Day 3

The sky this morning is filled with raptors, hunting. I have witnessed three times now the harrier food exchange and innumerable times have seen the defense of home space whenever any non-harrier, whether it be raven or vulture or hawk, comes within the airspace of the harrier's nest.

This day is dedicated to Sophia, she who gave me the Pema Chodron book that I hold so dearly that I brought it with me on this quest, she who is about to embark on her own quest – a month-long sitting meditation. If she can do that, I surely have the strength to do these four days without food. So I will conjure her strength today when the demons of fear and self-pity appear.

Last night before dark, before sleep covered me with its generous blanket, I had two visitations by the spirit of Changing Woman. The first was a colibrí, my initial encounter with a hummingbird during this high desert quest. It/she flew to a tree near my circle and landed, sitting, watching. I invited her in, so she zzzmmed to a branch within the circle, the branch nearest to me, and lingered briefly before zzzmming directly overhead, then continuing on her way. This branch was in the east, the direction of wisdom and understanding. The next was a tanager, resplendent in her coat of many colors. The branch she chose was almost equally close. This branch was in the west, the direction which signifies purity and strength. She, too, lingered long enough for me to feel enriched and filled by her spirit before continuing on her way.

We spoke of needing, Changing Woman and I, but what is a need? We need food and water to survive in this body, and I believe that we need love, but we receive it from so many sources. Do we NEED a primary love? Possibly. Maybe the love that we NEED is the one that truly reflects back to us our own divinity, our own pure-light-love that we have forgotten parts of, believing that we are not worthy. That is a love need that I can understand. That is a love need that I can stand under, receiving the blessed rain shower of love drops reminding me that I am worthy, that I am pure. Within that shower runs the river of compassion for others that I seek to strengthen in my own heart. It is my task and my quest, I know, with help from others not only to recognize and empathize with suffering, but also to heal my own wounded self. In this way I need that love that Changing Woman gives me. There is another need that I have found in myself through her – that being the unconditional love that fills my heart. That love (the expression of which is not completely unconditional, I know, because I still have moments of frailty, of jealousy, of fear) transcends any love that I have ever known for any person, man or woman, who has come into my life by choice rather than by birth. The gift that she has given, that I have received from her through this opening of my heart, can never be taken away now that the awareness and experience has happened.

We sit here now, unseen physically by one another, sharing another experience. Perhaps on Friday her vision will not include me. I doubt that. I believe that this time will have strengthened our bond, renewed it because we will see even more clearly the purity and honesty and love that each brings to the other. Is that a need? I am still not sure whether to name it that. But if/when she chooses to go, my love will go with her, and hers will remain with me, within her and within me.

I ask chipmunk to tell me what she knows of suffering, she of the light heart and playful nature, spritely scampering through the junipers, jumping outward onto a limb so thin that it bends backward with her weight, folding her over upside down. She halts her playful search for seeds, waits, blinks several times as though assessing my worthiness to hear her sad tale.

“My mother was stolen from above by hawk wile she was out gathering seeds and nuts to bring back to feed me and my three brothers. She was snatched away screaming while we watched and listened. I will forever remember the pain in her voice. I will forever feel the anguish in my heart that day as her cries faded with distance.

My father disappeared quietly in the night shortly thereafter. No sound came to me in my sleep except, perhaps, the light whisper of owl. My three young brothers, one by one, were ripped and torn away in their inexperienced youthful quest for food, hungry and unaware of the danger that awaited them from both above and below.

I live daily in fear. I am neither strong nor large nor have weapons of defense. Listen! Do you hear that high-pitched wail? I do. Over and over daily I hear my aunts and uncles being taken and shredded while still alive. Soon it will be my time as well. That is what I know of suffering.”