Grief Is A Strange Bird
Grief is a strange bird. It lies in the shadows and then snaps back to attention with shocking and inexplicable furor. At least this is the way it dances with me. I am not really big on feelings. In my work I am deeply immersed in elemental energies. Sometimes this means raw emotion, chaos, unpredictable things. I deal with trauma on a daily basis and I am unwaveringly matter of fact and business like. In my shamanic practice I often journey right into the heart of grief. I stare down unspeakable suffering, negotiate the dark realms, converse with heartbreak. My style is very methodical. In my personal life, I behave similarly. I feel strongly, sometimes explosively, but I rarely cry. Once when retelling to my twin daughters about how I was deeply affected by something and describing how I cried, they stared at me incredulously and said “like, real tears?” It was a legitimate question. My answer was “no, not real tears-but almost.”
Grief is unpredictable. Or maybe it’s not. Newton’s third law states definitively, to each action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sometimes the reaction occurs spontaneously and immediately- and other times It lurks deep in the shadows and when something casts a beam of light, it bursts forth with a tidal wave of emotions. A caustic swirl of hurt, confusion, and more often than not an irrational reaction to other people’s stories. I am reminded of a boiling stock of leftovers - a dash of regret, a hint of what-if. An abundance of memories just a day shy of spoiling. And so it goes.
I have always felt closer to animals than people. I seem to have “a way with them”. They always find their way into my care, and I communicate with them in ways that seem unusual to many people in Western society. I feel a special relationship with birds. I remember as a child I would become envious of those who found feathers and nests. I used to talk to all the birds I saw and ask them for feathers to no avail. The feathers did not appear. Ever. Not a single one came back then.
Several years ago, I learned the traditional stone and feather medicine of the Cherokee while attending a gathering of healers on the Navajo reservation. While my teacher was showing us the right way to work with the feathers, I felt a raven in the red cliffs above where we were working. Raven said “come to the edge of the cliff and you will find your feather”. And my first feather was gifted to me that day.
I knew my mother’s family had Cherokee lineage. My grandfather used to spend his summers on the reservation in Oklahoma with his uncles. He knew the language and spoke fluently. His mother was a Cooper. And Coopers are bird clan. Keepers of the bird medicine. I did not meet my grandfather until I was in my 30’s and he was nearly 90. There is much about that I never learned. Still, even if I did not have the lessons, the teachings and the ceremonies of my distant ancestors, the birds knew what I did not. They knew I did not have the right to have feathers if I did not know the Medicine.
From the moment I learned the Medicine my spirit animal Raven made its presence known. I was traveling with my two small daughters through monsoon season in Arizona, returning from the gathering. Every mile or two, in the pouring rain and violent wind, we spotted a raven on a post or sign on the side of the road—cawing at us. Oddly, it appeared to be the same raven in the same position, in a different location seeming to warn us to pull over as the storm got worse. We did end up pulling over in Winslow, Arizona when visibility reached zero. We got the very last motel room in the entire town. Dozens of other cars poured off the freeway hoping for some respite. Raven gifted us with more than guidance through the storm, and the very last room in town. Back on the road the next day we stopped for lunch and while eating I saw a raven in a tree across the parking lot. It kept calling to me. It said over and over “I have something for you.” After we finished, I went over to the tree and looked all over expecting a feather. There was nothing. Then I heard “wrong tree!” I looked up and raven was a few trees over giving me quite the look! I went over and there were beautiful feathers on the ground. But that wasn’t all. Raven began to fly and stop, then call to me. He flew and hopped and stopped and cawed all over the parking area. And each time he stopped and cawed I found beautiful, incredible feathers. In all, friend raven led me to over thirty wing and tail feathers. This happened just a couple of days after being taught the medicine.
There are many stories I have of how Raven guided me. Friends in Los Angeles still refer to a pair of ravens in Griffith Park that used to visit and converse with me as ‘my ravens’. Three years after moving I still occasionally get a text message with pictures and a note “I saw your ravens today”. Of course they are not mine, but they are my friends and I miss them.
Feather medicine is incredibly gentle and powerful. Each bird carries its own medicine. Because the feathers are so sensitive to energy you can scan the body to locate areas of physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma. Then using prayer, or sometimes song, you ask the feathers to extract the traumatized energy so the healing can begin. And the medicine of the bird then begins to work. For instance, woodpecker can loosen up and extract the worst headaches, or bluejay teaches us to be our authentic selves, bluebird brings happiness. And so forth.
The birds became my partners and for many years I taught and used feather medicine in my healing. So many feathers would present themselves to me that at times I had to turn them away and return them to the earth. Once a hummingbird flew up to me and died. I used her wings to teach third graders how tiny but courageous hummingbird saved humanity from a seven year drought. We sang and drummed and honored hummingbird that day and when we stepped outside dark clouds and tiny raindrops were falling! The kids whooped and danced and yelled, “Thank you hummingbird”. Good medicine.
I remember every feather I ever used, every bird that ever lead me to its gift. And I remember the day the feathers left me.
When I was diagnosed with cancer I was told to take my feathers back to the Navajo reservation and offer them to a medicine woman. She was to take whichever she wanted. She took them all except the raven. All of them. They found a new partner and it was the right thing to do. I listened to them and honored their request. But I cried. Real tears.
Fighting cancer like any chronic or life threatening illness or injury is deep work. It is multi-layered, sticky. I had to do it on my own. While I had incredible support from my family and friends, the inner workings were my responsibility. And I did that healing. Methodically and without emotion. Emotion doesn’t serve one who is arguing with death. One must be cunning and keen witted, not fraught with tidal ebbs and flows. After all, some battles are better fought with water and others with fire.
But where I was foolish was in holding to the expectation that when it was over, I would just bounce right back into my old comfortable skin and pick up where I left off. There is no comfortable place that comes out of that experience. Every cell is different. One emerges physically, emotionally, spiritually amnesiac. Nothing is familiar. And even the animals no longer seem to recognize me. They don’t talk to me the way they used too. No feathers are being left in my path. I miss my friends.
An elder told me recently that they are still there but they can’t come back to me yet. Not yet. But soon. I knew the reason why.
The emotions don’t go away, even for the strongest warrior. The day of reckoning must come. You see, In spite of the physical healing and spiritual healing that I experienced- there is one thing I never dealt with. And that is the grief. I had resisted with all I had but I knew I would have to face the emotions soon.
As I said, grief is a strange bird. Yesterday I went into Green Sage in Asheville and they had this beautiful artwork by Artist Kathy Wolfe. As soon as I walked in I felt the feathers. And then I spotted the nests. I became completely immersed in her lovely still life photographs of feathers and nests- and the medicine came. Immediately, gently, patiently they found and extracted the traumatic energy to make room for the medicine. And the tears came, real ones-and the words came, truthful ones-and I received it. And I am receiving it. And I am grateful. My friends remember me. And they haven’t abandoned me. I’m ready to face the grief and I don’t have to traverse it alone.
