I’VE NEVER BEEN a graceful person, though I’ve always wanted to be. Ever since I first saw Gene Kelly dance on television, I’ve craved the gift of fluid motion. In the years since, I’ve watched Gregory Hines tap dance, Mikhail Baryshnikov leap, Karen Kain float. I would have settled for bending my body to the rhythm like the Soul Train kids did, but dance has remained a mystery for me. I can roll my rump and shake my hips to a rock beat, but that’s more tribal excitement than real dancing. Deb and I attempted to learn ballroom dancing once, but it was a disaster. I was so busy trying to remember where my feet went that I was incapable of anything else. I couldn’t keep my arms in position because I was concentrating so hard on counting out the time. It worked much better for us when she led and I settled for being pushed around in the right direction. As a young man, I came closest to being graceful on the baseball field. I could read the path of a ball off the bat from centre field, and my running catches were often spectacular. At shortstop, I could whirl and fire the ball across the infield like nobody’s business. But when the cleats were off and the dancing shoes were on for the last night of weekend tournaments, I regressed to hopeless floundering.
One afternoon in the summer of 1989, my friend and elder Jack Kakakaway and I were walking through the foothills outside Calgary. It was medicine time, and we were scouting sweetgrass to gather for ceremony. There was never a lot of conversation between us when we were out on the land. Jack believed that moving in silence was the best way to hear the land speaking to you. So we were content just to walk and allow our senses to become attuned. As we topped a small rise, we watched an eagle soar across a wide expanse of bush. I felt honoured to witness the display of its strength and grace.
“That’s how I’ve always wanted to be,” I told Jack. “Graceful. Just like that.”
He smiled at my words. We continued walking for a long time. Then Jack sat down on a log in a clearing and motioned for me to sit beside him. Those times were magical for me. Jack would talk openly about the land, share stories and teachings about how the plants around us were used and what they represented for our people. I was a rapt audience of one, and what he said to me that day has never left me.
“You only admire the display,” he said. “The important thing is how the eagle learned to do that.”
He explained that the eagle’s grace doesn’t come easily. The bird’s flight looks effortless, but we miss the teaching if we see only the end product. Each eagle feather is made up of thousands of tiny filaments, Jack said, and the eagle has to control them all, whether the wind is blowing or the air is still. Only that skill will keep the eagle aloft. Just as importantly, the eagle must learn how to see the world, reading the treetops and the grasses for information.
There are no flying lessons. One day the young eaglets stand at the rim of their nest with the whole world in front of them. They can hear the call of their parents high above. To fulfill their destiny and become who they were created to be, each of them must make that first frightening jump, test their ability to fly. The lessons for us in the eagle’s first leap concern courage and faith. All of us need courage and faith to soar.
Uncovering your gifts is a spiritual process. That’s what an eagle in magnificent flight can remind us of. It isn’t easy to be graceful. You must learn to really see the world and negotiate it, and that takes humility. Practising with courage will allow us to develop faith, the abiding knowledge that we are blessed.
Full of grace. Grace-full. Degree by degree, over the years, I’ve tried to practise the eagle’s teaching in my life. I still can’t dance, but I’ve learned that sometimes I can fly.