| Calling All Angels by Suzanne Vadnais Monson You were waiting for me when I got back from Tucson. A gift I was unprepared to accept. In fact, I rationalized that your arrival was really for my husband. After all, you are his Native American totem. Only when I finally read what Ted Andrews had to say about you did I realize you had a message for me, like it or not. The real problem was that you were dead. I've had way too much death around me lately. After a week of sun and rocks and hiking until I could touch the sky, I returned to sub-zero Wisconsin. I remember thinking how wonderful it was to be outside for six hours at a stretch with my skin exposed, breathing air that didn't sting on its way in. As we headed up our first canyon trail, Jim had a suggestion: "Maybe you have such a hard time with vacations because you feel guilty for having this much fun." The way that one hurt on the way in told me it was too close to accurate. Every time I heard how cold it was at home, I cringed a little. Surely our furnace would seize up and Skid, our very people-oriented cat, would die. There was so much work to do, so many bills to pay, so much to worry about. It was 25 degrees below zero at home. Surely there was someone in the sky marking this one down on the tally sheet of sins I'd knowingly committed. I wonder now if this why you died. We were home just one day when I got the call from Jim. He was over plowing snow at a property we take care of in Osceola. "Something really strange showed up over here. I found a healthy looking Red-Tailed Hawk curled up in the corner of the deck under the shovel, dead." "Oh my God!" I gasped. "What do you think happened?" "I don't know. It looks really healthy." I took my time getting around to actually looking at you. I knew it was going to be hard so I tried to prepare myself. Something about looking death straight in the eye inspires both awe and panic in me. In the past two years, I've had to holds hands with the deaths of five people I cherished and one tiny baby I never had a chance to enjoy. I'm still not any more comfortable with the process. Why was it so hard to touch you? I kissed one of my Grandfather's in his coffin, much to my family's dismay. He'd become my knight in shining armor late in his life. I had to say goodbye. And when I touched you, it felt like a rock hit me in the gut. For years I've been watching you patrol the valley I call home, captured by your piercing call, feeling it penetrate deep into my body every time I hear it. And here I was inches away from you; afraid you'd tear my hand off if I reached out to stroke your gorgeous feathers. What magnificent talons you had. What a spectacular beak. And the burnt sienna of your tail feathers made me cry. It's the color I eventually allowed myself to soak up in the southwest, sketching and painting rocks, marveling over how much I needed only this fresh visual landscape to feel alive again. Here, the colors that soothed me came wrapped in grief and loss. It took me a while, but I found the courage to touch you. It was like rubbing my hands over the wings of an angel. Silk and stone. I have always wanted to fly. I consulted friends about what to do with your body. After calling the raptor center, Interstate Park and surfing the web for places that needed birds of prey for display, I accepted that you wanted to stay here. Jim put you in a box and tucked you in the garage until we could bury you. Not much of a mausoleum, but it was the best we could do. I have so many boxes of supplies in the garage I would occasionally forget you were in one of them and open your coffin by mistake. Every time I saw you, something ripped open inside of me. I finally stopped dancing around my avoidance and read what Ted had to say about you in Animal-Speak. You are the only hawk that gets a specific entry in his masterwork, an honor I know you would appreciate. Here's what he has to say about you: "Hawks are the messengers, the protectors, and the visionaries of the air. Those with a red-tailed hawk as a totem will be working with the kundalini, the seat of primal life force. It can also reflect that the childhood visions are becoming empowered and fulfilled. It may pop up as a totem at that point in your life where you begin to move toward your soul purpose more dynamically." That's when I knew you came for me. For the past five years, I've invested everything in growing my childhood vision of a life worth living. No more fucked-up bosses and demanding jobs I hated. It was time to play my hand. I wanted to make art and write and teach and inspire people to take better care of themselves and our planet. I wasn't sure exactly what this was going to look like, but I knew I had to get started. My time was more than up. I've exhausted my savings, accumulated a considerable debt and made more mistakes than I care to remember. A week after I touched your feathers I took a walk with my husband to discuss the future of my business. Mostly, I cried on that walk. I agreed to take two years to get this little enterprise off the ground. That was three years ago. We have a home to build, a nest egg badly in need of a contribution and no more room for taking risks that turn out to be costly. I didn't want to throw in the towel. I want to do the job I came here to do. Holding my hand, Jim assured me I had not failed. "God damn woman, you have made an amazing go of this dream of yours. You keep saying you should have kept a day job on the side. You would not have been able to build any of this with a day job. All of you has gone into this business." So why did I feel like such a giant failure? It's so personal when it's your baby. I know now that this is why I worked boring jobs for the money for so many years. I have this really personal way of sending out my prayers. I set up my Reebok Step in the living room, put on some really good tunes and moved. Movement always brings inspiration and occasionally revelation. Courtesy of a group called Train, I've been given a fresh template for my passionate utterings. Their song, Calling All Angels, was nominated for a Grammy this year. I never would have heard it otherwise, because I hate commercial radio. I love the Grammies though. I usually get to see Aerosmith perform and hear some new music, so I always tune in. I went online to the Apple Store and downloaded the song the next morning. "I need a sign that things are gonna look up," Patrick Monahan sings. "I won't give up if you don't give up." And I'm singing with him, over and over again, dancing and praying for a sign when it hits me that it is already here. "Hawk is akin to Mercury, the messenger of the Gods. It awakens our vision and inspires us to a creative life purpose," Mr. Andrews reminds me. My fallen angel. Did you have to die for me to get the message? I knew the earth needed your body back. After careful meditation and discussion with my husband, we agreed that your final resting place should be on the bluff overlooking the river you spent your life exploring. Tucking you into a nest of ferns, I returned you to the earth on the vernal equinox. I touched your still soft body with this simple prayer: Thank you for coming. I needed a sign. Suzanne Monson is the owner of Come Out and Play, the Art of Creative Expression. She is offering summer art camps at Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisc., and creative coaching retreats on her 20-acre property on the St. Croix River bluffs. For more information, contact Suzanne at comeoutandplay@cornernet.com or call her at (715) 294-4522. Copyright © 2004 Suzanne Vadnais Monson |
||
|
JUNE 2004 |
|
