HAWKS
Hawk the Protector
The hawk, gatekeeper of the East, is associated in Native tradition with clear vision, both its own and that of others. It helps inspire clear thinking and seeing with its truth and honesty. They are reliable “warriors of truth” and can be depended on to give the message clearly as possible. Native people rely on the hawk to protect them through dozens of methods, mostly as messengers of warning. A crying hawk might be seen as a warning, while one dive-bombing the individual (as they do to a raccoon) may be seen as a challenge. The journey into the realm of the supernatural is considered a dangerous one, and it would be considered foolish to go into such realms without a protector, and that usually means a hawk.
My sister Lynn has often seen the shadow of a hawk pass in front of her as a warning or sign of danger, even between her and a stranger just before an unpleasant encounter. In other instances, a bird will sit on a low branch and stare at her and won’t fly away. This is often synchronous with the death of a friend. Sometimes a hawk will fly over her head to get her attention, they “check on you,” she says. The red-tailed hawk has a sharp whistle “like an eagle,” which helps you “clear your mind.” Some eastern peoples see the large red tail as closest to the eagle, in altitude capacity, in size, and in behavior (see color insert, plate 5).
White Hawk Spirit
The red-tailed hawk takes many forms and is sometimes almost white, with white tail feathers. In fact, according to The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior, “[t]he Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) shows . . . the highest incidence of partial albinism among accipitrids [diurnal raptors].”20 This description does not sound very flattering! Nonetheless, the white hawk is a very special bird; it reflects the appearance of the Spirit Hawk, which flies in the spirit world as the oversoul of all hawks. When the Mi’kmaq see a white hawk, they say, “Bpah-cha-lai-ee!” (Amazing!), regardless of what is written in The Sibley Guide.
When you see the white hawk, it means something very sacred is taking place; perhaps a message from the Creator, or a sign that a miracle is going to happen. These miracles are not events that, as the white man might describe it, violate the laws of nature; they are the laws of nature, in their purest form. The medicine men say, “That’s the way it works!” (When you are living right!) Miracles, in Native American culture, are seen as expressions of universal truth, rather than exceptions to it. The Mi’kmaq expression, “Nee-gehn del-li-moog del-li-ah-oh-weh del-ah-sik neh-geh” (I am telling you the truth is happening now), is how you might say, “I have seen a miracle!”
Hawks are seen as messengers for spirit world beings, including ancestors, the deceased, protective deities, and benevolent guides and helpers. Some medicine people have an association with hawks and recognize hawks as their helpers. It is common that Native Americans will interpret the action of a hawk as a message from a deceased friend or relative. It is more an individual thing as to how these signs are read. Hawks’ most significant role is as messengers for protective deities, particularly the Spirit Hawk, which is the chief of all the hawks. Some see that protector hawk spirit as a blue light behind the right shoulder. Some Mi’kmaq call it Grandmother Hawk. Naturally a real living hawk would earn respect and attention, and their feathers deserve respect as well.
Raptors are seen as protectors, possibly because they are not often attacked by other birds. They are known for their ability to flip upside down in midair, snatch a smaller bird out of the sky (from underneath in most cases), and eat it. The association between hawks and warfare is not wholly undeserved, and songbirds are not off their menu either. Understandably, smaller birds often organize to mob the hawk in the defense of a nest, and one bird lover recently saw a hawk at the top of a small tree, indignantly enduring the catcalls of a large number of small birds below him, daring him to attack. Nonetheless, hawks are seen as being extremely helpful to humans, or at least to Native American humans. According to Mi’kmaq sources, eagles and hawks cannot be misused by sorcerers; they only act as messengers of good. But some raptors, such as owls, can. Hawks, like their fellow accipitrids the eagles, mate for life—and, according to “Ecologic” radio host, Ken Gale, renew their vows yearly. If you see someone in a dream, and he or she turns into an eagle or hawk, it is good, according to Native American Bird Medicine.
New York’s Finest Bird
Falcons and hawks not only warn humans, they can also bring bad news. A mixed-blood Taino woman, whom we’ll call “Marlene,” living in a highly urban part of the South Bronx came home on the night of July Fourth with her father, talking about the fireworks they had just seen. There, sitting on the top of the gate waiting for them, was a large falcon. The top of the gate was just below eye level, so the bird’s great eyes were staring into hers. He seemed to have something to say and screamed at her; he then turned to her father and just looked at him sadly and flew away. The young girl immediately considered it a sign and mistakenly thought it was a warning about her father’s health, or even imminent death. He said he was fine.
The next day, they received news that her brother and cousin were jumped in a nearby alley and beaten by a local gang, which sent them to the hospital. The attack occurred an hour or so before Marlene and her father saw the falcon. They prayed for the two family members, and the boys’ recoveries were surprisingly swift. Perhaps the feathered visitor was not just warning them but reminding them to pray.
It was not until I asked her, as part of an informal interview on July 8, if she had seen any bird signs (and we had just been talking about hawks) that she made the connection and realized that the timing of the falcon’s arrival must have been fairly synchronous with the injuries her relatives sustained. Tearfully, she realized that the hawk was not “saying” her father was at risk of death but was only telling them what had just happened. It is probable that the hawk had actually seen the attack and knew where the relatives lived, thanks to its tireless habits of observation and infallible memory.
Like a true New York police officer, New York’s finest bird was there waiting at the door with the bad news, offering any assistance it could. The appearance of a falcon in the South Bronx is in itself somewhat miraculous, so it is only slightly more amazing that the bird seemed to have appeared at that moment in order to bring an important message to Marlene and her family.
Hawks and Their Dining Habits
Each type of hawk has a distinct style of flying, and a different flair for arriving at the dinner table. The northern harrier can almost float in the air if it wishes but can also travel at high speeds. In a similar way the red-tailed hawk can drop straight down to the ground while holding the wings still in a horizontal position. Their aim is quite good. One morning in May, I saw a red tail drop from the sky, like a spaceship making a pinpoint landing, and collapse on a narrow strip of grass in the middle of Route 95 in Maryland, presumably having spotted an unsuspecting vole or mouse. It seemed to be saying to me, “Catch the opportunity.” Mice are swift but cannot turn their heads easily upward, and so a vertical drop gives them less warning. Early in the day, the hawk’s long shadow coming from the east would have passed over the mouse and caused him or her to flee. But a vertical drop leaves no shadow beneath it (until almost noon). Hawks collapse over their prey to guard it from other birds who might entertain a larcenous thought or two. Like the eagle, hawks need movement in order to see a small rodent or other tidbit, but the swirling winds created by high-speed cars are not a problem for the hawk. Two sources have told me that both hawks and eagles like traffic islands; lots of mice with nowhere to go.
Hawks, in fact, do not seem to mind traffic. I saw a Cooper’s hawk flirtatiously displaying its characteristic striped tail feathers to all the drivers on I-87 in New York from a nearby tree (or perhaps it was making this display only to me). It seemed to be saying, “Notice me. I am a Cooper’s hawk!” The question is, what is the significance of the Cooper’s hawk? Like all hawks, the Cooper’s hawk tells us to sharpen our awareness of omens, signs, and signals in nature as a general practice. But its tail is uniquely like a test pattern; perhaps it was saying, “This is only a test. If this were a real omen, you would be told where to go and what to do!”
The kestrel is mistakenly called a sparrow hawk. It is approximately the size of a robin. They are known for their agility and gracefulness.
The peregrine falcon is the fastest of all and can outrace any bird and, in many cases, have it for its meal. During the late 1940s with the introduction of pesticides such as DDT, the peregrine almost became extinct overnight, because the falcon would ingest whatever toxins were in the smaller birds’ bodies, after eating bugs with pesticides inside. Peregrines had to be mated in captivity and eventually were brought back into the wild but are still rare to this day.
Harris’s hawks work as a team, in ways that would make the Flying Karamazov Brothers green with envy. A Harris’s hawk will attack a jackrabbit larger and heavier than itself, and then fly it off to the nest with the well-coordinated help of a close relative, often a brother, who carries half the weight and who, in most cases, gets 50 percent at the end of the day.
The Northern Harrier: A Messenger from Horus
All in all, in the United States, there are twenty-eight types of raptors in the Accipitridae family, which includes hawks, eagles, and harriers, and ten types in the Falconidae family, of which falcons are members. (Ospreys are separate, in the Pandionidae family.) All these are in the order Falconiformes, or diurnal birds of prey. The Accipitridae family has been further subdivided into as many as fourteen subfamilies. Members of the subfamily Buteoninae include broad-winged hawks, red-tailed hawks, and eagles. The harriers, named after the English hunting dog, are in the subfamily Circinae.
While the northern harrier is the only one living in the United States, other types of harriers are found around the world. The harrier has an owl-like facial disc, which directs distant sounds to its ears, which miss nothing and remember everything (see color insert, plates 12 and 25). The tall and distinguished harrier builds its nest on the ground, usually hiding it under a bush. They have wide wings and a large wing surface compared to their body, which makes it possible for them to hover almost motionless in the sky over prey or listen for messages like a surveillance satellite. They sometimes cohabitate with short-eared owls. The northern harrier is also called the marsh hawk because it frequents the water and, in fact, has been known to sink certain waterfowl in battle. Also called the blue hawk because of its dark-blue back, the name Circus cyaneus describes its yellow eyes and tendency to repeatedly fly in circles. Its clutch has from three to five eggs at a time.
Ahngwet (pronounced AHN-gwet), a Mi’kmaq woman, sang “Yo Ho Yo Hunday,” the eagle song for her father in the downtown Washington, D.C., hospital just before he passed to the spirit world. Comments were made, asking if he would send messages from the spirit world, letting the family know he was very well, or at least okay, and that he could hear their prayers. Ahngwet was sure he would send a big, prominent sign from the spirit world.
On the morning of that last visit to the hospital to identify the body, the family—the mother and three offspring—was riding home along East West Highway and was caught in a traffic jam in a heavily urbanized area of Maryland. A huge harrier hawk circled in front of the car and landed on a big, prominent sign, and then landed on top of a telephone pole, where it continued to sit, as if listening to Ahngwet and her siblings talking excitedly about the bird, until the car had made it through the traffic jam. Ahngwet, a passenger, pointed the bird out and said repeatedly, “It’s Father, coming to send a message from the spirit world. I’m sure of it!”
The same or similar harrier showed up again twice more during the next few days, in different places, as the family began preparations for the funeral. It was a choice of messenger so succinct, it was almost humorous. Her father was a tall, distinguished man with a beakish George Washington–like roman nose. He had been a radio man in the navy, and then in the intelligence field manned Station X, a listening post in the Aleutian Islands, before going on to other assignments, so the harrier’s exceptionally acute hearing (in comparison to other hawks and falcons) was appropriate. The harrier has soft feathers and large wings, rendering his flights completely silent like the owls. A remarkably quiet man known as a good listener, he had also helped develop surveillance satellites, which hovered silently over Russia, like the harrier, whose overseas territory covers most of Russia. The northern harrier is not a “people person” and spends much of its time hiding from observers, as I found out firsthand during a recent visit to the northern harrier area of The Raptor Trust in Millington, New Jersey. The harriers spent most of my visit hiding behind a small privacy barrier.
Ahngwet’s father had often worn a dark-blue suit to work, wearing black wing-tip shoes, giving him a similar coloration to the harrier, who has a dark-blue back and black wing tips. While in the navy, he was among the first to use an early form of sonar to sink a Nazi submarine during World War II at close range, so the marsh hawk’s ability to drown a duck in battle is a significant parallel.
Her father had also been an Egyptologist and had written extensively about Horus, the falcon-headed god who is featured in the Egyptian Book of the Dead (the original was entirely pictorial, carved at first into temple walls as hieroglyphs and only later inscribed on papyrus) and who helps Ma’at in her judgment of the dead. Among American falcons, the harrier’s profile most closely matches that of Horus, second only perhaps to the peregrine falcon.
In fact, in ancient Egypt, the Egyptian marsh hawk was ritually mummified and then given as an offering to Horus on behalf of one who was dying. One town in Egypt at the time of Christ mummified over ten thousand such Egyptian marsh hawks each year, which were then distributed as offerings to the god, to ensure safe passage into the afterlife. Its closest surviving relative today is the northern harrier.21
Were these visits from her father “saying” that his life was lived as an offering to the Egyptian god of mysteries? Or perhaps that he was now working for Horus as a messenger? Or was this a message that he had made it through Ma’at’s test and that his heart had been placed on her fearful scales and was found to be lighter than a feather and therefore pure enough to eat the sacred manna of Osiris?
Ahngwet’s father had raised his family in a small, low-lying, unassuming house hidden by tall trees and bushes in suburban Maryland, in an area that had been a marshy swamp until the end of World War II, bringing to mind once again the marsh hawk. Ahngwet’s father was a rare breed, a point to which everyone who knew him agreed upon, and the parallels between him and the marsh hawk had been there all along, but no one ever made the connection.
Two weeks later, after the funeral, Ahngwet’s brother was in the courtyard of a New York college in a different urban area and was telling a fellow professor of the continuing visits of the Maryland harrier, with messages from the falcon-headed father who had passed to the spirit world. The other professor had just said, “Gee, I don’t know . . . that’s pretty out there,” when a full-size harrier, perhaps the same one, came barreling through the crowded campus at a good speed, about six feet off the ground, and blasted by the skeptical professor, nearly touching his shoulder, as the bird made a dramatic swoop toward the two figures. The harrier then landed on a big, prominent sign above the student union and looked at the disbelieving scholar, who blanched in shock. He recognized the harrier from the story and knew, as a loyal bird enthusiast, that this bird was not only on an endangered list but also not in the heart of its migratory path, as this was not a marsh or prairie. The young professor ran wide-eyed in the other direction, as fast as he could, glancing repeatedly at the harrier, who was staring back at him. It was a memorable moment.
Red Tails Understand Mohawk
Kevin Deer, a Mohawk ceremonial leader from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, knows from experience how red-tailed hawks can dramatize connections with the departed spirits of good friends. There was a ceremonial gathering of elders and traditional-minded people at Victoria Harbor, about one hour’s drive north of Toronto, Ontario. They were gathering to do a spring seed ceremony involving some Iroquois, Cree, and Ojibway people. However, the recent loss of two of their beloved elders, who had passed on, was occupying their minds, and the executive director of the healing lodge asked if there was something that could be done to deal with the grief that they were feeling.
Kevin decided to conduct the condolence ceremony to honor the grief they all felt. This ceremony took place beside a garden surrounded by beautiful trees, with the main house and some offices situated nearby. In the morning, Kevin’s father began the traditional thanksgiving address, spoken in Mohawk then English, and then translated by the Ojibway clan leader. The Mohawk kastowah, or headdress, that Kevin was wearing had three eagle feathers.*19 Since no wampum strings were available, Kevin decided to improvise and use each one of the feathers from the kastowah, passing them across the fire to the Ojibway elders on the other side. The first feather, he said, dealt with the eyes and with tears that were being shed. The second feather, he said, dealt with the ears and nose. Then the third feather, he said, dealt with the lump in the throat. Those three feathers and the words associated with them were intended to help lift the minds of the grieving party. The feathers then crossed the fire, and the speaker on the grieving side of the fire then repeated the words associated with the small condolence ceremony to help pick up their minds. And then they broke for lunch.
Kevin stated that the first part of the ritual, which they had just completed, had dealt with the physical aspects of grieving and cleared their minds. Now, they would deal with the spiritual aspects of the planting, addressing, and honoring Great Spirit and the spiritual elements of the upper world. Then, when addressing the upper world elements—the four winds, thunder beings, and other sky world elements—Kevin acknowledged and thanked each of these elements in nature. At that moment, two red-tailed hawks appeared and circled over their fire. Kevin looked up, offered tobacco, and thanked them for showing up. As soon as the ceremony was over, someone started to ask questions: Is there a connection between the fact that we were reaching out to the spirits of the two elders who’d just recently passed on, and the fact that two red-tailed hawks circled low over our fire? What is the connection? Why did that happen? Kevin answered that some events seem to be complimented by the power of spirit, and that when we see these things, we can be assured of the reality of the Great Spirit’s presence. These moments are sacred revelations. They do not happen all the time. We have no control over them. They just are. Kevin understood that they, as witnesses to such an event, would want to tell the story to their friends as soon as they got home, but reminded them that no one could share the feelings of sacredness they felt the minute the red tails made their entrance. That feeling of awe was to be theirs alone, and he urged them not to be too disappointed if friends and neighbors failed to understand.
Kevin Deer experienced a similar visit from three red-tailed hawks at Grand River, Ontario, on the Six Nations territory back in 1988, during a June strawberry ceremony, which they had decided to conduct outdoors in a forest. Although the strawberry festival is usually held in a longhouse, this was a special occasion. Twenty-five people were in attendance. It was midmorning, and Kevin was conducting the Mohawk ritual widely known as “The Giving of Thanks Address,” subtitled “Greetings to the Natural World,” and commonly described in Mohawk as “Words Before All Else,” because nothing is done in ceremony without giving thanks first. “There is a section that reads, ‘We give thanks to the birds that still we hear. The good songs they carry, and the big one, the leader. The eagle is his name. We give thanks that he watches over the cycles of life. So then it will be in our minds.’”*20
As he said the words acknowledging the bird life, three red-tailed hawks seemingly jumped from out of the forest about twenty feet above the participants’ heads and cried out, screeching like eagles. The timeless words of thanks continued to be spoken, but some upwardly cast eyes filled with tears as the hawks completed their graceful circles of flight just above the fire, then left. It was a moment that defied explanation.
Birds connect the land world and sky world; wings denote that one can go from one world to the next, to travel from the air to the land and back. Angels, as sky beings, are portrayed with wings, as they travel between the physical world and the spiritual. Native American people understand that although they are in physical form, birds are emissaries at times from the upper worlds in a deeply spiritual sense and therefore have a lot in common with angels.22
It often seems that birds are just waiting for the right moment to communicate with us, waiting for us to ask them (in the right way and in the right language) to join in our circles and ceremonies. They have been waiting for thousands of years, but thanks to new environmental hazards such as electromagnetic waves and pulses, toxins, increasing water and noise pollution, and tall buildings, we may not have much more time to keep them waiting.
Moon Hawk
Tony Moon Hawk of the Unkechaug is a man who really loves birds. “Birds carry life; they protect the planet!” he said. “Especially eagles and hawks. Waterbirds are very sacred. Certain birds make the wind blow or stop wars. Eagles bring us good signs. All the birds are important to the Unkechaug.”
I asked him how he got his name. He said he was originally named Silver Bison, but the name didn’t work for him. For one thing, bison hadn’t been a part of life on Long Island for thousands of years. One day while praying, Spirit told him it was time to change his name. Tony was going through a difficult time in his life; his marriage wasn’t working out, and he had a lot of problems with money and at his job as a housing cop. He wondered about this for a while, then finally, one night at about 10 p.m., at a beautiful spot, he sat down and prayed to the Creator to tell him his name. Just then, he saw the silhouette of a hawk gliding across the face of the pale blue moon, the second full moon of that month, and he knew what his name was supposed to be. He had always felt a kinship with the hawk nation. His name from then on was Moon Hawk. The hawk, he says, is a backup bird to the eagle, and yet they are different. The hawk is a fighter, yet is very helpful and brings good signs.
Exactly one year after he got his name, he met his future wife, Marcey. People stopped bothering him at work. He divorced, moved out of New York City to New Jersey, and began to spend more time in nature, out in the wilderness. Marcey encouraged him to go to powwows, and gradually he became a renowned maker and vendor of Native craftwork. Everything in his life changed for the better. His understanding of the Unkechaug way grew stronger. If he saw a hawk fly in front of him on the way to a powwow, he would always do well and be successful. If no hawk appeared, it was going to be iffy. This pattern remained very clear to him for six years, and the closer to the wilderness the venue was, the more dramatically true it was, especially in Pennsylvania.
Tony Moon Hawk and his wife, Marcey, by the Hudson River
Tony had always said that he “would never have any more kids.” That, too, was about to change. Marcey soon became pregnant, and they were both happy, but there were problems. She was delivering prematurely, and the baby’s heartbeat was barely registering. Tony took Marcey to a hospital in Pompton Plains, a highly urbanized area where a band of Wappingers had migrated late in colonial history. The doctors were calling for a C-section but were afraid of losing either the baby or Marcey. Marcey told him to call her mother to help pray for her. Tony took his cell phone and went outside, in front of the lobby, to make the call. A doctor, not related to Marcey’s team, walked up to him and said, “See that bird?” Tony was very distraught and looked at him like the doctor was the one under too much stress. “What bird?”
The doctor pointed to a giant bird that was sitting on the corner of the roof about two stories above Tony’s head. It was a hawk. The doctor made sure Tony could see it, and then said, “I’ve never seen a hawk here in all my years. That is amazing!”
Tony looked at the giant bird, and the hawk turned his head and looked straight at Tony, who got the clear message, “Don’t worry!” The two indigenous “hawks” looked at each other for five minutes. It was the biggest red-tailed hawk he’d ever seen. In fact, at first he thought it was a turkey. The janitor came up and looked where Tony was looking. “Red-tailed hawk! That is the biggest I ever saw!”
Tony ran back upstairs, and the doctors were jubilant. Everything was fine. The baby, Cheyenne, had arrived. She was certainly a preemie, at only seven and a half months and weighing in at only five pounds—much smaller, in fact, than the hawk. But Cheyenne has grown to normal size and is a healthy and rambunctious child today.
That night, it was the second full moon of the month, a blue moon. Once you start looking for signs, they appear in flocks, like so many birds.23
Hawks Love Drums
Hawks, like eagles, are attracted to powwows in part because of the drums. Etaoqua, a Mohican, was with Mohawk Jake Swamp as he performed a Tree of Peace planting ceremony at New York City’s Orchard Beach. Orchard Beach is a modest public park surrounded on three sides by tall buildings. There were few birds in sight as they began the ceremony. Jake Swamp pulled out a small hand drum and sang a song to open the ceremony. As he did, three hawks came and began to circle the tree and continued to circle at low altitudes until the ceremony was done. Then, as Jake closed the ceremony, the three emissaries from the sky world disappeared into the cityscape.
Etaoqua and her husband, Sagamore Mike, were visited only once by a hawk at their Rahway home, sitting on a telephone pole in front of the house, but it stayed long enough for Sagamore Mike to go inside, get a camera, come back out, talk with the bird, and then take a photo. As soon as he snapped the picture, the bird left. That hawk had a good reason for visiting; Sagamore Mike passed on into the spirit world shortly thereafter, taking his ancient Mohican language with him.24
Red Tail Protection from Above
As I was driving to my first interview at a new university, I was having doubts as to my good sense. It was a hundred miles from my home, and gas was at its most expensive. I looked for signs to tell me if I was on the right road, literally and figuratively. Suddenly, I see old Red Tail the hawk riding in the “eagle’s nest” position, directly above and just in front of my car’s windshield. He is looking from side to side as if protecting me, guiding me, and making sure I don’t change my mind. Shortly thereafter, I met Elaine Henwood, who told me a similar hawk story about one of her clients, and she told them that, as Rolling Thunder would say, Red Tail was “clearing the way” for me as he flew, an apt description. Red Tail flew with me for about a mile and then disappeared into the sky. I knew I would get the job, and that it would be important some day in the distant future. Although I had to move closer to work, I taught in several capacities at this school, which offered me a variety of intellectual stimulation. That connection led to a course in Native American Literature, and the authorship of several books and PowerPoint presentations (including one on Bird Medicine) much of which is still in progress.
Food for Thought
One of the secrets Aunt Helen knew somehow was that when feeding raptors such as hawks, you couldn’t just feed them meat from a can or hamburger. If you did, you needed to mix crushed bone or bonemeal into it, or the raptor would eventually get sick. They need to make the pellets in order to clean out their system and also need the calcium from the bone. As quoted in her biography by Eleanor Noyes Johnson, the feeding of young wild creatures was one of Helen’s favorite subjects. Young hawks, she would say, “need more than meat. They need bone. Hamburger has too much fat in it, but liver rolled in brown bone meal will help grow strong legs and wings. Above all, hawks mustn’t be kept on a hard surface or the legs go out of joint, and they will grow crooked like legs of rickety children.”25 Helen saw the birds in her care as her own children, and she took good care of them. I recall wondering as a child why many of the birds had no cages: the distinction between tame and wild would become very blurry sometimes at Helen’s White Animal Farm.
Dream Hawks
Robin Larsen has run a Jungian dream group with her husband, Steve, for many years and says that many people have dreams about birds, hawks in particular, who give them guidance. She commented that geese have been considered sacred birds for thousands of years and pointed out that geese migrate across the Atlantic Ocean, from Finland in Europe to North America. In Mi’kmaq, we say, “Geezoolgh, ge-gun moo-ee la-maik pboogh dju-wa doo-ee naht-koh-way!” This saying is in the old high language, but it means roughly, “Creator, give me the teaching dreams!”
The Prisoner and the Peregrine
“Nathan” and his wife lived in New York City, on the top floor of a forty-story East 72nd street apartment between York Avenue and the East River. Being a birder, Nathan was familiar with a breeding pair of peregrine falcons that lived on the top of New York Hospital at Cornell University Medical Center, a couple of blocks away. These birds were described in Red Tails in Love, a book that mentions Pale Male, a hawk that lives at a swanky building at 927 Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue is part of an old Native American trail known as the Tulpehocken Trail, which stretched from Montreal to Louisville, and which was then designated as Route 22. I believe many “gatekeeper” birds still follow the old trails.*21 It also mentions the secret “bird book,” which records in longhand the sightings of rare and wild birds by New Yorkers and is kept in a secret location at a news stand, a secret which is known, nonetheless, to thousands of New York City bird enthusiasts.
Nathan would often marvel at their aerial acrobatics, especially when going after pigeons. He had also spent some time on a Shoshone Reservation in Idaho and with the Samburu of Kenya and had learned a few things about animal signs. Both he and his wife had looked to those falcons for signs and for inspiration before.
Nathan got in some trouble and was sentenced to four months in federal prison at Fort Dix, New Jersey. July 9, 2002, was the day chosen for Nathan to be released, but his wife was not notified. He was let out late in the morning, not knowing how he would be able to communicate with his wife, but she was in his thoughts.
Late that afternoon, Nathan’s wife was ironing in the living room when she noticed a bird making a beeline for the apartment. It actually scared her, and she went to close the large glass French doors thinking the bird would fly in. The bird landed on the corner of the terrace railing and just sat there looking at her, and to her surprise, she realized it was a baby peregrine falcon. It stood looking at her for a while before flying off. She knew it was a message letting her know that Nathan wished to make a beeline for home if he only could and would be arriving soon. The bird seemed to say, “Nathan is okay!” Although Nathan couldn’t call, because of the falcon’s visit his wife felt at peace. Her husband made it home in one piece a few days later after some last-minute peregrinations.