Hawk Story

With my  mobile phone in my Go-bag crossbody bag and my wired headphones, I head out at twilight for my runs as I have found that at the close of the day and the beginning of the night is where the animals come out or are in the process of retiring so there is more movement than usual.  

Running has been and still is my regulator. I’ve done it most late afternoons since 1998, wherever I am in the world. It resets my emotions, grounds me into my body and into nature. It brings me back to my truer self. 

Through the neurohormonal alchemy of running, I am able to more fully ride my emotional waves, clarifying my thought processes, freeing my mind and lifting me into a moving meditation- a state of heightened connection. 

Running, I inhale the tannic sweetness of the dense oak and pine forest surrounding my home. The path I run here is ancient, carved long ago by the Wampanoag, later cut more deeply into the rocky wooded hills by tea rebels and King’s men. 

One recent drizzly afternoon, seeing a clump of moss lying torn on the path, I paused to replant it back into its bed. Standing, I found myself in the shadow of a great bird, which swept close, to light on a branch no more than fifteen feet away from me. 

He was a mature red tailed hawk, splendid in his plumage, and humbling in his vigor, focus and power. I went motionless. My eyes connected with his, and I was filled with awe. 

I spoke to him. I told him how joyful I was to be graced by his attention. I said that I was humbled by him. 

He sat on the limb, turning his head slowly, from side to side, giving me the one eye, his gaze boring deeply into me for over a minute.

As I spoke to him, he spoke to me with his glittering eyes. He shared with me the gifts of his essence- his acute focus, his dazzling vitality, and his simultaneous attention to both vast vista and minute detail. 

In my body and in my spirit, I was gifted.
I felt transported and transformed, as he opened his great wings to fly slowly before me, low along my path, as if to spur me on.

Returning home in the growing twilight, vibrating with wonder at the magic of such a connection, I reflected upon what so rare and archetypal an experience might mean. What are the qualities imparted by such a profound meeting with one of the earth’s evolutionary monarchs, and how might I absorb this knowledge into my life? 

The lessons of that afternoon continue to unfold. I have chosen to strive toward greater focus and clarity, to hold macrocosm and microcosm simultaneously, to continue learning when to be patient and observant, when to dive, and when to soar. 

I choose to soar sometimes, simply for its own sake.  And I choose to deconstruct the adaptive wall that removes me from nature, from ever growing, and more confident, communication- with other species, with plants, with the soul of the earth, herself. 

In the twenty-six years since I began running, many people have asked me whether I am running away from something.
I laugh, because I know that I am always running into the future.