a door where there was none...

Ok, I've been working on this entry way too long. Not much blog-time these days, but it's been time well spent. :) I drafted this about 10 days ago, I'm just going to edit and post. There's lots more to say in the next entry...

So, 'the Rover' is back in Vancouver. Spent a few days on Quadra Island again, seeing my dog and some friends. My friend Gabriel thinks Nootka is his dog, but really - he's mine.

What is this entry about?, I ask myself. A feather (another one ;), a turn, a surprise, a long long wonderful road called life. A door. Where to begin?

There it was, suspended in the rain, in some thin bush, under a tree, on Rebecca Spit, on Quadra Island. A white tail feather from a bald eagle. As I said in "The Sea (it's warm and it's safe here)," - "in the mail!"
And again, I'm drinking beer and listening to the Tragically Hip. But this was not mailed to my bro, but to the mermaid in my life.

I guess this entry may be about faith.

I went to the spit with some friends. They brought beer, I did not. We wandered in the rain and chatted, the dogs chased each other, a giant white mutt and a pug, sweet friends. I shuffled through the beach-side debris, little chunks of wood ground up by the Sea. Dawdled. Stood. Conversation moved to something I couldn't keep my attention on.
My attention was in Halifax, so I walked off alone.

In 1993, living on the beach at Schooner Cove, the place "The Sea" is about, I was sitting one morning making breakfast, Gabriel was off being energetic, and there was no-one else around. The eagle flew over, the third or fourth day in a row this scene had happenned - he flew out to sea every day, it seemed, to fish for the day, a strange lifestyle - but he was a widower, and probably developed odd habits to ease his grief. His wife (they mate for life) was killed earlier that year for her feathers. I can hardly say anything about that on the internet that might not haunt me later...
Anyway, this particular morning, he flew over. I looked up. Said, 'good morning' as had become our custom. As I put my head down I said/thought, wtf??  and looked back up. There was something - white, fluttering - in the sky behind/below him..
I watched, in awe, paralysed. Slowly it fluttered down, and without my moving a muscle, landed right between my feet. It was a white tail feather. Like he had dropped it on me. He had.
I was stunned and humbled and awed.
I picked it up, held it resting in my two hands, it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever held in my life, not just because of what it was, but how it came to me.
Acquisitiveness -the desire to possess something, I learned that word from Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. I felt that all of a sudden: I wanted it. It was such a powerful symbol, thing - like the ring in the Lord of the Rings. Immediately I said to myself, "no, Pat, you must give it away." And I said secretly inside myself, "if the Universe (God, whoever) really wants you to have this - it will find its way back to you."

As soon as my friend Gabriel came back to camp I gave it to him. He said to me at some point in that period, "Pat, you should be an environmental lawyer.." I couldn't see that as a possibility then. It takes years to open doors in your mind, and heart. To let yourself see the worlds that lie at your feet.

In 2008 I was living in Edmonton and went back to Tofino for the first time since 1993. I reconnected with those old friends from the beach. I moved to Toronto that May to article with MOE, and one of those friends sent me a care package 'from the beach.' No-one knew the eagle story.
I opened it, and pulled out a white tail feather. My friend Martha had found it on the beach by our old campsite, the first one she'd ever found, and immediatley thought, "that's for Pat." Of course, for those who know me - I cried a bit. It was the Universe saying to me, loud and clear - "Everything you need, everything you should have, will be given to you, you don't need to worry, seek it out, or cling to it." It said, "jump, and I will always catch you."
I wouldn't be here if not for that.
Part of that, for me, was jumping into being alone. Although I certainly haven't felt alone. But the risk has been ever present. And I've been vastly single for quite some time (until very recently). And it's about embracing the uncertainty of life, because if you're going to let go and let the Universe give you what you should have - you have to be willing to risk that there are certain things you shouldn't have.
So, when I found the white tail feather, hanging in a branch, I knew it was for her, the bad mermaid, good mermaid, damsel, and 'buddy', in my life. She is also a little bird, and a giant soul. You have it now. As I let go of the feather back then, what I let go of in this journey, over the late summer and fall, was my hopes for love in my life. Not that I gave up, I just let go.
And, in traipsing off into the wilderness of life, the great unknown future, following my bliss, I have found a door I didn't know was there. Or it found me.
The Universe will always give you what you should have. Perhaps more readily if you let it go. And I - am soaring with gratitude.

As a traveller, what do you do when a new door opens for you, a door where formerly there was nothing? And you can see a whole new world of possibilities; green fields, sunshine. How many of these doors do we get in life? I've talked, at times in a not-so-humble way, about making leaps of faith, having the courage to step out and put myself at risk, will I step through? Have I already? ;) Can I admit to being scared?

cause in the 'fergit yer skates' dream
you can hang your head in woe
as diverse as ever scenes
You know which way to go

I think I know which way to go...