Giniw

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

You can't tell from the distance (and that's at virtually full zoom, which gives you and indication of how high it was circling), but that's Giniw.

Golden Eagle. Also, War Eagle.

We haven't had one here, in sight, over our land, since the day after my father walked on more than eight years ago. He showed up yesterday, twice, circling overhead, playing on the currents, seeming almost to stop and hover in mid-air to let me get a shot off, except that the sunlight was far too bright to see him, even with the viewfinder.

My father was not named for him, and I have no reason to think that it bears any relationship to him; quite the opposite, in fact. But my other ancestors, those of whom I write lately . . . ? I know that Marsh comes to visit; he always seems to appear on the days when my spirit is at its lowest, which leads me to think that I am interpreting the man correctly. He was feared and fearsome, but not especially loved, and I always wanted to understand what made him appear that way. Maybe I do. I do know, now, that he came to once, long ago, although I didn't recognize him at the time.

Giniw. Perhaps Marsh's own father? Someone older yet? I don't know. I do know that he returned today with a companion, circling and swooping and diving over the trees and the water across the highway. Today's shots were less clear yet, but I caught, if not spectacularly well, two of them together.

I have long since been forced to accept that my relationship to my past, our past, will always necessarily be truncated, attenuated. Circumstances of times long past saw to that, and thoroughly so. But maybe, in this family of wingéd ones, the spirits of the ancestors are crossing the interstices, the spaces between the worlds, coming to brush me with their wings — to touch my soul, just for a moment, and let me know that, however solitary, however far removed in time and place and space I am from their embrace, I am not alone.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.