Category: sunrise
The Eagles (for once, NOT the rock band)
I have delayed, avoided, and postponed writing this because I wanted to find the words to convey my recent profound experience.
For more than a month, we have had Bald Eagles visiting on our quiet little dead-end street, unusual in the middle of one of the largest, fastest growing cities in Washington state.
I’ve lived in my home for almost 44 years and have sometimes seen eagles circling high above. Twice, I was even gifted with a low fly-by right in my driveway! But I have only seen them land once before. (I wrote a whole story about that dramatic event but I’ll save it for a later post!)
A few weeks ago on my daily walk I just happened to spot, well actually hear some sky activity. A couple of Bald Eagles, apparently cruising our neighborhood for prey or a nesting site (although it seems late in the year for that latter). Not sure why they are hanging out here. (Hope all the neighbors are keeping their pet Gerbils inside.)
It was a really gray day which made it impossible for my hard-working point and shoot Canon to get a good shot when they landed in a tree top.
And then, a few days later, I was at my computer sending a favorite link to my new blogging friend, Lisa, at https://dailymusing57.com/ (a terrific Blog, by the way). The link is to a live camera for the Decorah Eagles. As I was typing, I heard that unmistakable eagle-screaming right outside my window! I ran outside onto my deck (without my camera-Dang!) and witnessed the most amazing thing.
This deck is very large, about 600 square feet, and wide open. It’s actually the roof over an old 3 car garage. Before the trees in my neighborhood matured, from my deck I could see the Space Needle and the Olympic Mountains! And every year, lounging on this deck, I would watch the big fireworks shows in July or the Blue Angels performing in August.
But I had never seen a show like this one! There were FIVE BALD EAGLES circling my above me!! Like a small Convocation! (you gotta be impressed I knew that word!) It looked like two were fending off or chasing the other three. Maybe it was a territory battle or some kind of mating ritual. I don’t know!
The twosome flew very close together in large and then smaller and smaller circles. They landed on the top of the biggest tree right in front of my house. The other three flew off into the distance.
In all these years living in my house, no eagle has ever landed right in front of my house before! Maybe I was just tapped into Eagle Energy on that day or something. I mean, what are the odds I’d be typing away about the Decorah Bald Eagles at the exact moment my local ones appear? I have often wondered if Eagles are a “totem” (spirit animal) for me. Supposedly, if an animal presents itself to you three times, they are yours! So I looked them up.
http://www.pure-spirit.com/more-animal-symbolism/629-eagle-symbolism
For the next several days, the Pair that won the turf battle, hung out in some trees right up the street from me.
Finally, a sunny day. I shot so many pictures, I broke my camera…literally. I now have to use glass tape to keep the battery door closed.
Now my neighbors all know about our visitors. I am the longest (and oldest) resident on our street and the self-appointed Wildlife Reporter for our neighborhood e-mail list. When I am in the street with my camera, looking up, they stop their cars and ask where the Eagles are today? There have been many emails of sightings, almost as many as when there is a coyote prowling around. On Easter morning, several households were treated to a dramatic Bald Eagle show during outside Easter Egg Hunts. Great opportunities to teach the younger ones about these majestic birds!
Part of the “show” was a couple of Crows dive-bombing these two Eagles, who seemed to be simply sitting there…but I bet there was a Crow’s nest near by.
This whole experience has totally inspired me to upgrade with WordPress so I can share short videos on my blog. And I think there is a way to capture single frames from a video but I don’t know how. Here is the opening frame of a great video I got of that epic sky-battle. (It’s a photo of my computer screen, so sort of a blurry “screenshot.)
In recent weeks, almost every clear morning and evening this beautiful twosome sits at the top of my tree to watch the sun rise or set. They remind me of a scene in the movie City of Angels (Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage) where all the Angels are lined up on the beach to watch the Sunset. (It’s in this Goo Goo Dolls video)
I have been house and dog sitting for dear friends this last week, so I have missed their visits, but every day I drive the 25 miles back to my house hoping for a sighting. I pay lots of attention to my three cats for a while, pretending that’s why I’m home, but then, I go out on my deck looking for my Bald Eagles. I miss them. (Do NOT tell my kitties that’s really why I’m home. They are so sensitive!)
One morning, at the place I’m staying, I looked up from writing this story to see a huge bird right outside on the fence…some kind of Hawk, I think. Couldn’t get my camera focused fast enough but here he is.
Anybody recognize this pretty? I thought to myself “Hmm, settling for a Hawk? It’s just not the same.” but when I looked up the Native American symbolism for Hawk, it was so close to Eagles I decided I’d better start paying better attention to their message for me.
I have to admit that with all this activity and totem research, I am now taking these Bald Eagle visits very personally. I’m looking at my current life differently and as usual, with a “message from the Universe”, there is a mixture of wonder, awe, and Duh!
If I knew how to thank these birds, I would.
I mean, I’m not going to sacrifice one of my cats or anything, but I am truly grateful for their amazing and persistent presence.
My message…
“This may be a good opportunity for you to renegotiate and balance your obligations–-Eagle ” from http://www.spirit-animals.com/eagle/
OK, got it!! Could not be more fitting right now.
(My accidental discovery…I didn’t see my Eagle in the background until I enlarged the apple blossoms…)
If you read all the way to here, I sure would appreciate some feedback or reactions to this post. Thank you.
Earth for WPC 4/18/17
What an Earth Day morning I’ve had…nothing short of miraculous!!
I apparently woke myself up before daylight fretting about how I could respond to the WordPress Photo Challenge this week. The topic this week is Earth, perfect given today is such a special day, but overwhelming in it’s vast and endless possibilities. As is often the case, I just can’t choose one picture! So here is a photo journal in honor of Earth Day.
I love photographing plant life!
I am thrilled with landscape shots, especially mountains
Sunrise and sunset are, in my opinion, Natures purest art form, and it’s a brand new canvas every day!
I love animals, especially birds.
Don’t even get me started on water. Ahh, the ocean…
All of these things seem to capture Earth for me…
I thought I might do this post about the pair of Bald Eagles that have been hanging out in my tree for the last 3 weeks. They were there with me this morning for 2 hours during a stunning Earth Day sunrise…
But, I have been collecting photos in a particular and slightly odd category for quite a while, just waiting for the right “topic” to inspire me to post some of them. Today seems like the day.
Contrails
It started with a very powerful waking dream one afternoon. In my non-chemically altered state (I promise) I became a native inhabitant of the Northwest, maybe 200 years ago. Here’s what I dreamed.
One day I was simply enjoying the afternoon sky when all of a sudden I saw a strange narrow white cloud, shooting a perfect line across the bright blue expanse. It was moving rapidly and though quite pointed at the front end, it spread out into thicker rows of tiny clouds, all in a straight-ish line. I thought this must be a special message from Father Sky and wondered if I was supposed to find a man to interpret. And then I knew…Father Sky and Mother Earth were one in the same…both identically important and equally powerful. Even more significant, that one could not provide it’s individual sustenance to and for EARTH without the other. Different, but equal. Differing, but the same. Separate, but connected.
When I shook myself out of my revery, all I could think of was that Contrails did not exist back then and if one had streaked across the sky, how in the world would it have been explained by any who had witnessed one? Can you imagine? What would you have thought???
Maybe this doesn’t seem like an Earth Day post to you but there you have it.
Happy Earth Day to all and don’t give up.
2nd Frame by ChosenPerspectives
Morning from ChosenPerspectives
Our task this week from the WordPress Photo Challenge was to post photographs showing Morning. I knew my ongoing favorite Morning place right away. Once a year we get to house, farm and animal sit for my “sister” and her husband who live in arguably the most beautiful place on the planet. Not that I have been to them all, but a visit to Friday Harbor, in the San Juan Islands will definitely have it competing for first place with your other top favorites!
We immerse ourselves in the non-tourist version of the Island lifestyle and spend our time writing, visiting various beaches, watching for whales, or gathering the day’s food from the garden.
The above shots are walking from the front door (top picture) around to side overlooking the pond.
The deck where we sit to watch the sunrise every morning…
This is what we see looking out from our perfect spot on the porch.
and this……….
We take care of the animals and water the Wild Bird Bamboo farm ( http://www.wildbirdbamboo.com/ )
as well as vegetable and flower gardens so lush and gorgeous, they are on an international Garden Tour!
MORNING Heaven!
Wordless Wednesday 6-29-16
Wordless Wednesday 6/22/16
Half-Light 4-That one Sunrise in Fiji
I don’t have the photograph of the exact sunrise, just the picture in my mind. And no words describing it will suffice so I’ll have settle for telling you the surrounding story.
Imagine yourself on a once in a life time trip, sailing in Fiji-not to the tourist places, but the remote islands of the Southern Lau Group. You are with your six closest people whom you dearly love to spend time with…a rare occurrence, so having 32 days together for this adventure is amazing.
Even with these kinds of friendships though, many years of working, traveling and vacationing together, conflict can happen. Though we were on a 90 foot yacht with plenty of room for all to be separate or connected-your choice-the early mornings were the hardest to share as we would all want to be above deck in the open (no canopy) to see the sunrises and have our various morning beverages.
People do mornings very differently from each other.
Those of us who liked to wake up slowly, in silence, were getting up earlier and earlier to beat the coffee-fed, spring-into-the-day people. I’ve always liked solitude at sunrise above any other time so I found myself setting an alarm so I could be up first to have my alone time. SETTING an ALARM…on a YACHT…in FIJI for god’s sake!!!
We were all therapists. Our life’s work was to teach people how to take care of themselves, and that everyone’s needs are important…so of course, we came up with a great new rule.
On deck in the mornings, “no one speaks until the person up right before you speaks”.
So all seven of us could be up on deck, coffee or not, meditating or not, and it would be silent until the first person awake spoke. And then in order after that, so the transition from silence to party-time was slow.
One one morning I was the first on deck and it was still dark out….as dark as it gets under those South Pacific skies. Don’t even get me started about the starlight. People talk about a “blanket of stars”, well our nightly view was more like a down comforter of stars.
But Half-Light was slowly arriving, bringing with it the beginnings of this morning’s Sky Show. It looked to be a good one. The next 15 minutes were some of the most profound in my life thus far. As I said before, no words will adequately describe the beauty and miracle of this particular sunrise so I won’t even bother and it’s my process I am needing to share anyway.
For once, I am sitting there actually hoping for the next person to come up on deck. I’m waiting, wanting, willing someone to hurry up and get here so they can see this. I know I won’t be able to describe it. You’ve seen one sunrise, you’ve seen ’em all, right? (Makes me think of the bumper sticker so popular in Hawaii a few years back-“just another shitty day in paradise”.)
By now, the sky is exploding into colors we humans have no names for, and it seems to be getting more intense by the second. Most mornings I fight off the feeling of intrusion and today I would welcome someone, anyone, just to share this with, to confirm my experience, to validate my conclusion that this might be the most beautiful thing that has ever happened in the history of the world.
Where the hell is everyone?
I am seriously frantic for company by now but unable to pull myself away to rouse my fellow travelers or the crew because I don’t want to miss even a second of this. It changes dramatically every time I blink.
THEY NEED TO SEE THIS!!!
I am about to explode in frustration…I know, on the deck of a luxury yacht anchored off a deserted island in Fiji..about as dumb as setting an alarm clock… so I take a few deep grounding breaths to calm myself and that’s when it happens!
Wait, for context, I need to own the following. At this point in my life, I had lived solely and enthusiastically for the purpose of helping others better their lives. I had been like this since I was three or four years old. I had been told I needed to stop always putting others first, to be healthily selfish, to take care of myself, but I had staunchly refused because, after all, I was “called”. What’s also true is I didn’t want to give up the joy and reward I experienced because of my stance in life.
So here’s what happens.
Watching the most beautiful sunrise ever, I hear a voice, no shit, a real voice, tinged with just a touch of playful sarcasm…God? My Dad? My Therapist?…I don’t know but it’s a voice….maybe even my own.
It says, “Relax Silly. This one is yours…made just for YOU.”
My whole personality changed that day in the Half-Light.
Half-Light #3 for WPC-the Woody
So what’s a Woody station wagon got to do with half light?? Well, growing up in the town of Pacific Beach in San Diego, if you were a true, pre-popular craze surfer, you would be up each morning at Half-Light, to high tail it down to the beach for the best and least crowded waves of the day. A tourist to the area might look out a motel window and see weird dark shapes bobbing up and down way out beyond the shore break. They might even mistake them for a flock of strange sea birds out there. Nope. Those were the most dedicated wave-riding artists…waiting for their wave…however long it took.
“Surfing is one of the oldest practiced sports on the planet. The art of wave riding, is a blend of total athleticism and the comprehension of the beauty and power of nature. Surfing is also one of the few sports that creates its own culture and lifestyle.”
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/spring04/britton/history.htm
No idea who first used a Woody station wagon to drag surfboards to the beach but it became the vehicle associated with the surfing culture.
The following info from http://www.carponents.com/content/surfs-up-with-the-woodie-one-of-americas-most-iconic-cars-176
“In the early 60’s, Surfers, who spent their days riding those bodacious California waves all afternoon always seemed to be strapped-for-cash. In need of an inexpensive form of transportation, they found they could buy woodies cheap, and that they were perfect for lugging around the long 10-12 foot wooden surfboards of the day long.
While not really their goal, surfers prolonged the lives of countless Woodies. It was something of a California oddity but surfers didn’t actually restore their wagons, they couldn’t afford to. They simply kept them going. Groups like the Beach Boys in songs like ‘Surfing Safari’ began to mention and immortalize Woodies in their lyrics, about how they were loaded up with boards and friends and driven to the California Coast and they forever became ingrained as a beloved icon of the surfing community as more and more were adopted by the laid back, fun loving culture. The connection between surfing and Woodies became permanent. It’s also said that surfers were the ones who coined the term ‘woodie’. “
Now here’s the sort of personal part. For some reason, when I was a very small child, we had a Woody parked inside our fenced back yard. I honestly don’t remember why or where it came from. I don’t remember ever riding in it, although we did have another station wagon, a white mercury with red trim and red leather interior, that we rode in a lot. That Mercury was the transportation for many of the childhood adventures my Dad provided for his daughters. Most of those adventures involved deserted country roads with us riding on the opened tailgate, strapped in for safety with a make-shift rope “safety belt”. But we never rode in the Woody.
Maybe Dad had the foresight to know that old Woody was a good investment. I do remember it sitting out there until well into my adulthood. Sometimes, when I was visiting my father, a later version of a young surfer would ring Dad’s doorbell to ask about that old car in his yard. My sisters might know what happened to the old Woody. I don’t.
And here’s the really personal part. Many times as a child (according to family legend, as young as four and five years old) I would be discovered before first light, out in the back yard, with my pillow and blanket from my bed, sitting on the hood of that old Woody, all bundled up and leaning back against the perfectly slanted windshield…..doing WHAT, the adults could never figure out.
It’s no mystery to me. Though I don’t remember specifically thinking about this, I’m sure it started out as escape. Maybe if I woke up early enough, and “ran away” to the back yard, I wouldn’t have to start on all those chores no five, six or seven year old should be responsible for (changing diapers, cleaning up, making breakfast, etc.)
And to my lifelong delight, I imprinted on mother nature from those Half-Light escapes, on the absolute beauty and wonder of it all, even the most simple of its forms.
I still love the earliest morning, with its slow but dramatic light changes, the songs of awakening birds-in the spring full orchestras-and the emerging hints about weather for the day. These days, I rarely need it for “running away”, but nothing grounds me more solidly and spiritually onto the earth than sitting outside in the half-light, in almost any weather, eavesdropping on the world as it wakes up.
Half-Light #2 for WPC
Half-LightI am not a poet. I am barely a writer at all. Well, for fun, I torment my family members or closet friends by occasionally writing them a really bad limerick. If I am going to be impacted by poetry it is usually in the form of the lyrics to a great song. The one that came immediately to mind for this week’s topic was Jackson Browne’s “Looking East”. My favorite Half-Light is sunrise (looking east).
Powerful song. Great poetry. If you allow songwriters to qualify as poets.
Have a listen (and a look-it’s a lovely video) when you get a minute.
Here are the words so you can read along.
Standing in the ocean with the sun burning low in the west
Like a fire in the cavernous darkness at the heart of the beast
With my beliefs and possessions, stopped at the frontier in my chest
At the edge of my country, my back to the sea, looking east
Where the search for the truth is conducted with a wink and a nod
And where power and position are equated with the grace of God
These times are famine for the soul while for the senses it’s a feast
From the edge of my country, as far as you see, looking east
Hunger in the midnight, hunger at the stroke of noon
Hunger in the mansion, hunger in the rented room
Hunger on the TV, hunger on the printed page
And there’s a God-sized hunger underneath the laughing and the rage
In the absence of light
And the deepening night
Where I wait for the sun
Looking east
How long have I left my mind to the powers that be
How long will it take to find the higher power moving in me
Power in the insect
Power in the sea
Power in the snow falling silently
Power in the blossom
Power in the stone
Power in the song being sung alone
Power in the wheat field
Power in the rain
Power in the sunlight and the hurricane
Power in the silence
Power in the flame
Power in the sound of the lover’s name
The power of the sunrise and the power of a prayer released
On the edge of my country, I pray for the ones with the least
Hunger in the midnight, hunger at the stroke of noon
Hunger in the banquet, hunger in the bride and groom
Hunger on the TV, hunger on the printed page
And there’s a God-sized hunger underneath the questions of the age
And an absence of light
In the deepening night
Where I wait for the sun
Looking east
Uh oh. Is this allowed??? Inserting a YouTube music video??? I haven’t taken my blogging course yet!
It’s from https://www.youtube.com/user/SWPLifeIlluminated
(Scott Wright Photography, not the Socialist Workers Party)