(no subject)
Have you ever had a spiritual connection to an animal (domesticated or wild)? If yes, explain the circumstances and how the experience changed you.
Yes, I have. My most profound spiritual connection to an animal occurred when I was 16 years old. I lived at a magnet school in Mobile, Alabama, and my friends and I often hung out in the nearby cemetery and parks. One afternoon, my friend Kaan and I were lying on the ground staring up at the clouds, daydreaming. I noticed a hawk circling overhead and focused intently on its movements. I wondered how the world looks from so high, what the wind feels like beneath the hawk’s wings, whether the air feels cool on its skin, whether its feathers fully insulate its body against the air’s coolness.
In the previous weeks, I had been learning about and practicing astral travel, and I wondered whether I could “travel” up to the hawk’s position and look down upon myself. I willed my mind/spirit to do this, but instead of just seeing everything from above, I seemed to see from the hawk’s perspective. It was exhilarating and disorienting, and I felt free in a way I never had before and that I haven’t felt in any other way since. I soared for several minutes (that seemed like hours) and snapped back when the hawk went for its prey.
Several times since then, I had similar experiences of seeing through a hawk’s eyes. I learned how to form the hawk’s cry despite the strain on my vocal chords. These unique experiences are amazing in their own right, but my kinship with hawks has come to have an even deeper spiritual meaning.
During my intensive trauma therapy early this year, my counselors had a hard time helping me find my way back into my “window of tolerance” after being triggered. One of my counselors helped me reach a meditative state and suggested I create for myself a safe place in my mind, a container where I could store my fears. They suggested visualizing actual containers (boxes, safes, that sort of thing), but I knew that, for me, containment could easily become denial. Instead, I chose to visualize myself rising above my fears. I did this by immersing myself in the memory of flying as a hawk.
When the world’s chaos and noise become too much to bear, recreating that flight in my mind soothes me. The feel of the cool, damp air rushing around my body; the absence of electrical hums, car horns and sirens, and the unceasing noise of people’s emotions, thoughts, and words; and the brightness of the open sky--that helps me feel free from my tortured thoughts and aching body. It is my peaceful place.
Several weeks ago, I sat on my porch feeling depressed and anxious and trapped. (I had hoped going outside would lessen this feeling-it didn’t.) A hawk flew onto my porch while hunting birds in a nearby tree. It didn’t stay but a moment before lifting off again, crying out and scaring the birds away from the tree's safety. I don’t know if the hawk caught the bird, but it caught my attention and reminded me what it felt like to be free from my mental illness and the city's noise.