Spiritual BeING 52 Cards Project #7

This week my theme for my 52 Cards project chose me, I think.

I was hiking in Bellingham with Dennis and Valerie, and we came to a small lake where we saw a white swan floating while an eagle swooped in low circles above her.

The eagle was hunting, though by the looks of the serene swan he wasn’t going after her. The eagle looped around and then hovered in the air, swooped around again, hovered, and the funny thing was that every time it came around, something in the water started splashing. We were on the other side of the lake and it was overcast, so it was hard to see, but after determining it wasn’t the peaceful swan nor could it be a fish, it had to be a duck—a brown floating blob near the swan.

'“Oh no! The eagle is trying to kill a duck! But wait—an eagle’s got to eat…” We felt conflicted—and enthralled. The eagle swooped and hovered. The duck splashed in defense. The eagle swooped again. It hovered. More splashing. This continued for a few minutes until finally the eagle stopped in the air, dove into the lake, and came up with a duck in its claws.

Now the swan didn’t seem concerned in the least, it just kept floating on. But suddenly, as the eagle lifted into the sky, three other ducks shot out from the trees like coordinated fighter planes! They went after that eagle, who sprinted, but I guess it could not keep hold of the duck and get away fast enough, because the eagle released its prey and flew off…and the fourth duck tucked into line with his compatriots heading in the opposite direction.

Oh, nature! There’s so much we really don’t know about animals, about those birds. Like, for instance, how did those ducks make that rescue plan? What kind of cognition do they have? And that eagle. How does it think—and feel?

And that goes for every living thing on the planet. We humans think we know a lot about the natural world, but just a moment like that reminds me—there’s far more to the Mystery than we’ll ever know.

And that is my theme for the week: SPIRITUAL BEing. The birds. Me. All of of us. We are all Spirit and we are all Being. Life is amazing.