Teal Ducks

I'm sitting at the desk my dad built when I was 13 in the room that was my bedroom for 18 years. It's in my parents' house in southern california and we depart tomorrow for a couple week stint through Northern California to see friends, attend a couple weddings, and see some more family. We've been here almost 3 weeks, which have once again flown by in a blur of Raelin antics, good meals, lots of laughs, and days (and some nights) spent working.

It always gets hard when a visit nears its end; the distance that we live from my family becomes the moint poignant and our home seems very far away indeed. The opposite is true when family and friends have come to visit us; when they must leave my heart seems to feel every one of those 3000+ miles as we say our inevitable goodbyes.

The winter before Raelin was born I attended/instructed my 7th and final Winter Class through Headwaters Outdoor School. Those 11 days had come to be a time of deep reflection and reconnection for me; in the business of outdoor education where I made my living during the early years of my adult life winter was quiet season, the time where I could go away for a spell. I also knew that once I was a dad, it would be very difficult to get away for such a time, and once we were in Maine, it would be exponentially more difficult to justify a trip from the belly of our winter into Shasta's.

So it was with that same sense of heaviness that the class's last days rolled around; where I looked out at the landscapes that had taught me so much; where my heart could fly out across the land on the wings of eagles, hawks, geese, and ducks.

The second to last day I was sitting alone on some rocks in the sun, just being. In that way that I've learned to listen to when my mind is still, I got the slightest intuitive itch to walk and just let my feet go where they would; knowing that Spirit had something to show me; some very special gift to offer. After a spell, I looked down and found 3 perfect Teal Duck wing feathers, still attached together by a bit of skin. As I held them up the blue, green, and purple hues flashed in the low winter sun against the stripes of black and white. I was puzzled and thought "duck feathers...why duck feathers?" and in my thoughts, a distinct answer formed "because soon you will be migrating, too." While the migrations my family makes between coasts is far from the grueling flights of migratory birds, it is not without danger and trial; it is good to know we are watched over.