Flicker shows up again

Photo credit: Gyllian Davies             

Yesterday I was on my way to Portland from home up in the mountains of southeast BC. The sun shining, the sky electric blue, the air crisp enough to keep the snow from becoming instant slush. A great day, even if I was waaaayyyy later leaving than I meant to be. Driving along through the pine forests, I spotted a bird's little body by the road. Up where I live there's often those  dead animal bodies beside the road, vulnerable and final. Often I stop and bless them with tobacco, saying a prayer to help their spirits safely on their journey.

This time - snip-snap, instantaneous conversation inside my head: The noticer observed: "Little bird." The realist commented: "Not so little bird."  The timekeeper urged: "We're so behind; keep going!" The curious child wanted to know: "What was that!" 

It was the shaman who had the last word: "Go back now."  I (mostly) listen when the shaman speaks within me, so I turned around and drove back a half mile or so. 

Pulled over on the sandy verge under the Ponderosa pines. Not a soul to be heard or seen. Tall sentinels of trees, open forest floor, snow still covering the ground. Walked across the road - ah, sadness. A Red-Shafted Flicker. One of the most beautiful birds - such an amazing painting of feathers on its body. Graceful in flight, independent - not often seen in a crowd, always a welcome guest at my feeders. I can never get enough of admiring its beauty.

Photo credit www.wunderground.com  Amazing bird photos!

I bent down to look - not a wisp of breath or movement, and its little pink eyelids closed. Dang. "Baby, what happened to you?" I whispered as I picked it up. "So sorry, beautiful little one!" It was still warm. I felt like.... if I'd only arrived sooner maybe I could have protected it from the collision that likely caused its death. I tenderly wrapped it in a plastic bag and tucked it in my cooler in the back of my car. The dogs watched me with that odd mixture of patience and curiousity they display when I"m doing something they don't quite get! And off we went down the road.

And then something odd began to happen. I didn't notice it at first. But after a couple of hours driving - I could feel that flicker in the back of my car. And it felt like this... initially the sense of another energy presence in the car. Then... I knew it was the flicker. (please understand - I don't usually feel the energetic presence of other beings. Well, maybe my dogs...  well, maybe my friends...  but a bird?  hmmm)

For the next 8 hours as I drove... there was a constant gentle, enfolding of my body, an encircling experience of enough-ness, and a deep sense of being and feeling grounded and whole. Wow. Am I humbled? You bet! Do I wonder what this means? uh-huh. And what do I know? That I just have to wait, patiently, with open-hearted curiousity. Patience is not one of my stronger attributes! Perhaps the flicker will grab me by the nose with its beak and show me what may be already in plain sight! Nature is ever generous. I wait.