Monday, March 27, 2017

Buzzards

(Published by me originally in WordPress.)

Interesting birds, buzzards. I've seen them soaring aloft for most of my life but never in the numbers I have since moving to my current home. I remember hearing about the buzzards circling
over something dying from the old westerns like "Gunsmoke", "Paladin", which it appears was actually called "Have Gun Will Travel",  "Bonanza".  I knew it was how you could find someone who had wandered off and was in peril from either "Sea Hunt", "High Noon", or "Lassie"...maybe from all of them.

Our first summer here, I was outside one beautiful spring day mowing the grass. I was on the riding lawnmower when something caught my attention from my peripheral vision. I glanced across the yard and street and there, above the neighbor's house, was this dark cloud. It stopped me in my tracks! I know anyone driving past probably got quite a kick out of the old woman on the "John Deere" with her head back, mouth hanging wide open. Come to think of it, I'm rather surprised no one called an ambulance thinking I'd gone catatonic. Anyway....up above the neighbor's house, just kitty-corner from me, was an airborne black spiral. 

My mind couldn't even discern what it was for a few moments (are we entering stroke territory here?) it looked like a black tornado of quite some height. Buzzards! Hundreds of buzzards! They were flying, or more accurately, floating in lazy circles stacked upon one another in ever larger circles (like a tornado) and there were so many of them, the sky was black. I can only guess the number must have been around 300 to create such a sight.

I sat, mesmerized, wasting gas, adding unnecessary toxins into the air from the exhaust, too stunned to even think to turn off the key. That, for those who know me, is very unlike me. I really try not to add to my carbon footprint and I try to shrink it wherever I can. Just trying to give you an idea of how incredible this sight was. Since then, the Buzzards visit me twice daily during the summer months. I learned that they are migratory birds after seeing that huge amassing in the fall as well.

But this took place over the summer months, at first it kind of creeped me out. But as I grew to enjoy watching those birds wafting in their lazy circles overhead I began to grow curious about these creatures. Sometimes I had only three birds whom I rapidly began to think of as my "core" family of birds. Often, there are 30-plus floating overhead. Several other people have happened to be here and witness this phenomena and they were equally awestruck...but with only 30-50 birds. It seems no one is ever here the day those numbers soar to multiple hundreds. And THAT, my friends, is a truly amazing sight.

As the phenomenon continued, it began to impress upon me that there must be something special about the area where I live. Well, something even more special about it than I was aware of. It took me almost 20 years to move to this area even after I had been visiting the nearby town and working here, it was a while before we actually made the move here. I have always felt the air here was different, magical, like there were some sort of vortex here. (I don't really even know what a "vortex" is, except it sounds really cool.)
"vor·tex   [ˈvôrˌteks]
 NOUN
  1. a mass of whirling fluid or air, especially a whirlpool or whirlwind:
    "we were caught in a vortex of water" ·
    [more]
    "a swirling vortex of emotions"
    synonyms: whirlwind · cyclone · whirlpool · gyre · maelstrom · eddy ·
    [more]
 ORIGIN
mid 17th cent.: from Latin vortex, vortic-, literally ‘eddy,’ variant of vertex.
RELATED FORMS
vortex(noun)
vortexes(plural noun)
vortices(plural noun)
 Powered by Oxford Dictionaries · © Oxford University Press · Translation by Bing Translator
Hah! Well, there we have it!!! And here is a great picture that, if you imagine it black and made of birds...well...that's the buzzard tornado I see a couple of times a year...
Yeah. Like this. Only made up of big black birds. So...maybe the "vortex" I've always sensed here was created by the buzzards? Maybe the buzzards are also attracted here by an invisible vortex? I don't have any answer to that, and I'm just a little surprised at myself that it took me this long to put those two things together. Thank you blogosphere.
 
Back to the story...a couple of my friends have Native American roots and they told me to look up what the significance of buzzards (scroll down to where it reads 'p.284' then the second paragraph) is in spirituality. You can do a search online and find a lot of different links. I learned that it is believed that they carry healing energy to healers (I am a massage therapist and energy worker-second degree Reiki practitioner and level 1 Ama-Deus® practitioner. (I'd like to give Beth Cosmos a plug here, she is an amazing woman and I am so thankful that our paths crossed and I was able to receive Ama-Deus® instruction and activation from her.) That made me pretty happy. I know it sounds weird, but I swear, I can feel when they are nearby. They do bring a quietude and an amazing energy with them.
 
In light of the information I found about vultures, I began to realize that they were one of my totem animals (along with Ravens, elephants and hummingbirds). During this time with the vultures in support, I have found clarity (don't ask for clarity until you know you are ready for it, because it comes once asked for and has many ramifications of its own); my life path has taken a new shape, and a new chapter of my life story is underway. I believe Vulture is here to help guide me and to bring me the healing energy I need to get me through this next part of my journey.
Part of my journey has been learning that I am a healer. Another part of my journey is learning about the ability we all have of non-verbal communication. This has come to my via an amazing elephant (story to come at another time), crows, buzzards and the Internet which gives me almost instant access to information I would have spent years accessing. Thanks in a large way to Dr. Emoto, I have been playing with my interconnectedness to everything, including the vultures.
As I sat in our  breeze-way one morning, enjoying the day before it got too hot, I noticed three vultures sitting on the fence about 25 yards away. They were feeding on something just over the fence and it must have been small because they took turns. As I marveled at how large they are, the one sitting farthest to the left turned and looked at me. You know that electric shock you feel when something or someone makes eye contact? yeah, that happened. I had the feeling that "he" was looking right into my eyes, so without saying a word out loud, I thanked him for the job they do, and told him how beautiful he was in my eyes. I wistfully wished for a nice sized feather with which to make a smudge fan and he turned a little further, plucked a large feather (from near his tail I think-they are pretty dark so it was hard to tell for sure exactly where his beak was) looked me square in the eye and dropped it on my side of the fence!!! Then, I had the sensation that he smiled at me. The other two birds also looked my way and began preening and when they flew off, I walked out to the fence and there were three beautiful blackish feathers lying in the grass. I thanked all three birds and respectfully gathered my treasures and brought them into the house with me. I have not made the smudge fan yet, but I feel that this spring will provide me with the  perfect stick to use as a base.
 
So...vultures/buzzards, ravens/crows, always in my yard or very near by. I believe they watch over me and that they are assisting me through this part of my life and I am so very thankful for them.
Please feel free to enjoy the information you will find in the links below. And please do your own searches on the animals that seem to frequent your life.
Originally posted as a page on 3/24/2016 @ 13:31
Namaste :)

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