Eagles Eye

The magnificence of this mountaintop high in the clouds distracted my mind, gave me moments to think.  I sat now on the top most branches of a wind blown and  twisted Bristlecone Pine.  My mind reeling, I felt so out of control, it was as if every one  of my previous adventures had led me to this moment, this place, but I tremble violently realizing I am no longer in control!

I look out from such a height that what I see is a world in miniature,  more correctly it is almost as if everything is microscopic.  But that is just my overview, the human brain reacting to something beyond its scope of comprehension.   Looking at something in a new frame of reference.  There is such beauty but there is also the fear of the unknown.

Looking back in my memories,  my mind touching on things and flashing on moments,  I laughed with pleasure as I controlled it all.    Just about perfect on a warm summer day.    Not really sleeping,  nowhere near sleep,  but I  am far away in my mind.   A  favorite thing to do,  just imagine a place or time that is not today.   Sometimes just thinking  of a single word and then allow that single word to take me on an adventure in my mind.  

The day the drone of a neighbors lawn mower became a drone flying high above the forest,  the drone became my eyes as I scan the woods and fields below.   Animals grazing,  a tractor in the lane, a person fishing by the river, I can go anywhere I  want with this mind surfing,  that is the beauty of it.

I think again of the feeling of being part of the sky,  the freedom to soar over things.   A bird with such keen eyesight looking for a meal,  I imagine hunger,  the need to find food.  Riding a thermal high in the sky, effortless it seems,  in control of each feather I search for food.   I am  the bird,  I must find food.  But then I  understand that this mind surfing is limited by my own lack of knowledge,  what would the bird do next?   Dive?  Or circle ever lower?   I was not sure so I must return to my own place.

These are fun times but I am also aware that I must always return to reality.   Soon someone would demand my attention,  a job to do,  a friend visiting,  the mailman bringing the mail,  just something to bring me back.  

In the distance my memory brings back church bells ringing and I remember being   off again,   The lookout in the bell steeple watching the road for travelers.....and so it goes,  this mind surfing!

It was my trick,  mine alone to be able to actually manifest these out of body  experiences.  Just a game, or a way to escape the mundane but now, it seemed  the trick owned me,  I can not find my way back!  

At first panic, the violent trembling,  the feeling of breathlessness,  these real human reactions when I flew as a majestic eagle.  Today I have been the bird again,  each time I get further and further into the mind of the bird,  hunger and habit and physical change.  

I love the soaring, the gliding!  Today a thermal took me so high I realized if I did not become more bird, I may pass out from lack of the oxygen my brain needed to stay viable.  I went deeper and deeper into the bird.  The altitude,  the vistas, the scope of everything.  It was like being able to see everything.  Not only the height but also the eyes of this bird of prey.  in midair I came close to a turbulent tumble as mountain shear winds, hunger and fatigue came together to almost finish me.  

I found this Pine twisted and wizened by time and elements,  I sit here now in the magnificence, this overview of a world of colors and clouds, water and forests, mountains and deserts.  It is no longer possible to think, what should I do, as I was no longer me.  What would the bird do?   What should the bird do?  

My tension has gone now,  I understand my knife edge existence depends on the bird,  yes this eagle, as sure as if I were being held in its talons!

The bird now feels  the tension inside,  it feels hunger and tiredness, it feels there are others like itself, predators,  who would soon pick it off seeing its weakness.  It was no longer the magnificent majestic eagle, it was part man and part bird.   It must go down again, return  this human to safety and replenish its own life,  find food, rest!   

I am very aware of the torment of the bird!   I feel the tension in its body,  the nervous way it shifts from foot to foot,  the flutter of its wings,  not in preparation for flight but in hesitation.   The bird was not sure what to do!   They were both compromised,  the human and the bird!

Food is primary,  leaving the pine to glide down the mountain slope,  turning to fly across the face of a high alpine meadow looking for rodent or rabbit,  small bird or any easy food, use little energy, glide and snatch, rest and eat.  The morning passes this way.  The eagle hunting while the human drifts further into some dreamlike state.  The season is right for activity on the mountain slope allowing the eagle to build his reserves.  He feels stronger and stronger.   Flying again to the top of the twisted pine on the mountain top,  he lands, rests and with the eyes of a hunter watches all below him.   He must make a move at first light before others come out to hunt.  He doesn’t want to become  the hunted.

All of this time I have remained quiet inside the bird.  My hunger is great,  it has not been satisfied by his hunting,  my fear is growing,  I have always known my mind surfing was limited by what I knew,  what I could anticipate or control,  how a subject would react, but now I am at a loss.   

We sit, the eagle and I, on top of a tree on top of a mountaintop and the sky is beginning to lighten in the East.  Beyond my fear,  or above it really, is the desire to see the world from this vantage point one more time.  To see it all as it must have been envisioned by the creator.  Seeing from great height allows one to see the beauty not the squalor or minutiae of societies,  just the elegance of perfect design.  We sit here the eagle and I and I know I must trust what comes next,  the eagle is in charge of us both.  I sense he too has made a decision.

This great bird opens his wings to full span,  I wonder if he is drying his feathers the way I have seen vultures do in the first morning sun.   Now he  straightens his posture , folds his wings again, and in an instant of decision dives downward at an alarming rate.  I try desperately to see with the eagles eyes but the acceleration makes me feel almost faint.  The eagle can only think of one thing, how close he and the human had come to disaster!  

Soon the rocky ledges give way to green brush and then trees, the eagle felt they could be safe now if it could feed again and bring the human home.    Both things happened rather quickly,  the eagle snatched a mourning dove from it’s perch in the lower limbs of a tree and it settled to eat it.   He felt the stirrings within himself that the human was alive and awake.  He allowed himself to be taken over by the human and from there they both sat in a weird silence.  Both knew they had gone beyond correct.  Both knew they had gone beyond safe.   

I imagined the eagle would eat  the breast of the dove,  then drop the rest and fly to a nearby oak.   I stood staring after him in my mind knowing I would not see him again but the view from the top of the world had been worth the risk…..or was it?