of the time when animals were still people

of the time when the land named herself after the movement of the hawks

1.

It seems to me like death has no crisp edges. Perhaps, indeed, the same is true of life.

We know:

That the moments shortly after have a feeling of suspension, a tune that’s being sung just out of sight.

It’s in these after-moments of observing- some call her grief- there’s a remembering, a gift for those alive.

We remember:

in the same way we recall a word teetering on forgotten.

in the same way we hold something ungraspable.

in the same way we can be present in a body and yet still removed from life.

The forest knows grief, she tells me, but here we call her something different.

In the forest, we refer to her as reverence.

2.

The energy of freedom is embossed within the structure of the feather. To see them spilled across the ground is a jarring and disorganizing sight.

A circle of feathers lies to my left, partly fringing a single edge of the damp and muddy track. And all around me-- forest. I stand and stare at the feathered, light spaced halo. A creamy whiteness, becoming peach, then subtle orange, fanning out to lightest brown.

My eyes move, a detective, gathering information. This arrangement- of feathers absent from a body- the thumbprint of a recent bird of prey.

I consider:

What would it be like to be vanish from the outline of your body? To disapparate, to vaporize from the insides of your skin?

In my mind’s eye:

It’s a total fascination, a mystery, say the people looming over, gently toeing at the puddle, the remains of the once- human.

We just hope that it was swift, those who loved me gently say.

Seconds later, I find myself reaching down and bending over. I take one, hold her quill between my forefinger and thumb.

In my body:

I register vibration. A communication speaking of the recently alive. The feather hums with the movement of the purposeful, holds the pulse of one recently in flight.

3.

To find yourself having had a moment- a moment that’s significant, unplanned- you realize that your body, yourself, quite devoid of all free will, has been shunted very gently, guided along. That in fact each step you took, and each moment that you waited, was the precisely right amount- not more, not less- to leave you, for example, standing underneath this tree, as presently you find yourself right now.

(If you pause, close your eyes, you’ll find if you reach out you can touch it.)

What is it, who is this force that allows for this to happen? Who should I talk to, who’s the one that is in charge? Who is conducting this constellation of conspiring forces, plotting this milky way of markers that we think, with our decisions and our actions, we’re in control of, when in fact we’re firmly in their grasp.

This much I know:

The time tellers have been watching me all morning. There were things they wanted me to know and see and say. The making of the coffee, the taking of the cup up off the shelf. The exact number of seconds it takes to get the milk out of the fridge- not less, but just enough. The tinkering with some writing in my journal, the kind of words that people never see, the kind of words out loud I never say. Watched me tending to the dogs- always the dogs- for a few extra moments still this morning, and then finally get my boots on and pull away.

And as I walked along the drive:

The newly setting moon spoke out loud to her sister Goddess Venus, who was hanging close enough for her to hear. She’s coming, she said, tell the big rock that lies underneath the Macrocarpa. Tell her now that pretty soon she will be here.

Tell her for reasons still unknown, she’ll sit upon that rock for many minutes later, something she has never done before but taken by sudden whim this time she will.

And from that point:

We’ll need to send communications slightly further. To the branch, just after the sharp bend, as you make your way gently up the hill.

All the while, in the foreground of time making, I open up the gate, make my way out, in the belief this is free will.

4.

What does it mean to be in the presence of a creature who’s both beauteous and commanding? In Te Reo Māori, the word for it is mana; the felt power of elemental forces embodied in the edges of a being.

I walk, carry my feather, think what it means to hold myself with mana, the air around me licked with the rumour of wings. I let my eyes play tricks, indulge in the imaginings of great birds long since passed.

To my right, I superimpose Moa, four meters high and then some, scanning, nibbling the tallest trees.

I imagine:

Shadows descending. A wingspan of three metres.

I am Haast Eagle, soaring. I take the tiny feather that I’m clasping, hold it up towards the sky.

This land witnessing my walking named herself some 800 odd years past. She speaks to me right now.

Ngā Whenua I Haroa E Ngā Kāhu – The Lands Soared Over By Hawks.

5.

By my own admissions, I am a bad birder, too carried away with beauty to share with you the facts.

What is it, you might ask?

Look at the sky, I might reply, eyes half closed, reaching, stretching, upward gazing.

But in this moment:

I am alone and I am frozen. Still and standing, my insides rearranged with unseen hands.

Kārearea-- New Zealand Falcon. One of the few bird of prey that is endemic to the isles of Aotearoa, an unusual and deeply sacred sight. There are estimated to be between 3,000 to 5,000 breeding pairs remaining. Drastically too few. Us humans are yet to find a way to witness, yet to find a way to hold the powerful and the mystical. We seek to own it, even if the outcome is destruction.

Of the 34 falcon species in the world, Kārearea is one of four who are forest dwelling, their soft plumage designed to bend and fold, to allow for fast paced tree-filled hunting.

I stand:

here before me is Falcon. My body takes the shape of an appropriate response.

Of a human that is humbled.

It is true what Mary Olivers says:

We live with mysteries too marvellous to be understood.

I expect him to fly off but he does not. I soften, open myself for conversation. A silent worshipper, my eyes fixed in their practice of devotion.

His gaze allows me words of ancient stories. Of the admonishing trill of the Tūī, speaking of parting bush for incoming Moa. Of the flight of eagles long past, wings meeting the air as gentle as spring water. Of Frogs croak and old man’s rasp. The fantails mischievous whisperings. Of the time when animals were still people.

Of the time when the land named herself after the movement of the Hawks.

6.

Observing birds is a feathered form of prayer, each one a living story, a poem in landing and in flight that speaks to the nature of existence. The experience of being human is an inherently precarious endeavour and yet we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that we are entitled to a life of ease and comfort that sits separately to what the rest of the non-human world experience.

I wonder, if there’s a normal level of doubt, of anxiety, of even fear that as humans- as a human who is vital, connected, and alive- we’re supposed to know and feel?

And in our domesticated lives, we’ve convinced ourselves that we should easily find a place of neutral, that our primary mode of being should be one of relaxation and of rest?

That’s certainly not the case for any other creature on the planet.

I am finding, that to accept things that are difficult, I must also accept a necessary amount of fear, an appropriate amount of anxiety that means I’m paying attention. That to do so is an act of compassion and kindness to myself.

When home, I read of Kārearea. I’m told details of wingspan, weight, the trajectory of the pathways in the forest they wind beneath and through. The predictable descriptions, the expected symbology’s. Of power and of strength. Of grace and fierceness.

These are the warrior birds, they tell me.

But with me, this does not sit quite right.

I wonder what we feel with birds of prey. With Kārearea I feel a restoration, a communication transmitted through their gaze.

Birds of Prey ensure that you are seen, and to be seen feels as though our hearts lie out before us.

Kārearea shows me the sharpness of my life, and the vastness of my death. A creature of the cusp, where what it means to live well and die well exists as the same question.

Here, under this tree, I am appropriately placed, seen once again in the natural order of things. I am restored to another creature who is to be observed, just as the small bird was, is, whose feather I now carry. I am aware of myself contained within the great lungs of the earth, of my body being breathed.

I am witnessing and being witnessed in return.

7.

Here, at home, within these four walls I am human, but to close my eyes allows me to be bird.

I feel my wings expand within the fossils of my rib cage, opening spaces that allows for both my own voice, and for bird song to be heard.

I fly now, see myself in my imaginings.

Kārearea, human and at once

becoming bird.