For Today

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

For today, we are — at the moment — back to what passes here for normal. 

The other grandfather, the larger one, paid a visit, and brought the gift of functional circuitry, it seems. He also brought the gift of this shot; he's been giving me some spectacular flight shots lately, seemingly deliberately.  

The Tumblr post is up early (just in case we lost all power, or even just the router). The post at Wings's site will be late, mostly because he's working on a piece and I'm hoping it'll be done in time for me to feature it today.

For now, it's back to the never-ending task list . . with fingers crossed in hopes the power continues to work properly.

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.

Sky Spirits and Second Chances

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Only yesterday, I was lamenting the fact that, thanks to the presence of the new girl in the round pen, the hitching post in it would go unused as a perch for raptors and other birds. It's one of their favorite spots, particularly for the one I call Nimishoomis. But when there's a horse in the pen, they tend to shy away.

So imagine my surprise when I went out to the studio with the camera to get shots of Wings's latest work, only to see in the distance a bird sitting atop it. It's not clear from the photos, but despite the clouds, I was facing directly into the sun in the southern sky, and the glare was impossible to navigate. I couldn't tell what sort of bird it was until I snapped the photo.

It's the one I call Grandfather.

Yes. The one who afforded us the fastest of glimpses two days ago, as he flew directly over my head to vanish into thin air. The one who, up to that point, I had not seen here for a month or more.

He was very decidedly, deliberately, seated atop the post, looking down on the new girl:

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Rather than steering clear, he seemed to be watching over her.

I moved closer, trying to get a better shot, and he flew off, not seeming to need to gather himself at all, nor spring onto the air, before heading southward.

I also could not see him circle back around, but a split second later, he was north, not south. He had seated himself atop the giant blue spruce, where he could keep an eye on horse and me and the world at large:

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

After a few minutes, he tired of balancing there, and headed briefly westward. Just long enough, actually, to spiral upward in great sweeping circles, the glare too bright for me to find him anywhere against the dove-gray sky.

I took a shot, and took a shot, so to speak:

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

And there he was, so high that he seemed tinier than a hummingbird. He circled several more times, then suddenly zoomed straight toward me. He hovered a moment just overhead, then flew off in the direction of the mountains to the east, where he danced in and out of the peaks and valleys before vanishing, once again, seemingly into thin air.

Apparently, we are supposed to care for this horse.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

She seemed better today, although "better" is very much a relative term. It's like the difference between being told you're dying and being told you'll probably die, but there's a chance they might save you: The survival instinct grabs onto every tiny shred of hope it can.

It's no less true for her.

We dosed her morning and evening with her meds, gave her her supplement, cleaned her up with Betadine, moisturized the horribly damaged tissue with spritzes of mineral oil, watched her go to town for a full quarter of an hour on a brand new salt-and-mineral block all for her.

We were her only human contact.

The sky spirits seem ed to take an interest in her, however.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

This is the week of All Souls, a time when the spirits walk, when the ordinary course of days is upended, when day is night and down is up and east is west.

Tonight, east was most definitely west, with a stellar sunset the likes of which neither of us has ever seen . . . in the eastern sky above the peaks.

It feels like a benediction on the new girl, a chance at salvation for her. And for our grandfather spirits who have returned, as well. 

And, it would seem, for us.


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.

Flying Through the Thresholds

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

It's been a day of opposites: of warm sun and dark cold rain and wind; of frustration and irritation alternating with joy and laughter; of an entire afternoon wasted on a project that, upon completion, proved to be built upon defective raw materials that will need to be exchanged for something different, and of the transcendent transference of liftoff, watching familiar spirits take flight as they allow me to capture it.

Or not.

After a month-long absence, Nimishoomis visited today. To be clear, that is not him above, no, although that was a gift in itself: A flicker has been haunting me for days, just out of sight — calling, singing, commanding attention, yet unwilling to show himself. Until this evening, when he alighted in the top of the old cottonwood across the road, then leapt onto the winds heading westward. It is the first time I've caught a real shot of one in flight.

A magpie gave me an in-flight shot shortly thereafter, albeit from a great distance. He sprang from the top of the small twisted tree at the south fence, lifting off like a rocket, shoulders raised around his head and wings draped elegantly behind him. He is tiny in the photo, yet pure grace.

Then, of course, there was the spirit I've taken to calling Uncle Ferruginous, although he is more grandfather spirit than uncle. He appeared early in the day, but refused me a photo; tonight, he hovered repeatedly to allow me to capture two. In the second, he is centered directly in the light, his great beak peeking below the center of this tailfeathers.

All of these were messengers of joy, but not like the one whose image I didn't catch. Not only was a photo impossible, but I barely had a chance to see him racing away toward the mountains.

Nimishoomis. 

I was in the middle of feeding the dogs, the sky purple with stormclouds, when Wings suddenly pointed overhead, a smile on his face. He kept saying, "Look," and I kept asking, "What?" because my hands were full, but his expression convinced me to drop everything and turn around. "It's Grandpa!" he said, and I could hear joy in his voice, too. He said the bird came literally from nowhere, just materialized, flying directly above my head on a low flight path.

I caught the briefest of views: silvery-gray wings, white underneath.

It flew on a trajectory from west to east, toward the fenceline and the peaks. And as we watched, it vanished into thin air. It was not beyond our line of sight, not high enough to be blocked by a cloud, not yet near the fence or any other obstruction, just . . . gone. There, and then not. Less than smoke.

He has been absent, or at least invisible, for a month, and I thought he had moved on. It left an unmistakable, undeniable void. Wings says that he came for me, that he just wanted me to see him, to know that he is watching over me. 

This is a week when the lines between the worlds are thin, when thresholds and interstices are no longer solid, when the strongest spirits come and go at will, flying between and across and through. It can be a forbidding time.

Somehow, this year, it suddenly feels not merely unforbidding, but safer than the week just past.

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.

A Visit from an Ancestor

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

It's been a week since I wrapped up Hunger Road . . . and a week since Grandfather last appeared here in this place, in this form.

The last few days have been extraordinarily difficult physically: in part due to the drastic change in the weather; in part due to the workload we both carry. When my body is this worn out, my mind is not far behind, and it has been increasingly hard to do all that needs to be done.

When that happens, my cognitive abilities teeter and plunge, and my mood with them.   

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

By this evening, the fatigue had set fully in, bone-deep. So had the mental and spiritual exhaustion. In recent months, it has been just when I am at such a low ebb that Grandfather appears . . . but for a week, he has been entirely absent.

I slung my camera around my neck before trudging up the long drive to shut the gate; it's not uncommon to see small evening birds or other good subjects, so it's become a habit. As I headed toward the drive, I looked wistfully toward the post in the round pen, always one of his favorite perches. It was empty, as it has been for these past seven days. 

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

His last appearance coincided with my concluding of the telling of at least part of his story, and it seemed then like a benediction, a blessing, an assurance that I had done as he would have wanted, and done it well. he gave me the one thing he never had before: the ability to capture his image in flight.

As I walked past the carport, the post was fully in sight, empty. In that brief second, I felt myself wishing, rather sadly, that he would return, wondering whether last week would turn out to be his final appearance for the season . . . or for good. Suddenly in my mind, his voice (which I have never heard in life, only in dream states) came clear and plain: "When you need me, I'll be there."

Two steps later, and he was there. It was, quite literally, nothing more than the blink of an eye or the beat of a bird's wing, certainly not enough time for me to miss the sight of a raptor alighting upon it.

Yet, one moment he was not there; the next, he was. It was as though he materialized out of the sunlight itself.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

I took a few distance shots, then went up to close the gate. He was waiting for me upon my return. He gave me some twenty minutes and scores of shots, turning this way and that, allowing me to capture him from virtually every angle. Most of the time, he stared directly at me, particularly when I spoke aloud. The bird knows the old tongue — how, I cannot begin to understand, but he responds to it far more readily than he does to English.

And so, while last week was an ending of sorts, it clearly was not final. I think that I will see him yet again. And while my body aches, my spirit hurts no longer.

For now, I am linked to my ancestor, even two thousand miles from our ancestral home, and my spirit soars with him.




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.