Colliding with a Wing

When I found the hawk’s wing, it looked like it had been washed down the stream we were following. It was not a full wing, but the feathers were large and all brown so I reasoned it had belonged to a red-shouldered hawk. It was gorgeous but grubby. Sand was worked into the feathers which were stuck together and matted in places. I didn’t care. I immediately felt it was a gift, like the other bird treasures I have stowed in my studio. It was partly because I had almost stepped on it that I felt it was mine. An awesome token of affection from the sky.

Still, I felt a little hesitant picking it up in front of my hiking buddy. It was far from perfect, but passing it up was impossible. I cradled it under my left arm, ever-conscious of how fragile it was as we continued down the stream. At one point we lost the trail and found ourselves at the top of a twenty foot waterfall. We had to turn around and decided to scramble up some rocks to scout the trail we’d lost. As I clung to a rock with one arm I did contemplate ditching the wing, but I was already very attached to it. While I tried to think of a solution my friend reached out and I carefully handed it to her so she could wrap it up in the shirt she had tied around her waist.

At home I dropped it in a plastic bag promising to wash it later, only slightly concerned about the flesh that was still clinging to the bones. A friend suggested drying it out, so I laid it on an old tee shirt and buried it in salt. It stayed that way for days, looking more beautiful than ever, covered in white crystals with just the tips of its long brown feathers sticking out. I saw six hawks yesterday, one after the other, circling over the road as I drove home from the desert. I wonder what that means? I said to my friend in the car, but it wasn’t until I got home that I realized it was time to wash the wing.

Maybe I left it in the water too long, or maybe it was just not meant to be, but my precious wing fell to pieces in the bath. As I pulled it out bit by bit, I realized what had happened. The water had dissolved what little glue the dried flesh was providing and the wing had become just a mass of feathers and a naked bone. Oh well, I thought to myself. It’s a nice mass and will give me lots to draw from. As I fished them out of the water, I gently rubbed off the brown remnants and the dirt and admired all the different shapes and subtle patterns each feather displayed. All were the same deep reddish brown but some had faint stripes that looked like brown shadows and some had a bold streak of black going lengthwise.

Then something strange happened. I felt a kind of a zing in my left finger that shot up my arm when I touched one of the feathers and I immediately dropped it as if I’d gotten a shock. It gave me a creepy feeling so I quickly said out loud: If you are a positive energy I am happy to receive you, but if you are negative you are not welcome here. Please respect my wishes and I will respect yours. I could still feel a tingling in my left fingers which is where I have felt some tingling for other reasons for a while now. It was as if it hooked into the communication system between my body and my soul and I welcomed it with only a slight wariness. When I asked what it was I immediately felt the trauma and the pain of this bird’s attack. So I said gently, as I might to a child, “It’s alright. All over now.” As I continued to work with the wing, trying to save as many feathers as I could, I continued to get these little jolts or stings and each time I would repeat, “It’s okay. All done.” But it was a strange feeling. Not to be talking to a wing. But because I realized how sad I was feeling, watching it all fall apart.