through the trees, a direction toward the sun.
I would like to tell you that I noticed the light on my wings and rode it all the way home. But I can’t, not yet at least. What I can say is that air is movement. Air is lightness, freedom and flight.
Air is the element that we cannot quite see, unless it is blowing through the trees, across the ocean, through our feathers. Air supports the wandering spirit, and allows us the space to connect to our unique gifts.
Find your sight, your strength, your precision in the hunt, find your eagle gifts.
When you feel flighty, or airy, or light-headed, stretch your wings and say Yes to flying higher, say Yes to exploring the drifting air currents before you. Look into the lake inside your own eyes and see your reflection there.
See the wild native spirit, draped in golden eagle feathers, wings so huge and powerful, your wisdom constantly moving and changing with the winds. See your dripping desire to breathe your sultry energy into every second of your life.
Get high on air. Fly to the sun, dip down to the rivers, shriek your power to the world. Keep your talons sharp, my winged warrior flock. The battle has just begun.
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Maura Coyne is a seeker, a dirty wild horse girl, and a lover of the passionate life. She practices hypnotherapy, equine therapy and energy/breathwork to assist others in removing the blocks and obstacles that often prevent them from moving forward on their life path. Teaching others to transmute the heavy and dark challenges that they face, by moving them into the light of creativity, strength and spirit, she is committed to healing herself along the way, and witnessing miracles in Nature. If you are interested in a little soul archaeology of your own, contact her at Wild Goose Farm, named for her patriarchal Coyne ancestral line. She aspires to continue going on wild goose chases for the rest of her time on the planet.
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